- Hey, good morning everybody
and welcome to the vlog.
Oh, by the way,
good afternoon and good evening.
I've been told a lot of you guys
are in different places,
so I apologize.
So, wherever you are,
I hope that you're having an amazing time.
Is that sound good?
Well, lately I've been really
getting into like
unusual rat snakes, right?
And obviously we got Gramps here,
who is actually a king rat
from China.
He's an albino king rat snake.
Absolutely wonderful.
I've been getting into a bunch
of really cool rat snakes.
And guess what?
Today,
that's right today,
we actually are getting two pair
of rat snakes
that should be here anytime.
One pair is like crazy rare
and I've never seen before.
I didn't even know they existed
until about a week and a half ago.
So, I am so excited here.
In just a little bit,
we're about to do an unboxing
of some wickedly cool snakes.
(upbeat music)
So, I could not be more excited, guys.
You know, I'm kind of switching
my thought process of keeping snakes
a little bit to try to do stuff
that's really weird, right.
Stuff that you just don't see ever.
And this is definitely something
that you don't see ever. (box crashes)
I tell you that much.
As a matter of fact,
I think, as a matter of fact,
what I've heard,
is that these are the only ones
in the entire country, period.
This pair, the only pair
in the entire country.
And I'm telling you what,
I'm taking a look at 'em right now.
And holy
crap!
These are like no other snake
I've ever seen.
Oh my God,
these are actually albino
red-banded snakes.
And they're feisty little monkeys.
Look at that little dude.
So these are actually, again,
the only albinos, per my knowledge,
in the entire United States.
And they're so feisty.
These guys come from Taiwan.
They're actually a Dinodon rufozonatum.
Again, whoa, oh.
Come on little buddy.
Again, extremely rare in the albino sense.
It's a very common snake in Taiwan.
And I cannot believe how feisty it is,
but I tell it,
I've never seen anything like this before.
It kind of reminds me of,
I don't know,
something like the coral snake
or something like that.
Something just very different about them.
It is a rat snake.
Again, very taut.
Again, very common in Taiwan.
Oh, stop biting me little monkey.
But they are known
for being feisty little dudes.
And these guys are.
This is the little boy right here.
And I tell you what, like I said,
when I saw a picture of these,
I was like,
I have to get 'em,
just because again, you know,
you see so many things
that look so similar, right?
And these guys look unbelievably unique.
Ooh! Come on little guy!
We'll see if the female is any better.
Nope, she seems like she's pretty feisty, too.
Oh my God.
These guys will get like,
you know, about three and a half,
four foot long.
They'll eat all kinds of things in the wild.
They'll eat from frogs,
to lizards to other snakes,
to snails, to fish.
In captivity, typically they'll eat rodents,
which is really good for these guys.
They'll have, oh gosh,
they love to bite, too!
Unbelievable little bite
for a little monkey like this.
But nevertheless, they'll have up to like
eight to 10 eggs,
which is cool.
They're probably two or three years away.
But how exciting
to get such rare snakes like this.
Again, to my knowledge,
I'm not saying
there's not other ones out there.
So if you have some, I apologize to you.
But to my knowledge,
this is the only pair of these guys
in the entire country.
That's right. The only pair.
I absolutely am blown away
how cool they, oh my gosh.
I cannot believe how much
they bite a lot.
I mean, I have never seen little baby snakes,
so feisty as, ow!
Gosh!
All right, I'm gonna put this little guy.
And we did get another pair of snakes in here
that are again, not super common,
definitely on the more rare side.
And I just want to start
getting into snakes like this, right.
Things that are just really neat.
Not to mention,
can you imagine
when this is an adult,
this beautiful?
when it would be here at the Reptarium?
I mean, I think it'd be a
great display snake
and there's a whole bunch of stuff
like that that I want to get into, right.
So I could not be more happier
with this pair of snakes
because hoo doggy, they are beautiful.
So let's move on to this one,
which pooped in its little tub right here.
And these are actually another rat snake,
but these are what they call
a European rat snake,
or an Elaphe dione.
Now diones are relatively common
at being bred.
They're not even that rare
in the pet trade,
but these are actually melanistic ones.
So they're really dark
and really beautiful.
Typically the diones
are almost like a grayish, greenish color,
and these guys are black
and look absolutely gorgeous.
Now the interesting thing
about the diones and somethin'
I'm gonna have to get more into
is there are a bunch of color phases,
a lot of more polygenic
in the sense like really red ones.
Again, melanistics like this.
There are some albinos.
There's a whole bunch of different color phases.
This is the first pair of diones
I've ever worked with
in my entire life.
So I am super excited
to start working with you.
And I figure I might as well
get the melanistics.
It's something cool.
And then as other cool stuff pops up,
I'm going to just keep adding to 'em.
Again, weird rat snakes,
weird kind of things,
It's just, I think that's the way
I want to go with the collecting.
Not only for the Reptarium,
so people can see things that they
won't see in other places,
but also for BHB.
So we're producing things
that are just really unusual.
You know, I like, you know,
don't get me wrong.
I still want to work with corn snakes,
and king snakes,
and all that other stuff,
but getting animals like these guys
are crazy, so wow.
I tell you what, I love these guys.
They are absolutely gorgeous.
And those albino redbandeds,
oh my goodness gracious.
How incredible.
So yeah, Christmas came early this year for me.
That's for sure.
I love it.
So I'm gonna get these guys set up.
They look absolutely fantastic.
And I couldn't be more happy
with them.
Back to Drogo's shelf right here.
So now we can actually take off
this jig part.
And again, what I'm gonna do is,
you can see that these boards right here,
are gonna be the base
of the board.
And that's where the board
is gonna come up this way.
That will actually screw to the wall
so that we can secure this.
So first thing I have to do
is just take off this jig
and then I can start making some measurements.
Once I put these vertical boards on,
I can actually install it
into the wall itself.
I have to cut out some of the rock wall,
put this in here,
put some bracing in,
and then ultimately put the rock back
around it so that it looks like
it blends into a wall.
So hopefully, it's gonna look really good.
We'll have to see what happens,
but for now,
we just have to take this jig out.
(drill whirs)
(saw whirs)
(upbeat music)
(drill whirs)
So basically, the ledge is now on.
We just have to cut this back
and kind of secure this,
put rock facing on this here
so that it looks like it seams in really good.
And then Drogo,
we can put his bed.
Right now, we have it in his hammock.
If he likes it there,
we can do it here.
Or we can put his bed right over here
on this side
and have ropes that go down to it.
We'll also put his food dish and water dish
right up to here.
We might even cut a hole in this
and actually set 'em down there.
'Cause again, slots really don't
like to go to the ground to eat.
They want to be elevated.
So we want this elevated platform.
So it just gives him one more thing
to kind of hang out.
And we're continuously changing,
maybe every two weeks or so.
We rearranged the entire enclosure
when it comes to ropes
and everything else,
so that he has a lot of enrichment.
So he's loving it.
He's up in his little thing.
Look at how cute he is.
He's just sleeping.
He doesn't even care
that we're working in here.
He knows the story so far.
So again, ledge isn't done,
but it's at least up,
it's secure.
It looks good.
We'll finish this up
over the next couple of days.
Obviously, one of the coolest things
I get to do every single day
is just walk around the zoo
and just kind of be a spectator, right?
I always say that, you know,
yeah, I run this place
and I have to be a good host
to everyone that comes.
But the truth is,
is that I'm probably my best patron.
I love being here.
And I like looking at my animals, right.
And Al just shed out the other day
and looks ridiculous.
And for whatever reason,
I love this ledge right here.
You've got the foliage,
you've got the tree branch,
you've got foliage in the background,
and he just looks so incredible.
I mean, his colors pop so well
with the green in the background
and kind of, that kind of rocky stuff.
I mean, he just looks so incredible.
So every now and then,
I walk by his cage and I just get
blown away by him.
I mean, I get blown away by all my animals,
but it's definitely really a blessing
to be able to spend as much time here
as I do, because when we're not open,
hey, this is my own little private heaven.
It's almost over guys.
It's almost over.
The Ho Ho Drogo merch.
If you want to get it for Christmas,
a Christmas gift,
you want to wear it around your house.
You know, do whatever you want to do.
You can get the ugly sweater Ho Ho Drogo.
You can get a shirt with just the Ho Ho Drogo.
You can get a hoodie,
you can get a mug,
you can get all that stuff,
but it is literally only days away
from being done.
So if you want it, link in the description.
I hope that you get some.
I think it's pretty awesome.
Well, good news so far.
24 hours in,
and we don't have any leaks
on Salt and Pepper.
You can see because we drained it,
cleaned the filters.
It's going through a bacterial plume,
real cloudy water.
That'll clear up in a couple of days,
but so far,
no dampness.
Now I will say that last time,
it took about a day and a half
before it started getting wet again.
So I don't have a,
I don't have a definitive answer yet.
I will say things are looking good
at the moment.
I don't see any dampness.
Boy, I tell you what,
if Lori got this one and did it right
I will be so happy.
Came into the kind of lunch area,
break area, birthday party room,
whatever you want to call it.
Found a box full of
little outfits
that I'm not sure
exactly what's going on here with this one.
I have a feeling
that Jay had something to do with this.
So, I'll have to find out what the story is.
I have a feeling you guys
might be seeing some cute pictures
of reptiles in some Christmas clothing.
I don't know.
That might be this one.
(suspenseful music)
(upbeat music)
I was actually going to wait a couple of days
before I finished this out,
but I just decided to jump on it.
So I've kind of rocked this whole thing out.
I gotta do some foaming right now.
And then Lori can come back
and actually do all of the touch-up work.
Is he eating?
- He's done. He did.
He ate a few carrots.
- Drogo, did you get some food?
You silly monkey, you.
He's wondering what I'm doing in here.
He's like, Oh my gosh,
what are you doing?
So all, I need to again,
I just have to foam things up,
flap this around and finish this out.
This'll be all done.
And then you can come back
and do all the touch work.
- Yay. [Brian Barczyk] You've got
a lot to do, yay!
But Drogo will be happy.
Right, buddy?
(upbeat music)
Alright, So I noticed something.
I was just kind of walking through
and I was like, what is going on?
So I'm gonna tell you what's goin' on.
Noah, what are you doin' over here?
- I'm the main animal keeper here at the Reptarium.
- [Brian Barczyk] You steppin' up
to the head keeper role?
- Yeah, you know how it is.
- [Brian Barczyk] (laughs)
- Somebody slacks off,
Someone's got to pick up the work.
No, I'm just joking.
- No, actually, Bruce isn't here today.
And it was funny because a lot of work
just needed to get done.
And just out of nowhere,
I see Noah just stepping up.
So thank you, Noah!
I appreciate it.
- You're welcome.
I've gotta take care
of my Argemus over here.
- [Brian Barczyk] Yeah, Argemus.
How's he doin'?
Doin' all right?
By the way, Argemus turned into a female,
by the way.
- I know!
It's Mrs. Argemus!
- It's Mrs. Argemus prime now.
That's what happened was,
she started laying infertile eggs.
We didn't know.
We were like,
what are these eggs in here?
So Argemus is now a girl.
So there you go.
- It's crazy. - [Brian Barczyk] Now we've
got to get a male so we can breed it.
- Maybe, I don't even know.
I don't know what to think about that, honestly.
- Why? let's breed 'em.
That'd be fun.
- Well, where are we going to put all the babies?
- We're gonna keep 'em all.
We'll just keep raising them up.
It's just, yeah.
You sound like your mom.
Stop talk,
It's like when we produce anacondas.
we're going to raise all 25 up.
- Yeah, that's gonna be crazy.
- [Brian Barczyk] (laughs) You filming stuff
for your vlog today?
- If anything happens.
- All right, well,
keep an eye out for that
over in his channel.
I do so much on Aries and Ivy.
I know so many people
have asked about Verde.
What's going on with Verde, Verde, Verde?
I love Verde
and she is ready for a feed.
You ready to go little girl?
Come on little munchkin.
Come on, baby.
Yeah, she's ready to rock and roll.
There she goes.
Look at how amazing that animal is.
Again, you know,
I keep saying that they grow really slow
in the beginning.
You know, she eats like crazy
and she just doesn't have
a lot of size on her.
But when she does get to five, six foot,
that's when she's gonna explode.
And she is a female,
so she's gonna be able
to get as big as Ivy one day.
But she definitely has a long way to go.
But trust me guys,
I still love her to death.
So sorry I don't show her more
'cause I know a lot of you guys
from earlier in the vlog
have loved Verde forever.
And I just want to let you know
she's doing great.
And we still love her a lot, too.
(upbeat music)
I think we found the culprit.
What, what,
what are you doing here?
- We've got to dress some stuff up
for Christmas.
- [Brian Barczyk] Yeah?
Is that the idea?
(water running) To dress our animals
up for Christmas time?
Who's going with this? Drogo?
- Taz.
- [Brian Barczyk] Taz?
- Yeah.
- [Brian Barczyk] Oh, okay.
- No, we're gonna put this one on Drogo.
- [Brian Barczyk] Get outta here. Are you really?
- Well, we're gonna try.
- Oh my God. Don't do it.
You're gonna get killed.
- No, he loves me.
- Yeah. He does love him.
He does love him.
There's no doubt about it.
Okay, so where are we going
to find these two pictures?
- On Instagram, Facebook.
- [Brian Barczyk] On BHB, or?
- Of course, on BHB and the Reptarium.
- All right, BHB, Reptarium,
cute pictures,
and now we know who's responsible.
I'm still giddy over those
albino red band-eds, oh my gosh.
It's so cool to have such rare snakes
and it's, I love 'em.
They are super cool and super unique.
That's the thing I like about 'em
is I really haven't seen
snakes that look like that, right?
Again, they get that like shield nose look,
but regardless, if you enjoyed this,
here's an entire playlist
of me unboxing a bunch of stuff.
I hope that you can click through that.
It helps me out a lot.
Up here, you can subscribe to my podcast channel,
called "Checking in".
Do it three times a week.
On this side,
I sure hope that you're subscribed
to this channel.
If not, hit that subscription button,
turn your post notifications to all,
have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember, be kind to someone
and I promise I'll see you tomorrow.