- Captain's vlog, day three travel.
Welcome to the vlog!
I hope the start of your day is amazing.
We are somewhere in Oklahoma right now.
We have about an hour to go before we get to Mike Wilbanks
at Constrictors Unlimited.
Gonna see one of the dopest collections of snakes,
Ball Pythons, so it's gonna be absolutely amazing.
Let's hit the road and get this day started.
And by the way, after this,
we end up in Texas later on tonight.
So, yeah, it's gonna be a good day.
(upbeat music)
- [Crew] What, you can't get it to flush?
- No, there's no flush button.
But there's also no water while we're going?
- [Crew] Ha ha, he put soap on his hands-
- (laughs) Yeah, dude!
And there's no flush button.
Who makes a toilet without a flusher?
And then, I dunno, there's no flush,
so I just let it sit in there - Yeah.
And I soap my hands up,
I'm like, at least I washed my hands,
so I have something done.
And soap it, I get a millisecond of water,
like nice pressure too, it's like,
(imitates sound of opening faucet)
I'm like, nice.
(verbal sound effects)
And it just shuts off.
- [Crew] No!
- And I just got soapy hands.
I dunno what.
- Pretty excited.
I've known Mike for 25 years.
We've done a lot of things back and forth.
He definitely has set the bar high
when it comes to professionalism
when it comes to breeding snakes.
So, I've never been to his place,
this is the very first time.
We almost went a few times,
so it's awesome to finally be getting an opportunity
to go there and check his place out.
I think it's gonna be pretty impressive,
so I'm pretty excited.
So, we're just about a half hour away,
and we're gonna see some pretty awesome snakes.
(upbeat music)
- [Brian] (laughs) All right, Mike!
What is up man?
- [Mike] Hey, Brian!
Good to see you man. - How are ya, man?
- [Brian] Good to see ya, how you been, man?
- Great, how ya been?
- [Brian] This is awesome.
I have obviously never been here.
I know you moved here just recently, right?
- [Mike] Yeah, I moved here last year,
last June. - Last year.
- [Brian] So, what's the deal with this, man?
Give me the tour of the place.
- [Mike] Well, I've put together a retail area
because I had people all the time asking,
"Hey, can I buy some Aspen?"
"Can I buy that?"
and so, we just started packaging all the stuff.
- [Brian] So, you're doing your own brand now.
I see Sphagnum here, you got Aspen over here.
I see some cleaner over here, look at this.
So, I was gonna ask you that.
So, you kinda rebranded to Wilbanks?
- Yeah, I-
- [Brian] From, you used to be Constrictors Unlimited,
now you're Wilbanks Incorporated?
- Yeah, we dropped the Constrictors Unlimited
- [Brian] Okay, cool.
- [Mike] It's just all under a Wilbanks parent company,
Wilbanks Incorporated.
And then we have captive-bred reptiles,
professional products, and then premium nutrition.
- Right, and by the way guys, as always,
I'll put a link in the description to his website,
his Facebook, his Instagram, everything you're on.
If you want to check any of this stuff out
as you're going through and see.
- [Brian] So, I appreciate you doin' this.
So, you're carrying like...
I see you carrying Repashy,
you've got Zoo Med stuff, Exo Terra stuff,
and then you have your own proprietary brand,
including some cages.
- Yeah, we partnered with AP Cages to...
I had people comin' in, they would buy a Ball Python,
that's my primary business, - Sure.
and then they would say, "Okay, now I need a cage for it."
And in the past, I always said,
"Well, okay, get online and order somethin'."
- [Brian] Right, yeah.
- [Mike] I wanted to partner with AP
because I only wanted to sell things that I would use,
that I really believed in. - Sure.
And their cages were always 24-inches deep.
I made this cage 19-inches deep, so it'll fit on a dresser,
a night stand, or whatever. - Dresser, yeah.
- [Brian] For someone that's gonna buy a pet Ball Python,
this is perfect for 'em.
Stackable, got pins, this is awesome.
Come in white and black.
- Yeah, and it has heat, light, locks,
all the stuff, yeah. - So, the whole thing?
- [Brian] Just plug it in
and you're good to go. - Comes with a thermostat.
- So, you just plug it in and go.
- [Mike] In this room, we have Green Tree Pythons,
Chahoua Geckos, and Crested Geckos.
- [Brian] Wow, that's beautiful.
There's a lotta Green Tree Pythons here too.
Now, are you breeding Green Trees now, or are you just-
- No, these are hatched at a farm in Indonesia.
- [Brian] Yeah, gotcha. Yeah, gotcha.
Well, that's amazing though. - And then we bring it in.
That's crazy, and these are some beautiful animals.
So, different localities.
I see Biak here, we got Kofiau, we got all kinds of stuff.
So, that's- - We got Lereh over there.
- I'm tryin' to get as many different localities in
as I can.
It is a little challenging.
Biaks are easy to get - Yeah, now it's-
and everything else is hard. - And so, now with the whole,
issues with importing and stuff like that,
you've still been able to get stuff in regularly?
- It's been a challenge.
These snakes, I've been workin' on
since COVID was first announced.
- [Mike] They just came in a couple days ago.
- [Brian] Now, can you do these snakes online as well,
or is it just when you come in here and buy it?
- No, we do everything online. So, this is online too.
- [Brian] So, if you want Green Tree Pythons,
you can do that. - Primarily, yeah, sure.
Gotcha, understood.
- They're on our website.
- [Brian] Got some swag over here.
All right, lookin' good.
This place is absolutely dope.
It's great being...
Again, I didn't realize you were doing retail like this now.
- [Brian] That's a super smart idea.
Now, we're heading into the Snake Room.
- And this is where the magic happens.
(Brian and Mike laugh)
- All right, look this.
Hoo, man, I tell ya what.
- [Brian] This is a lotta snake Mike.
Holy moly.
And this is all Ball Pythons?
- This is all Ball Pythons. All Ball Pythons.
- [Mike] This is the Ball Python Room.
- [Brian] Oh, my gosh, look at this.
It's a big Ball Python room.
Wow, this is...
- [Crew] Does it bring back any memories?
- [Brian] It does bring back some memories, doesn't it?
It does.
Although, I'll be honest with you, even in my heyday,
I didn't have 'em this high.
(everyone laughs)
- [Brian] I was about...
I'm short, so this is about as far high as I go.
You're a taller guy, you can handle it.
But it's awesome.
That's utilizing space.
So, what do we have here in this room then?
- [Mike] Okay, this is all Ball Pythons.
The baby section is on this side.
- [Brian] Yup.
- [Mike] This is all of our breeding operation.
- [Brian] Right.
- [Mike] So, this is gonna be the model throughout.
We're gonna have the males above the females
that they're gonna breed.
- [Brian] Exactly, and again,
because males are smaller, they don't need as big a tub,
so they can stay in the smaller tubs.
And then now, you've got 'em all here,
so that way they're...
It's so smart, especially when you have employees.
Because now you know, these males just breed these females.
You don't have to worry
about these males going into the next rack
and so on like that.
So, simplicity is what it's all about.
Organization.
If you can organize things to make it to where,
I hate to say it, dummy-proof.
But you kinda gotta make it dummy-proof,
so there's no mistakes. - Yeah.
'Cause the last thing you wanna do
is have that male end up down over here
and then somehow not go back into the same rack.
- And it's really the only way I think you can do it
on a large scale - if you're tremendously organized.
We have everything barcoded.
Now, if they're breeding, we scan the male's tag,
scan the female's tag and then that logs the breeding.
- [Brian] Wow, that's amazing.
Again, organization.
And then, you said this whole row here is Piebald stuff?
- [Mike] Yeah, this is all Pied.
- [Brian] So, everything here.
Think about that.
I mean, everything here down this row (laughs),
think about that.
This is all Pied production.
Wow, that is pretty incredible.
- [Brian] And you kinda were the one
that pioneered the Black Eyed Leucistic, more or less.
- Yeah, first in the US to produce 'em.
- [Brian] So, you're way ahead on Black Eyed Leucistics,
than anybody. - Yeah.
- [Brian] That's a lotta stuff.
'Cause again, you see a lot of Blue Eyed Leucistics.
Black Eyed Leucistics,
it's not that they're super expensive.
By any stretch, they've come down to pet trade quality now.
- Yeah.
- But you just don't see the Black Eyed
as much as you see the Blue Eyed.
So, it's cool that you're pumpin' 'em out.
- [Brian] That's awesome. Right.
- All the gray racks are hold back stuff.
- [Brian] Ah, hold back stuff.
- This is stuff that I'm keepin' for the future.
- [Brian] Nice.
- I'll tell ya what I'm really, really high on right now
is all this Black Head combo.
- [Brian] Yes, it's beautiful.
- [Mike] So, this is the Banana Black Head Enchi Pinstripe.
- [Brian] Oh, my gosh, that thing is ridiculous.
Again, the dark morphs.
I always talk about the dark morphs in Banana turn purple,
make things incredible.
That is incredible.
I do love the Black Head stuff
and it's one of those things
that is starting to be bred more and more now.
It's been around forever.
Ralph Davis had it, gosh, 15 years ago.
- Yeah, and it was- And now,
it's just starting to get going, you know?
- [Mike] It was kinda untapped.
- [Brian] Yeah.
- [Mike] So, this is a Lavender Leopard Black Head.
- [Brian] Oh, my gosh.
(laughs) What?
Oh, my gosh.
- [Mike] This is really one of my favorite pythons,
right now. - Oh, my gosh.
Look at all that.
- [Brian] That is ridiculous.
So, again, Lavender, - Leopard, and Black Head.
- [Brian] Leopard, Black Head.
Wow. - Really, really nice.
- [Brian] That thing is...
Yeah, that's a stunner right there.
That is a ripper.
Holy moly.
- [Mike] And then here is adding Cinnamon on top of it.
- [Brian] Oh, wow!
- [Mike] This is Lavender Leopard Black Head Cinnamon.
- [Brian] Gosh, I like 'em both.
I don't know which one I like better.
- [Mike] I know, me too. Oh, my gosh.
- [Mike] So, I keep 'em both (laughs)
- [Brian] Hoo.
- [Crew] Warning.
- [Brian] My gosh, that...
Yeah, exactly. Wow.
And that's only gonna get better.
You know, that's the thing that's nice.
As it gets older, Lavenders get more and more purple.
I have some I talk about, Barney Ball Python.
I'm always going for a solid purple snake
because we never got there, right?
- Yeah.
- [Brian] You know we've got the components
that make purple animals but we can never seem to get
a solid purple snake.
That's gonna be purple.
That's gonna be good. - We're heading that way.
- So, I noticed you have a Stranger.
- Yeah.
- [Brian] Now, what's the deal with this?
Because I've heard that a lot of people are thinking
it's really Mahogany-ish?
- I'm startin' to believe that too.
- [Brian] Really.
- [Mike] That it's the same thing as Mahogany.
- [Brian] Now, is this just a normal Stranger?
- This is just a normal Stranger.
- [Brian] Okay, yeah.
- [Mike] And then I can get a Mahogany
and we can hold 'em side by side if you want.
- [Brian] And they look pretty similar?
- [Mike] Yeah.
It's definitely a difference. - [Mike] I would say
there's definitely some difference in it.
- [Brian] Yeah.
- [Mike] But this is also just lookin' at two individuals.
- [Brian] Right.
This could be a really beautiful version of it, right?
- I would like to see 10 of these
and 10 of these by each to make a decision.
- [Mike] But boy, it sure is similar.
- [Brian] It's very similar.
Ooh, that's pretty.
- This is a Leopard Black Head Mojave Enchi Het Lavender.
- [Brian] What?
And it's Paradox.
- [Mike] And it's Paradox.
So, we get a glimpse of what it'll look like
once we get Lavender to display itself.
That's what you're gonna have.
That is insane. - Wow.
- [Brian] That is ridiculous, dude.
- [Mike] And I really think these colors
are interesting to me.
Here's one that's not a Paradox.
- [Brian] But still, that's...
- I think that color is interesting.
It's a little bit different
than what we see normally in Ball Pythons.
- [Brian] Very different, very different, very different.
Yeah, it's got that rust kind of beautiful brown,
almost coppery looking.
Really, really nice.
Pretty cool,
We're gonna get a chance to see the operation
in full effect here.
We had some people came up, got a chance to meet 'em.
And they're actually looking at
a Banana Cinny Pinstripe right now.
And might be taking home a new pet.
So, this is pretty cool, I love this part of it.
- So, this is a Black Head by itself.
- [Brian] Wow.
Yeah, it's just super dark. - Yeah.
You know, and it looks pretty cool.
And then again, that's an incomplete dominant.
- [Mike] But you really...
As much as I hate to,
I gotta hand it to Ralph for recognizing this
'cause I probably would've just missed it.
- [Brian] Yeah, just thought it was a dark Ball Python.
Yeah, exactly.
Take a look at guys, it's a Frenchi.
- [Crew] What?
- Which is a Fire Enchi, a Frenchi.
That's brilliant.
I wish I woulda thought of that.
- I feel like I would've thought of that.
- This is a- Ooh, that's neat.
a Banana Super Black Head Leopard Fire.
- [Brian] They got a Super Black Head Fire.
Wow.
That's purple.
That's beautiful. - Yeah, it's gettin' there.
- [Brian] It is gettin' there, man.
I think that Black Head might be somethin' I need to add
into that Barney gene for sure.
- [Mike] Oh, for sure.
- [Brian] Oh, that's pretty.
- [Mike] Banana Black Head Enchi Cinnamon.
You can tell I kinda like that combo (laughs).
- [Brian] Yeah, that's a good combo.
I can see why you like it.
This is a- - And this is a-
Super Black Head. - Super Black Head Banana.
- [Brian] Gotcha.
- [Mike] Now that's really gettin' close to your Barney.
- [Brian] That's gettin' good, yeah.
I just love the contrast.
I almost think the orange might be better.
If you took the orange out of it, it'd make-
Oh, my gosh!
Look at this.
Hoo-hoo.
Man.
(laughs) That thing is cra-
Wow.
- [Mike] Now you see why I like Black Heads so much?
- [Brian] That's another Super Black Head.
- [Mike] Yeah, this is another Super Black Head.
This is, Black Head is...
I'm really focusing on that gene
- [Brian] Yeah, I can see why.
because I just think it's insane.
- [Brian] Especially,
when you start bringin' into stuff like Banana
'cause that brings a different level.
That's awesome.
It is really dope, man.
There's actually Incubator 1 here,
Incubator 2 over here.
That way if you're just walking through the hallway,
you can always tell what your incubators are,
temperature-wise, which is obviously 88.5 and 87.8.
Which is in the range of what you want.
Usually 88 to 90 degrees.
So, that way incubators are always set.
It's cool 'cause I have to go in my incubator
to make sure it's running good, so I'm jealous.
And these are the incubators.
- Yeah, and we're in the process of building
all four of these rooms into incubators.
This got us through this year,
just barely, believe it or not.
- [Brian] Really?
- We we packed in these rooms.
- [Brian] Oh, my gosh.
- [Mike] We really started building that one out
because-
- [Brian] 'Cause you thought you're gonna run out of space?
So, think about that guys.
These rooms here, he's got two of 'em running now,
and two more coming just for snake eggs.
Ball Python eggs, primarily.
- Ball Python eggs, yeah.
- [Brian] Oh, my gosh.
That is a lot of Bally Python eggs.
And so, how does this work?
I see the humidifier up here.
- [Mike] Yup.
- [Brian] And then we have this.
- This is air stratification, it's Air Pear.
It sucks air in there
and then blows it straight down to the ground
so that you have a nice little flow.
One thing I discovered about incubators over the years
is a lotta problems with too much air flow.
You get fans blowin' all around, it dries your eggs out.
- [Brian] Yeah, exactly.
- But this seems to be about the perfect thing
for this room.
Keeps 'em-
- [Brian] And you even have a camera.
- Oh, yeah (laughs)
- [Brian] Oh, my gosh.
This guy knows what it's about.
Because I'm gonna tell you, just really quick,
the one way employees can steal animals
is before they hatch.
'Cause once they get in a rack-
- Right, now they're accounted for.
- [Brian] Now, they're accounted for, but in here,
so this is super smart.
Oh, my gosh, I'm jealous.
This is awesome.
Again, got all the...
Oh, my gosh, this is great Mike.
And you're gonna have four of these.
- [Mike] Yeah.
- Man, that's a lotta snake eggs, man.
That's a lotta snake eggs.
- The warehouse is one of my favorite parts (laughs).
- Really? (laughs)
- (laughs) I really like the warehouse.
- Your really like it out here?
- Well, it's been a dream my whole life
to do it on this kind of scale.
- And this shows you the scale.
I mean, you got deli containers here,
you got how many shipping boxes, my goodness.
You have a lot of shipping boxes.
- [Mike] Yeah, we order about 10,000
of our eight by eight boxes every year.
- [Brian] Oh, my gosh.
Just think about that. The little, just single boxes.
- [Brian] So, for those of you guys that are aspiring
to be a reptile breeder,
I hope you're taking a lotta inspiration from this.
'Cause you can one day get to this level
if you kinda just dream and go after it.
So, it's amazing.
You can even have your own HILO one day.
(Mike laughs)
You know what, that's the one thing,
I've never had a HILO.
Always wanted a HILO, but I don't need one now.
- I spent years unloading trucks by hand.
- [Brian] And you're like, "No, now I've got a HILO."
- [Mike] And I've finally got a loading dock and a forklift.
- [Brian] Yeah, it's awesome.
That's so cool, man. I love it.
- [Mike] We've been talkin' about Black Head.
Here's a Super Black Head Leopard.
- [Brian] Oh, okay, gotcha.
- [Mike] So, really dark snake.
And then, I'll show ya over here.
I only have one, plain Super Black Head.
- [Brian] Aw, yeah.
- [Mike] There's the Super Black Head.
- [Brian] So, this is the Super Black Head.
That is really dark.
- [Mike] Yeah.
- [Brian] Reminds me a little of the Super Chocolates
but even darker.
- [Mike] Yeah.
- [Brian] And a little bit more contrast to it.
So, that's amazing, wow.
I tell ya what, amazing collection.
Again, Mike, thank you so much for hangin' out.
Thanks Jeff, for helpin' us out.
I appreciate you guys.
Again, links in the description.
Go show these guys some love over here
if you're lookin' for a cool snake.
I would definitely suggest checkin' these guys out for sure.
So, I appreciate doin'- - Thank you.
- [Brian] And you come visit us.
And we'll see you in July, right?
- Yes, July, the big barbecue.
- [Brian] You gotta come visit us, man.
Anytime, come and hang out. - We'll be there.
- Sounds good. All right, thanks guys.
All right, so we're gonna head off to Texas, Amarillo style.
Where are we gonna go?
Find some buried Cadillacs?
We're gonna bury Cadillacs, maybe go to some canyons.
- [Brian] I don't know.
- Some armadillos.
- All right, yee-haw.
Let's hit some Texas (laughs)
- [Brian] One of the cool things
when you're traveling across country,
you go through so many different terrains.
Obviously, we're startin' in the Mid-West.
We've got, obviously, winter coming up and stuff like that.
Now, as we're getting into the Texas area,
we're startin' to see more of that desert-y feeling.
We're in the Western side of Texas, right.
You see the hills coming up, stuff like that.
Pretty soon, it's in New Mexico,
where we start seeing mountains and deserts.
But this is the first, really big change in the topography
in the sense that we're startin' to see the hills
and the kinda start of the desert.
And I love the desert.
(upbeat music)
- And we made it to Amarillo, Texas where apparently,
there doesn't seem to be anything.
But nevertheless, I'm happy to be here.
We're gonna end the vlog here tonight
and start it here tomorrow morning.
Spend some time kinda checkin' out some things here
and then moving on, out to New Mexico, Arizona.
We got a long way to go
but hey, that's day 3 down.
I hope that you guys enjoyed it.
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check out this playlist right here.
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Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember, be kind to someone
and I promise I'll see ya tomorrow in Amarillo, Texas.