- Hey! Good morning everybody.
And welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of you're day is incredible.
Guess what, my silly anaconda Ivy is back in shed.
That's right, she just shed out, just a few weeks ago
and she is back in blue and looking amazing.
This snake always keeps me guessing.
You know, every time you think you figure something out
she throws you for a loop.
She's back in shed after a very short while of course,
probably because we fed her a big, big meal
and her body is like;
All right, I've stretched enough, now I've gotta shed.
Let's go ahead and talk about how and why,
a snake, like Ivy, is gonna shed really so quickly together.
So let's talk really quick about why Ivy sheds
or any snake sheds, for that reason.
This is actually her latest shed
that she just shed a couple of weeks ago.
This was the shed before,
you can kinda see that they're similar, right?
But if you line the heads up right here
and you come over to here.
Looking where this one ends and this one still goes,
about six inches longer.
Basically, what happens is the outer layer,
which is called the epidermis,
of snakes can only grow so much.
Unlike humans, we're constantly shedding cells.
You know, in a way, we're always in shed.
But our skin is also elastic.
It can actually stretch and kinda go.
So as we grow, it's not like we have to shed ourself up.
With snakes they have three layers of skin.
The outer layer, again, is called the epidermis,
that's what this is as they shed it out.
Then the next layer is called the dermis,
which is basically setting up
to be the epidermis once they shed out.
And then they have the endodermis,
which is the inner layer of skin.
So basically what happens is, snakes shed for two reasons.
Number one, when that skin is stretched
to its maximum capacity.
You can see, this isn't elastic here.
This is as far as it can stretch.
You know, I mean it can't get any bigger than that.
So now it has to shed and let that dermis
become the epidermis.
And that's why, when Ivy gets blue like this.
What's happening is that second layer of skin,
the dermis, is actually starting to have a secretion
that's actually gonna then absorb
into the outer layer, the dermis.
It's kinda like a natural lubrication
so that they can then shed their skin off.
Of course, with Ivy,
we know that she like to stay in the water.
That also helps.
But most snakes that's not the case.
So eventually, after they go blue,
it actually absorbs into the snake's epidermis.
And that's why, if you keep snakes,
you'll see this blue-ish look and then one day,
it actually looks like it's shed,
but there is no skin in the cage.
And that's because it actually absorbs
into the epidermis layer,
so that it can actually have the lubrication to shed off.
Usually, about two days after it clears up,
is when they'll actually shed.
With Ivy last time, it took like four or five days,
which was completely weird.
Don't know what Ivy is gonna do this time.
I don't know if she's gonna shoot out of the water,
like she did last time and then move up onto land.
I have no idea, but the point is
that's first reason why snakes will shed.
They need to get rid of that outer layer
cause it's stretched as far as it can possibly stretch,
and they need to replace it
with the dermis to become the epidermis.
Now the other reason would be injury repair, just like us.
When we cut ourself, we actually start to shed cells off,
get a scab and then ultimately shed that scab off.
And it repairs the skin.
Same thing happens with snakes.
If, for some reason, there was injury,
they might go into multiple sheds.
Now, interestingly enough, speaking of timing,
typically a snake is going to shed
anywhere from four to six times a year,
depending on growth.
Ivy just shed a few weeks ago, she had one small meal
and then one big meal, that 15 pound pig.
And that 15 pound pig is probably
what made her grow so much, that she now has to shed again.
So, I think she's probably a week or so away,
we'll see how she sheds this time.
Again, in the comments, let me know
will she go back in the water,
will she come up, god only knows.
Because this animal,
is certainly always throwing me for loops.
So there you go, there is why Ivy is back at shed
and why other snakes shed.
Hope that kinda made you understand the whole process.
You guys, take a look at, we got a clutch of eggs.
I tell ye, it never gets old, seeing ball pythons
or any snake for that matter, on eggs.
Like I told you, it's heating up here,
you know, we're starting to get ball pythons consistently,
other pythons clutches,
coluber clutches are coming like crazy.
I mean, it's the best time to be a snake breeder.
But before we pull this clutch,
let me show you the male that it's actually bred to.
And now it's actually a pastel
that was double hatched for axanthic and lavender
so it could produce actually the snow lavender.
This is actually a lavender here, that is head for snow
so with any luck we could actually produce snow lavenders,
pastel snow lavenders and such like that.
The lavenders are absolutely gorgeous.
And back to my mamma here, who is definitely not happy.
(coaxing) It's okay mom, I know, I know, it's okay,
it's all right. Come on mamma, it's all right.
(bang) Whoa, she's getting upset.
(bang) She's gonna try, whoa, come on girl.
She's starting to roll some eggs, so I'm just gonna ahead
and pull this one egg out right here.
She is definitely feisty.
(coaxing) Feisty mamma, it's okay girl, it's all right.
Whoa! Okay, okay, okay.
Come on mamma.
It's all right. Just calm down.
I'm gonna try to get these eggs
out of here as quickly as I can.
Just so I can get mamma cleaned up--
and whoops, she's come to fight me.
And mom's just upset with me, trying to take her eggs away,
which is a good thing, that's what they're supposed to do.
That maternal incubation is kicked in for sure,
so I'm just going to get these eggs,
get these out of here.
And like I said, once I cleaned her cage up,
get her cleaned up,
she'll forget about these eggs pretty quick.
We'll get her back onto food and like I keep mentioning,
artificial incubation is better for the mom,
it's better for us, it's better for everything.
She's got two, four, six, seven good eggs.
Now again, the odds are a little bit long,
on us producing lavender snow,
but it's potential, so it's pretty awesome.
So here at 57/58 days we'll go ahead
(bang) and be able to cut this clutch o'eggs,
and hopefully the odds, gods, will be in our favor.
(bang)
Interesting enough, Viraday is in shed too, just like Ivy.
Just kinda interesting that both of my anacondas
are being shed.
But what that means, of course,
is that both are growing and doing well.
And you guys know that Ivy loves the water,
so I wanna show you guys, really quick,
what my plans are for Viraday, for the short term.
So you know how we're finishing up this cage for the caiman,
it's almost back together,
we just have to seam a little bit right here
and then we can clean it up
and get the caiman lizard back in over here.
We know we have this enclosure here with our aligator,
and obviously these alligators are going to go
into the big enclosure as soon as we're open in the back
and can send the bigger alligators back.
So I am actually gonna redo this enclosure,
much like I redid this enclosure, but this time for Viraday.
That's right, so Viraday will have all this water
to swim around in, just like Ivy does.
But I'll also build some more land masses,
so she can get up like here again,
to where she can be on a basking spot
and have some other areas to climb out,
some other branches and stuff like that.
So hopefully, here pretty soon
we can send the other alligators back,
get these alligators into the larger enclosure
and I can build this out,
cause I know Viraday is gonna love this enclosure.
Super excited Jessica, what do we get?
- Here we got a Dracula line.
- [Brian] Aww, another Dracula.
These guys are so cools.
Of course we love the Deadpool line from Tikis,
but the Dracula line
is almost as cool. - It's still really nice.
- [Brain] It's still super good,
and of course these guys are gonna color up tremendously.
- [Jessica] Oh yeah.
And in quick, as matter of fact, do we have hatcheries.
- Yeah, let's check them out
- Let's go check it out. Let's check out the other ones.
I think that, you know, just in a matter of a few weeks
it's amazing how the color changes.
And then, of course,
as they get to six, eight months and a year old
they go crazy.
And here they are, oh whoa, whoa, whoa. (mumbles)
And here they actually are.
You can see how much color
they've gotten in just a short period of time.
These are only a few weeks old, right?
- [Jessica] Yeah, they just hatched out last month.
So they're about a month old.
- [Brian] They're about a month old.
So that's incredible.
Again, look at all that orange that's starting to come in
and these guys are going get so orange and red,
just here in another few months,
they are adorable, Jessica. - Yeah, I love how like,
this one's got really defined stripes on their tail.
- [Brian] Oh my god. They are so beautiful.
(murmurs softly)
And, oh my god, Jessica's poor hand,
she's getting bit up by--
It's gecko breeding season.
- Oh my god, this is probably
the worst bite I've every gotten from a gecko,
to be honest. - Oh my gosh.
I feel terrible. I really do, but (laughing)
that's the life of a gecko breeder.
I actually had thawed about a rodent for Virady,
thinking that maybe she would eat today,
and then she was in shed, so that didn't work out.
So I'm gonna go ahead and just give Moomoo here,
a little extra rodent for the week.
(coaxing) Come on bud, come on, you want to eat.
Come on sweety. (bang) Whoa-ho you missed it--
(bang) Whoa! Careful girl, careful, careful girl,
(bang) oh jeez, peas, she's out of control.
Come one girl (bang) there you go. Woo.
That's why you gotta be careful, you never know
when snakes get into that food mode
and they miss, that's when you usually get bit.
That's probably 90% of the bites I've had
in my career with snakes, have come just like that.
When she's actually going to actually strike at the rat,
misses the rat, grabs my hand, grabs my face, grabs wherever
so luckily we got away without a bite.
And Moomoo has a nice meal coming right now. (bang)
It is so awesome this time of year
being able to just come in everyday
and hopefully continue just find more eggs
from all these snakes over the next coming weeks
and probably, next month and a half or two months,
It's an exciting time.
This, of course, is
what they would call a hypo-albino corn snake.
So it's basically a double recessive,
both the hypo and the albino is,
it's actually bred to a hypo,
so all these babies should be hypo.
But the hypo is actually half a snow,
so we could produce some albino-hypos in here,
and a bunch of other stuff, but the thing about corn snakes
is that you never know what you're going to get.
I'm actually pulling off, just what probably is,
kind of a mass that should have been an egg,
but just kinda adhered to the oviduct
as kind of a goopy mass.
And you can almost see the kind of twirling in it.
that would be what the oviduct
actually looks like in the inside, right here.
So this is just a little,
kinda what should have been an egg,
but turned into a kind of a goopy mass.
Now what we are gonna want to do,
is get all the goop of these eggs
because that goop can actually cause the eggs to go bad.
So we'll actually just clean these eggs up,
just a little bit, with a paper towel and stuff like that.
The other ones look pretty good,
I think it's just these two eggs right here.
That I'm gonna have to do a little bit of work on,
the rest look good.
We got two, four, six, seven, eight, nine good eggs.
One kinda goopy, slugy mess right here
and I think we still have a couple
of other coluber clutches to pull.
We've got the first scaleless Texas rat snake of the year.
Again, you can see that kind of bizarre shed skin
without the scales, just remnant scales on here.
I see one actual, good egg in there,
so let's hope there's a bunch of them.
And I remember, this is a big female--
(surprised) Oh my god! This is a big female
and that's a huge clutch o'eggs.
Oh My Gosh. Of course,
this is the scaleless Texas rat snake
bred to another scaleless Texas.
So all the babies will come out as scaleless, but wow.
That is probably the largest clutch.
Momma you did so good.
We'll clean her up, get her some water and stuff like that,
but oh my gosh, this is the largest clutch
of scaleless Texas rats I have ever produced.
That is for sure.
There's a couple egg here and there
I can see are kinda rolled,
so I'm probably gonna candle the whole clutch,
just to make sure.
So I'm just gonna pull out, start putting them in over here
wherever they are and then I'll come back
and candle them all.
You can see they're kinda loose
and Texas rat snakes often times do that.
Ones that are stuck together lik this,
I know are in pretty good shape.
But a lot of these guys are a little bit loose,
another little loose one right here,
let's just kinda feel.
I keep on feeling around first see,
but it looks like this whole batch here is pretty solid.
So I think I'm in pretty good shape here,
let's see if I can just pull all of these off--
Whoops, one little eggy.
Let's just go ahead and put that over here.
See if I can pull these eggs as one,
put them over here.
I don't have to candle them, cause they're together.
I'll candle this one right here.
So we have about, six or seven eggs
that we've got to candle.
The rest look pretty good.
But we've got two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen,
sixteen, eighteen, nineteen eggs. Nineteen eggs.
Oh my gosh, that is a huge clutch for a Texas rat snake.
A couple things that people sent us. (whoopy-sound)
A, starting with this one.
This one is an Amazon prime.
I don't know who it's from.
It just says to Lori and Brian.
- Did you order something?
- I didn't order anything that I remember.
(mumbles) - Why aren't you ordering anything.
- I know I haven't been ordering anything from anybody.
Ohhh look at this.
- [Lori] No way. (laughing)
- Hardwound paper towels. (continue laughing)
- [Lori] Here's a message. (continue laughing)
- Paper towels are good.
Enjoy this gift from Clarise Fredrick.
So thank you. - Thank you, Clarise.
- I've got some paper towels here. Paper towels--
- We need them. - It's amazing how
much paper towels (laughing) the more,
and I can see this one,
looks like it's got some paper towels in it too.
It's amazing how exciting is
to get paper towels these days.
I tell you what, no but thank you guys so much,
seriously, for sending all this stuff.
This means the world to me, and look at that
Woo hoo, oh my god, that's a lot of paper towels.
That is absolutely, oh there's a bunch more too.
Look at all this, wait, (excited) toilet paper!
What! - That's paper towel.
- Aww, okay. Paper towel. (laughing)
(mumbling) (squeaking) (laughing)
Okay so, oh good what is this, bath bombs.
- [Lori] From Emily Bailey.
- [Brian] Emily Bailey, thank you Emily.
- Bath bombs, you're excited about bath bombs.
- I don't know, I'm just excited period.
- HA!
- I'm just, oh my god, look at the big bath bombs.
- [Lori] Wow!
Wait-- - Whaaaat!
- What does this say on here. - I don't know, it says;
Take time to relax--
- [Lori] Says to Lori!
- Oh dam, Emily. - Thank you.
- What is you're problem, you didn't send me those.
- These, oh, they smell nice.
- Oh jeez, look at this. She sent, oh look,
there's a whole bunch of other stuff in there.
It's a blanket.
- Oh my goodness. - Oh my god.
Salt and Pepper, we got the family, we got speedy,
(Lori laughing) Ben, Jerry, oh my god, that look awesome.
That was so thoughtful of you.
- Oh it is super soft, too. See.
- Oh it is soft. Oh we were just talking about gloves,
how we were getting a little short on gloves.
So this is amazing. - We were talking about that.
- And then, Lori, you said, that these were,
you love these - Yes, actually,
these are gold right here.
- Well all this is gold. - Yeah.
- [Brian] So thank you so much.
Seriously, - Thank you, Emily.
That's so nice of you. - So thoughtful,
seriously, you guys are, everyone's been so amazing.
I tell you what, you guys are so nice.
Just from amazon, - For you I'm sure.
Let me guess, it's suave.
- [Brian] Maybe. It's a shirt:
Let's see, what's this say:
Life (Lori laughing), uh, find a way. (Both laughing)
- Perfect. - There you go.
(Lori laughing) Thank you so much,
I'm not sure who this is from,
because I didn't have a note with it.
But, anyways, thank you guys, as always, you're amazing.
- Thank you so much.
- And we have enough paper towels now,
to last us another week.
- Yeah and a very cool blanket - Thank you guys.
- And a beautiful blanket, thank you so much guys.
So once again Ivy keeps me guessing, as you guys know.
If you enjoyed this video,
here's a video of a bunch of big snakes,
I think you'll like them a lot.
As a matter of fact, if you haven't gotten enough of me,
you can check my pod cast out right up here, Checking In.
Please subscribe to that and show that some love.
Over here you can subscribe to my vlog channel,
turn those post notifications on, if you don't mind.
Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember to be kind to someone
and I promise to see you tomorrow.