(cheerful music)
- Yeah, and good morning everybody,
and welcome to the vlog.
That was a little teaser about
what we're gonna get into pretty soon here.
Bruce actually brought me a couple animals
that I'm super excited to play with today.
It's just I love these snakes, they're absolutely incredible
and I can't wait to share with you.
In the meantime let's just buckle up
and have a really good time together.
We're gonna be very, very safe
'cause in these times you don't wanna take any risks, right?
You never wanna take risks,
but especially not in these times.
So don't worry, we're gonna be really safe,
Bruce and I are gonna show you a couple animals
that are gonna be absolutely incredible
and maybe a little bit of a glimpse
into a future expansion of The Reptarium,
I'm not 100% sure.
Regardless let's go ahead and just push our problems aside,
buckle up, it's gonna be an amazing start to the vlog!
- We're going to need some eye protection
on these guys.
So Bruce, what did you bring me me?
Let's take a look and see what we've got going on.
- There she is.
- Oh she's a little monkey!
- So, this is a Naja Nigricollis Brian.
The Black Necked Spitting Cobra.
One of the things that I thought was super interesting
about them is that they're cytotoxic
but they're also known to see a little bit
of neurotoxic there.
- [Brian] Right, yeah.
- [Bruce] Every now and then they'll like to spit at you
But I swear sometimes it's like
you don't even realize they're cobras sometimes.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
Of course these are little spitters.
These guys come from a sub Saharan part of Africa.
So there's a pretty wide range
and they're a big cobra.
Obviously, spitting cobras have this ability
to actually aim.
And they actually can be relatively accurate.
Up to sometimes over twenty feet believe it or not.
(hand slapping ground)
So you definitely want eye protection
when you're handing these little monkeys.
This girl looks like she's really, really docile
as far as not really going up.
She's not gonna spit too much.
But again, this is what, about a year old you think?
- Yeah, she's a 2019.
- These guys are gonna get big, you know, 7 footers.
Absolutely nothing to mess around with.
Now, they're not extremely venomous.
And what I mean by that is the mortality rate is pretty low.
Even without treatment you're only looking at
about a ten percent mortality rate.
But hey, we don't want to get bit by these guys.
That is for sure.
But that is one absolutely incredible animal.
- Woo, and these cobras always do that.
They wanna climb up sticks.
So you have to be careful.
And again, fortunately, some spitters will spit a lot
and some spitters will hardly spit at all.
And this girl here seems like she's pretty good.
And we don't want her to spit.
No sense in her wasting venom, number one.
And no sense in us taking any risk.
Even though we have eye protection,
we don't want that to happen.
Because if you do get spit in the eye,
the one thing is you can actually go blind.
You can have permanent damage and
even getting spit on your skin
can sometimes be a little bit of a problem, too.
So, what's it like working with these guys?
- So, honestly, so when it really comes down to it Brian
these guys, I can really understand why some people
make the mistake of free handling these animals.
- [Brian} Right.
- [Bruce] Because the curiosity of this animal,
as you can even see it doesn't even look like
it's actually scared of us.
- [Brian] No it just wants to come up and hang out with us.
Which is pretty awesome.
- [Bruce] Oh yeah dude.
- See as it gets closer,
how it's getting a little bit more tentative.
And actually will hood up a little bit.
So you just want to be a little bit
careful with that and stuff.
But these guys are amazing.
You brought another one too, right?
This is the girl right?
- So this is the girl.
This is actually the solid colored female here.
The male actually Bri, actually has some banding to him.
So there's a little bit of a different look to him.
- And I'll be totally honest with you,
I've never had what I even have thought
has been a close encounter with these guys.
I've always been very, very cautious.
I always say,
"Don't fear them,
"but you better respect them."
When you start cowboying up,
and you don't respect the fact
that these guys could hurt you
that's when you typically get bit.
It's easy like Bruce said,
to get into this sense of calm
where you go, "ah this is almost like a corn snake!
"I don't have to worry at all!"
But the truth is, we don't want anything to happen.
So, let's go ahead and put this monkey away.
And let's see what the boy looks like.
Oh, he is pretty!
Oh my gosh, that is a gorgeous snake right there.
But you can see the difference in the pattern,
in this one, that is beautiful.
And then, you see that little bar on his neck?
That is where it gets its name right there.
Oh my god, that is a gorgeous animal right there.
- And he looks like a spectacle cobra, doesn't he?
- Yeah, it kinda does look like a little spec.
Man, that thing is gorgeous.
And again these guys,
are they pretty good about rodent feeding?
- [Bruce] Honestly, they have to crush it dude.
- [Brian] Really?
- They crush it.
These guys are all on fuzzy mice.
- [Brian] Oh, okay.
Frozen though?
- [Bruce] Yeah, both of them frozen.
No live feedings or anything like that.
The only animal actually at my house that I feed live
is that African Bush Viper I have.
- [Brian] Really, okay.
Cobras are just like,
I think they're next level when it comes
to elapidaes, when it comes to the intelligence.
You know what I mean?
They're really thinking things through,
they're just so absolutely,
I mean you can see that tongue response.
Just everything about these guys
is just so absolutely amazing.
- [Bruce] It's a calculating animal, for sure.
- It totally is and they're so visual, too.
That's the one thing, not all snakes
use their eyes like cobras do.
Cobras are always very, very visual.
And often times, that's again, with the spitter
they're going to target your eyes, right.
So when they come around on you,
and they spit at you,
they want to try to hit your eyes.
'Cause again if you're a predator,
they want to incapacitate your eyes.
So it just gives you an idea of their targeting.
And like I said, some spitters,
including this species here
has been known to be able to just
literally, pin point in to an eye
(Bruce clapping hands)
from seven, eight, nine, even up to 20 feet away.
I mean, how cool is that?
Now he's getting a little bit more fired up.
And that's the thing about elapidaes,
is they can typically be pretty quick.
The thing that's nice about cobras like this,
when they're really chill,
you can see he's got no threat display whatsoever.
He's not hooding up, he's just completely comfortable.
Right now he's really in intelligence mode, right?
He's just smelling the new smells around the shop.
He's just loving these guys.
And again, I keep saying that,
I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it,
But man, opening up an area,
especially Bruce has a lot of experience
with venomous snakes.
If we had a venomous area here at The Reptarium,
could you imagine how cool it would be
to have cobras, and King Cobras, and Gaboon Vipers,
and Rhinos and maybe Mamabas.
Of course, it's a little bit dangerous
because let's face it,
you're never going to get bit by a venomous snake
if you never go around a venomous snake, right?
So the more you go around them,
the more the chances are that you're going to potentially
one day make that mistake.
But if you do things right there's no reason
you can't have an entire lifetime around these
venomous snakes and never have an accident.
Bruce, tell me, what's your favorite species of cobra?
I mean, is there something you're working with
that you love more?
Are these guys high on the list?
- So, I actually, I'm not actually working with the one
that's my favorite species.
But I love the classic naja naja.
The idian cobras dude.
- Ah, Indian Cobra's are amazing.
- Man those things just make my jaw drop.
I look at them all the time.
- When you really, as a kid,
that's the cobra you think of.
- Oh yeah, with the flute.
(mimics snake charming music)
- Yeah, that's the cobra you think of, you know.
And of course those Indian flute guys,
everyone thinks that they're actually
kinda mesmerizing the cobra with their flute.
But the truth is, yup.
It's just like Bruce is doing there.
It's about the movement.
Again, they're very visual animals.
So these guys key on movements.
So if they have a cobra that's gonna hood up,
if you can just keep movement,
it's gonna just keep going towards that movement.
That flute is going back and forth,
that animal is just focusing on the flute.
It doesn't hear the noise.
It's not about mesmerizing it with music.
But it's still a pretty cool thing, for sure.
Maybe one day we'll get a naja naja
and we'll do a little basket here,
a little Reptarium show.
How's that sound?
- You know honestly, that might be happening
a little sooner than you think.
- Oh my god.
- But we'll see, we'll see about that.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh.
I love it.
That's awesome.
Well Bruce, thanks so much for bringing these guys.
- [Bruce] Oh anytime brother, anytime.
- [Brian] I absolutely love them.
Let me know down in the comments if you guys want Bruce
to bring some more of his amazing venomous collection
here and showing it off.
And let me know if you one day, you think that
we should have venomous snakes here at The Reptarium.
I know I love them to death.
It's a great way to start the day.
(energizing music)
- Colubrid season is still on us here.
Getting their second clutch of eggs, which is cool.
Which is actually, this beautiful, little coral snow female.
Let's see how many eggs she has and if they're good.
They look like they're really good.
Now, before I get into this,
I actually want to show you the male that I bred her to.
The coral snows are this polygenic, pink animal, right?
So they have this beautiful pink coloration.
That if you breed the pinkest animals,
to the pinkest animals, you keep getting better
and better animals.
Now this female here isn't super, uber, pink.
She definitely is pink.
But it looks like a beautiful clutch of eggs.
So I'm just gonna take mama off here.
Come on mama, let go baby girl.
There you go.
Look at that.
Just get here over here.
We'll get her all cleaned up and all of that type of stuff.
And like I mentioned last year,
we always take the water out
a day or two before they're due to lay
because colubrids have a tendency of sometimes
laying in the actual water their self.
And we don't want the eggs to go in the water,
because the eggs will drop.
So, I'm gonna just slide her in.
We'll come back.
We'll clean her up.
Get water in with her and stuff like that.
And we'll take a look and just see
how many eggs we have here.
We'll set up an egg box here.
Here we go.
Alright, what do we got?
Gosh, it looks like a beautiful clutch of eggs too!
Let's just go ahead and pull these guys
right like this.
And they're all stuck together which is always good.
That just means we don't have to candle them.
100% fertile.
Two, four, six, eight, 10, 12, 14, 15 eggs!
15 eggs, that's absolutely incredible!
And again, because it's a snow corn to snow corn,
all of these are going to be snow.
And they're both from that pink coral line.
The male obviously is gorgeous, unbelievable pink.
And then of course the female is not as good.
So the babies should be pretty darn good right now.
We should have all snow corns,
most of them are going to be really bright pink,
are going to be absolutely amazing.
Once they hatch out it's going to be incredible.
So, only one clutch of colubrids today.
But again, that's gonna be heating up pretty soon too.
And unlike python eggs
that need to go in incubator that's 88, 89 degrees,
colubrids can just go up on a shelf.
They need to incubate at anywhere from like,
78 to 82 degrees, right in that range.
Right up here on this shelf
we know it's about 82 degrees.
So we can just stick them up there and they're fine.
And the fluctuations on colubrid eggs
aren't nearly as critical as pythons.
If you fluctuate three, four degrees on pythons
you may not hatch your eggs.
These guys can go three, four, five degrees no problem.
But in about 60 days we should have baby corn snakes.
(up tempo music)
(lock jingling)
- [Andrea] No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!
(Bruce laughing)
- [Brian] What's wrong Andrea?
What's up?
- I'm stuck.
- [Brian] You're stuck?
- Yeah.
- Oh man, I don't know where that,
I don't know where that key went.
- It might be time to get back to this
Caiman lizard enclosure.
I'll be honest with you,
I needed a little mental break from it
because I was, I was reeling from it.
So what I have to do is,
drain the water,
gonna reattach the ledge over here.
I'm gonna foam the spot where the
actual lizard got back there.
Get that all ready.
Then Lori can come back later today or tomorrow.
She can seam all of the spot that I had to rip out.
All of this stuff we'll have to seam all of that.
Seam this back up.
Get the actual branch back up
and then hopefully, maybe, in the next day or two
we can get them back in here
and let them have some fun.
So, let's just go ahead and get back to it.
I mean, I've been putting it off for long enough.
(up beat music)
- So first thing I'm going to do
is actually use the expandable foam
and kind of make a ridge all the way around here
so that it's seals back up.
Then I'm gonna actually use M1 sealant
to kinda put in the middle
just to kind of adhere this really good to this corner.
I'm gonna actually tuck it back up
so that Lori has the least amount of work as possible.
Hopefully, that will go ahead.
Then the last thing I have to do
is just foam this spot right here,
secure everything up and let it dry.
Lori comes back and seams all of the cuts I had to do
and we should be good to go.
(bright music)
- And that's it.
Again, the rock is in here.
Lori will just have to seam up a little bit here.
I've got all of that area
that it got behind the enclosure back there.
That's all foamed up.
Again, just some seaming, some fixturing up.
And then we can put the branch back up,
and we should be good to go.
Clean it up.
Get the animals back in there.
What a nightmare.
I'm gonna be happy to see this thing done
and hopefully work this time.
- Just wanted to do a quick update
on this red tail boa.
This is a Guyana Red Tail Boa.
And I mentioned when they were babies
that they're beautiful.
But when they get bigger
they get that red tail
and that just unbelievable coloring.
I tell you, this guys are getting big.
They're doing so well.
I've got some Surinames, some Peruvians
and of course this Guyanas.
I mean, true red tail boas are ridiculous.
Remember the T negative albino blood python that someone
brought in that's actually named Champ?
This thing is ridiculous.
It's definitely gonna go over to The Reptarium.
But I just have to show it off
'cause it's looking so amazing.
I love blood pythons
and the T negatives are by far my favorite for sure.
I mean, that thing is just such a ripper.
So when we open up at The Reptarium again,
Champ will be over there for sure.
In case you guys didn't know,
I have a podcast called Checking In.
We're still doing it every Wednesday.
Friday, Noah and Eric do it.
And then I'm about to start up a Saturday podcast as well
that would be me and just one guest.
We'll see how that goes.
I don't know how it is.
But regardless, we have a podcast tonight,
it's gonna be absolutely incredible.
So I'm gonna go ahead and get ready
gear up and go have some fun on the podcast Checking In.
- [Brian] --chirping as Lee got out
and I went onto his bench and beat him up.
- [Noah] (laughing) Yes.
- [Brian] I went, I literally went onto his bench
and he's like
"What are you gonna do about it?"
And I jumped over the thing and I --
(laughter drowns out voice)
- [Brian] That did happen, that did happen.
- [Noah] Dude!
- [Brian] That was the only time
I've ever instigated a fight.
- [Lori] I told him he needs to play hockey again.
- [Noah] Let me tell you my fighting story, this is--
- Tell you what, for some reason
those cobras just made this day incredible.
If you guys liked that, here's an entire playlist
of me playing with a bunch of venomous stuff.
Up here you can actually listen to that podcast
I was telling you about.
Over here subscribe to the vlog channel.
I appreciate you guys so much!
Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember to be kind to someone and I promise,
I'll see you guys tomorrow!