- Hey good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible.
I'm gonna be honest with you I'm gonna jump in
with a little bit of troubling news
and something that maybe can help you guys down the road
if you ever come into this type of situation.
Remember a few months back,
Ben and Jerry had some digestive issues?
Well, they've been doing absolutely incredible
and gained a ton of weight,
actually getting a little bit chunky
to be totally honest with ya.
Well, you know what, I don't take them out
a tremendous amount because the stress level
is a little bit higher and that's what my vet had said.
Well, over the last couple of weeks,
I've been taking them out just a little bit more,
again not too often.
Unfortunately last night when we were open at the Reptarium,
I had them out a couple times,
put them back in there and they regurgitated their meal.
Now, people always say that you don't wanna handle a snake
a day that they feed or a day after.
Had been a couple days so they were mainly digested
but I do think that maybe the stress and maybe
just kinda the jumbling up just kinda upset its stomach,
and then it regurgitated.
Now I'm gonna be totally honest with you
Colubrids do have that happen.
I mean, you know corn snakes, king snakes, mouse snakes.
It's not as severe as it's with a boa or a python,
but nevertheless, I'm definitely concerned
about Ben and Jerry having that problem
and I wanna take you guys on the journey of what you can do
if you ever have a snake regurgitate,
what kind of steps to make sure they're gonna be okay.
They look really good, they seem to be fine.
I'm not terribly concerned yet,
but I have to take the right precaution
in order to keep these guys alive.
So let's just go ahead and jump right into it.
Now a snake's digestive system is really meant to go one way
so when they regurgitate a meal or throw up a meal,
it can actually damage their kind of intestinal line
a tremendous amount.
Now the good news is with Ben and Jerry
is that it was fuzzy mice so there's not a lot of like stuff
that can scratch up going through.
But what you wanna do in order to make sure
that things are completely healed
and you don't get what they call
chronic regurgitation syndrome.
'Cause what happens is if a snake regurgitates once,
if you can stop it from regurgitating again,
it can be healthy pretty quickly.
If it regurgitates a second or third time,
it becomes chronic and you can potentially lose the animal.
So it's really important to take the right steps.
Now the first thing you wanna do is, obviously,
it's a bad thing that they regurgitated,
you wanna give 'em a break.
About seven to 10 days with no food.
I'm gonna go about 10 days with Ben and Jerry.
I'm gonna be honest with you,
just to play on the side of caution.
Thankfully, their body weight is really good
so that's a good sign.
Then I'm gonna actually offer a meal
about half or less than half the size of a normal meal.
So I just wanna get that digestive tract working again,
making sure it's okay and that way they can continue
to keep down food and kind of rebound
from this particular situation.
But let's talk about like why would it regurgitate?
So it could literally be something like lack of heat, right?
Snakes need heat in order to digest.
We know with Ben and Jerry that the temperatures
are completely fine.
If you ever have a regurgitation problem,
that's one of the first things you're gonna wanna check out
is to make sure your temperatures are okay.
Certainly the next thing would be too large of a meal.
Now the meal we fed Ben and Jerry
was basically the same meal we've been feeding him
for the last two or three months,
so I don't think it was to big of a meal.
And Colubrids in particular don't have the ability
to eat those huge meals like boas and pythons can, you know?
Boas and pythons can eat a huge lump meal
and they'll digest it, no problem.
If you feed too much to a Colubrid snake,
like a corn, king, milk whatever the case is,
a lot of times they will regurgitate.
It can also be like some sort of a bug, you know?
They can have flagyl issue or some sort of a parasite
that causes a regurgitation issue.
And then lastly, it can kind of be stress or over-handling.
In Ben and Jerry's case,
I think it might have been a handling issue.
Again, we don't handle them
as much as we handle most snakes at the Reptarium,
but the fact that they don't come out that often
and I had it out a little bit more than I normally do
probably was the cause.
Now I have to figure out what to do
to make sure it doesn't do it again.
Now like I said, just skipping a meal
and getting it back onto food
I think will be completely enough.
But I do wanna talk to you guys about what happens
if a snake starts to get a little bit too thin,
what steps you can actually take to potentially
help the animal on if it continues to regurgitate
two or three or maybe even four times.
Now this scaleless snow corn snake is an animal
that started to regurgitate a little while ago
and we already have it on protocol to try to bring it back,
but you can just see that it's a little bit thin, right?
You can see its dorsal bone a little bit.
That's when you don't want a snake to get to,
and certainly Ben and Jerry's a long way out from that
but the fact is is that that's kind of what happens,
they start to regurgitate they start to lose weight
because they aren't really digesting that nutrition
'cause they keep on throwing up.
We have started this guy on a tubing protocol
that should potentially bring it back relatively quick.
We've had huge success with it.
But I wanna go ahead and jump on a snake
that is gonna be on the first time we've ever tubed it,
kinda show you what we do and what the process is.
Now before we get into this, I wanna tell you
I don't want you guys to do this on your own.
I've done this with a vet for the last 25 years
and the vet feels confident enough to actually prescribe me
the medication in order to do it without them.
So again, I wanna show you guys
but I'm, please, asking you not to do this on your own
because you could potentially hurt the animal
if you do it improperly.
And again, I was prescribed all this stuff from my vet
so again, this is what they call liquid Flagyl.
It's a way to kinda get rid of some stomach parasites
and stuff like that.
Also can actually increase appetite, which is cool.
Then there's AD Science Diet.
Again, you need a prescription to get this.
I've done this a ton of times with the vet
over the last 20 something years.
And then I just have some water in this cup.
And a lot of times, regurgitation can also have to do
with dehydration because snakes get a lot of their hydration
through their food source, so if they're regurgitating,
that can be a problem, so we wanna keep it really hydrated.
So basically all I'm gonna do is just take
and open this up right here.
It's kinda almost like a pate type of thing.
I'm gonna take about what I would expect like a small meal
like for the snake I'm gonna do it right now,
there's probably a spoonful about like this, right?
So I'm just gonna put this right in there like that.
I'm gonna just put a little bit of Flagyl in here.
Now you really can't overdose with Flagyl
unless you're just absolutely crazy,
so I'm just kinda eyeballing it
but I'm just gonna put just a little bit,
maybe like that much of Flagyl in there
just to get that medication in his system
and then I'm gonna pour a little water to make it
into a slurry type of a thing, right?
Now I'm just gonna kinda stir this up, mix it all together,
so that it'll be easily tubed down the snake.
Now it's getting hydration, it's getting some medicine
and that AD Science Diet is giving it
a lot of protein and stuff like that,
which is really what it needs to kind of heal
all that intestine stuff like that.
That's probably the perfect consistency right there,
gonna be able to come through the syringe no problem.
And the syringe I'm actually using is right here,
it's a tubing syringe.
You can also get a flexible one
but the snake I'm tubing right now isn't that big
so this will be absolutely perfect
and I'll go ahead and just load this syringe up
with a bunch of this stuff.
Again, just kind of incorporating this
so that there's no clumps and stuff like that
and it's really nice and then we'll go ahead,
get the snake and I'll show you exactly how I do it.
So this is actually a male black milk snake
and it's the only male I have
and it's definitely starting to get thin.
It actually regurgitated.
We gave it a little bit of a break, fed it again
and it regurgitated the next two times as well,
so we're definitely in a position
where we need to start treating this animal.
And I know I can bring it back.
It's not so thin that I can't bring it back.
So what I'm gonna do is, again, very gently like I always do
just kinda support and if you ever do get in a situation
where you're gonna do this with a vet,
you'll probably need two hands to do it.
I've just been doing it so long
I can usually do it on my own and I wanna just get this
right down its gullet right there.
I'm gonna put it down pretty far so that it gets deeper
into where it's closer to its stomach.
I'm gonna very gently just kinda put this into its gut.
Again, you don't wanna do it fast
because that could actually
give this animal a problem, right?
You don't wanna explode its stomach,
so I just wanna just very gently and very slowly
just go ahead and tube all of this mixture, this slurry,
right into the bottom.
And now what I wanna do is I'm gonna pull out
just a little tiny bit like that.
I'm gonna take the syringe off
and I'm actually gonna suck up some water
because again, hydration is key, right?
So I'm gonna go ahead not only clean out the syringe itself
but also give it a little bit of extra hydration.
Again, very slowly doing another maybe one cc
one and a half cc's, something like that
and that is about it.
Then I'm gonna gently take it out like this.
What I wanna do is keep the snake kinda upright for a minute
even massaging a little bit of that down into its stomach
so all of that medication, all of that protein
and all of that water is basically pushed down.
Now I'm gonna probably repeat this maybe two or three times
over the course of the next few weeks.
So I'll probably give it five or six days, do it again,
another five or six days,
and do it again before I actually offer it a meal.
Now that medicine is gonna help cure the intestines.
That protein's gonna give it a little bit of weight
and a little bit of energy and that hydration
is gonna be great for its health, as well.
And usually 99% of the time,
I find that this makes animals bounce back
like you can't believe.
But again, I'm gonna say it one last time.
Do not do this without a vet.
You can't even get the stuff without a vet,
but I'm just saying this is an option
if your snake is regurgitating two, three, four times
and you're worried about its health.
Like oh my God, it may not make it.
This is a great way to actually do it.
Now do we have to do this with Ben and Jerry yet?
Not yet.
Hopefully, we never will but I'll keep you guys posted
and basically that is how I save a lot of snakes' lives.
- [Bruce] Okay, we can go ahead and get going.
Whoop, he's pretty quick--
- Just to give you an idea how smart Elvis is
is that he sees these clippers and he doesn't like his nails
being clipped and he's kinda freaking out, you know?
I mean, he never runs away from us ever.
As soon as I get him on my lap and Bruce goes to clip
his nails, he sees the clippers and he runs away.
It's really crazy how smart an animal is to literally
be able to recognize those clippers
and just think that that's not an experience he wants to do
so we have to just let Elvis calm for a minute.
- You know what sucks about truTV?
Everything's fake on truTV.
Not that it's fake like it's all fake,
but you know what I'm saying, it's a little scripted.
You can tell, okay?
But I still love you, truTV.
Be back.
(men chattering)
Dude, I felt like I was being watched.
- [Cameraman] Wait, you guys can see me when I'm doing that?
- He's up there.
- [Woman] There's food in there,
so yeah, I was just gonna do that.
(chill music)
- [Bruce] Good boy, Elvis.
And four.
All done.
- [Brian] All right, one more, right, in the back?
- [Bruce] Yeah.
(chill music)
- [Brian] Last one.
- [Bruce] There you go.
- There you go, Elvis.
I tell you what, that was definitely a lot harder than
it usually is he's getting smarter and he doesn't
like getting his nails clipped but he's completely
fine now and now he'll just go on his merry way.
Good job Elvis come on over here can you come back here?
Come here baby, come here.
It's okay (laughs) what an amazing animal but you
gotta get those nails cut cause they'll rip you up to shreds
so I think all in all although he's smart and
he was a little frustrated like a little kid he
did pretty well.
Are we still friends?
(background chatter)
Good job Elvis thank you little buddy.
- Hey Brian.
- [Brian] What do ya got?
- I got something.
- [Brian] What is that?
- (laughs) All right it's something very exciting.
- [Brian] What, are you serious?
- Yes.
- [Brian] Is it something I don't know about?
- Well yeah, no.
- [Brian] All right lets see it.
Oh my God! That is so cool. (laughter)
Oh my God you gotta be kidding me.
- [Laurie] How amazing?
- Oh my God.
This is the Matilda plushie that Laurie's been working on.
Our next plushie that is, oh my God
that's my favorite, that is crazy cool.
- [Laurie] I know isn't it so cute?
They knocked it out of the park.
- [Brian] That is ridiculous.
Oh my God look at all the intricacy on here,
how did they do that do you know?
- I have no idea.
- Oh my God that is definitely the coolest tortoise plushie
on the planet I mean oh my God and it's so big too.
- I know this is awesome.
- Oh my God, that is crazy.
Yeah that was a surprise.
I knew Laurie was working on it.
I had no idea it was gonna be this awesome, oh my God.
So I think it's gonna be another two or three months
before we'll actually have these available
but this is what they're gonna look like and I am
blown away at how awesome that is.
- Oh my God I want five of 'em.
They're cool, oh my God, hey Matilda.
- [Brian] You're looking so good, girl.
- Oh my god.
(laughter)
It looks awesome, I love the shell, it looks so good.
This is my favorite one I think.
- [Brian] Oh it's definitely my favorite too, now.
That is so cool.
- That's so cool.
- All right I got something to show you guys.
(gasping)
- Oh my gosh it's so cute.
- Oh what's up?
Whoa you got (cheering)
- That scared me that's so real I'm like whoa.
- Look at how cute.
- Wow, look at the detail in that, that is awesome.
- Look at how big it is.
That's awesome.
- Thanks.
(laughter)
That is so cool.
(breaking glass sounds)
- [Brian] There's only one copy.
- That's the only I'm sorry I'm not responsible
enough to be holding that.
- [Man] Brian, what happened man?
- You can see there, there, my neck that's why we gotta
cut the nails on Elvis because he doesn't mean to
but just him grabbing on you can see the kind of wounds
that happen all over the place.
I got cuts all over the place
and my neck and stuff that's just part
of keeping Monitor Lizards.
So if you're getting their nails cut
it's a little bit easier.
- [Brian] Crazy story.
- What? - Dude let's hear it.
- Let me guess.
- [Brian] It's about a dream.
- Oh man. - Another alien abduction?
- [Brian] No no no listen to this man.
So last night my godmother Aunt Helcha okay?
Haven't seen her in like 20 years probably haven't
thought about her in 15 years.
She's in her 90's now, right?
So I have a dream at three o'clock in the morning
that she comes to me but she's young,
I've never even seen a picture of her when she's young,
and she says she passed away.
- How young?
- Oh my God that's crazy.
- [Man] So get this get this.
- What?
- [Brian] So she says she passed away last night.
- No.
- [Brian] And then today your mom
gets a call from my cousin.
We don't know what it's about I haven't heard
from my cousin in years.
- Oh no.
- Then what happened?
- [Brian] I don't know yet.
- Well find out.
- Oh that's really freaking giving me the heebie jeebies.
- [Brian] I know, literally.
- That's like a proven fact. - [Brian] It woke me up.
- [Brian] If she did pass away God rest her soul.
- That's a fact no this is like a thing.
- I've heard of stories just like this in the past.
- Yeah where they like visit you.
- Where the mom is at the foot of the bed
- waving bye. - Going like bye.
- You wake up and she's dead in the morning.
- [Brian] Yes, that's what happened.
- So I had Laurie call my cousin Debbie back because
I was just too shook about it.
What did she say, did my aunt pass away?
- No she did not she actually accidentally butt dialed.
(laughing)
- [Brian] Are you serious?
- Yes.
- Oh my God I got all that freaked out I'm so glad
that aunt Helcha's still alive.
You know that she was still alive or no?
- Well I didn't ask her because that seemed a little rude
but that wasn't why she called so I just left it at that.
Last thing I was gonna do was tell her you had
a dream that she died.
- Sometimes the reason I want to show you guys these
kinds of techniques to save snakes' lives
like Ben and Jerry course not concerned about them yet is
because a lot of times vets don't really know the proper
procedure so if you see this and you go I know Brian
has been doing this with a a vet for 20 years and
it's really successful.
If you go to a vet and you have the issue you can
tell the vet to even watch the video or explain to them
and maybe you can save your snake's life.
As for now I'm pretty sure Ben and Jerry are gonna be fine.
We'll just give them a little break and they'll
probably eat no problem and we won't have to resort
to that but I hope this helps somebody if you ever
have that problem or know someone that's having the problem.
If you enjoyed this video here's another video I think that
you guys will really like and do me a favor roll through the
playlist over here just watch a bunch of videos
'cause it helps me out you know what that means.
Over here you can hit that subscribe button and turn
the post notifications on.
Have an absolutely wonderful day
and you better be kind to someone.
I promise I'll see you guys tomorrow.