- Happy Thanksgiving, everybody, and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is amazing,
and that you're having the best Thanksgiving
in these rather unusual times.
You know, for the last three years,
I have tried to feed a turkey to, first, Lucy.
She didn't want it.
Then I tried to feed her a really large pig.
She didn't want it for Thanksgiving.
And it's been kind of a bummer, right?
I've always wanted to feed a turkey off
for Thanksgiving to a snake.
Well, guess what.
This year is a little bit different
because we have a snake that's named Ivy, right there,
the big anaconda that loves to eat big meals.
So, guess what.
I procured a frozen turkey,
and we're gonna go ahead and give her a shot,
and see if, year three, we finally get a turkey fed off
as a feast for Thanksgiving.
I'm gonna go around and cut up some turkey,
and feed all the other animals too,
but we're gonna start with Ivy.
(chuckling) And we have giant turkey here.
So, I'm gonna go in with Ivy,
and let's see what she's gonna do.
Hoo, I tell you what, this is heavy.
Ivy, guess what.
This is the first time she's ever eaten a bird.
Now, anacondas eat birds a lot.
So it's actually very good for them.
So let's just go ahead and see what she thinks.
Come on, girl, you wanna try to eat this?
Come on, girl.
Come on, come on. There you go.
Oh my gosh, she crushed it!
Hoo, I tell you what,
I think as soon she got that smell of that bird,
like I said, anacondas, a large part of their diet
in the wild is gonna be poultry.
So as soon as she smelled that, she was like, "I am on it!"
She just grabbed that turkey.
She is looking like she's gonna crush it.
This is a big meal, but again, you gotta remember,
poultry isn't as big as, say, a pig, right?
We fed her a 20-plus-pound pig.
This is only a 17-pound turkey.
Still a giant turkey, still a lot here,
but also, those ribs collapse a lot better
out of these guys.
So, hoo doggy!
Now the question is, is she gonna eat it on land,
she gonna drag it into the water?
Happy Thanksgiving, Ivy!
Oh my God, finally, are we gonna finally get
a turkey-fed snake for Thanksgiving?
I think we are, guys. So that is absolutely exciting.
I know I'm thankful for this amazing snake.
(smooth upbeat music)
And Ivy's not the only one
that's gonna be feasting for Thanksgiving,
so I bought a whole turkey that I'm gonna cut up,
and we're gonna feed RJ, we're gonna feed Elvis,
Toothless, a bunch of other things,
because, hey, like I said, it's the Thanksgiving.
I'm thankful to be able to be with these animals
every single day.
I'm thankful for you guys joining me on this adventure.
So what do you say we carve up a turkey
for my animalian family? (chuckling)
And go ahead and just have some fun
while Ivy is checking out her big turkey.
(smooth upbeat music)
So, Elvis loves Thanksgiving.
Come here, bud. Over here, over here.
Because I always give him turkey necks,
and turkey necks are really good for him.
Not only does he love it,
you could see that he just gobbles 'em up like crazy.
But on top of that, it's really good for him, right?
Because there's a lot of bone cartilage in there,
and that's actually really good for these guys.
So, I'm just gonna have him come over a little bit.
Come on, Elvis, here.
There you go, bud. There you go.
And again, we try to vary the diet a lot.
We do beef, we do steak, we do rodents,
we do lots of different things.
And so, these neck parts are actually really good for him.
I'll probably feed him a little bit of turkey meat as well,
but that neck meat is gonna be really good
for building calcium and stuff like that.
So, every year, he gets a little treat this time.
So, I know he's thankful as well for Thanksgiving.
(smooth upbeat music)
Elvis did absolutely amazing, but look who else is like,
"Hey, can I have a little bit of Thanksgiving?"
So, we'll go ahead and get Ubusuku out,
and give her a little treat as well.
(smooth upbeat music)
Next up is Ubusuku, she looks like she's definitely ready.
Come on, girl, come on. There you go.
(chuckles) And interestingly enough,
she's a much more dainty eater.
Ooh, she is really on fire today, though.
She sees that ball and she is ready to go.
Happy Thanksgiving, girl.
(chuckling) There you go.
Typically, she's a much slower eater than Elvis.
Today, she is just on fire, which is really funny.
I mean, again, it's very unusual
for us to see her so animated like this.
(laughs)
She's acting like we haven't fed her in like a month.
Trust me, these guys get fed a lot.
But, again, maybe she's just festive,
if you know what I mean.
And trust me, guys, I love Thanksgiving
because it is a time that we can just be thankful
for what we have.
And I realize that this year,
it's a little bit of a different year, right?
I mean, some of our families aren't gonna be able
to get together and stuff like that,
but we can still be thankful for what we have,
and thankful for the fact that next year,
we're gonna celebrate twice as hard, right?
So, I get to spend a lot of time today
with my animals for Thanksgiving,
and my immediate family will be great as well.
So, I just want you guys
to have the best day you possibly can,
and be grateful for whatever we have,
because we do have a lot to be thankful for,
like my girl, Ubusuku.
Remember, guys, tonight at midnight,
the BHB Black Friday sale starts.
That's right, 24 hours, starting at midnight,
ending at midnight.
So if you guys are interested, go to BHBReptiles.com.
Everything on the site is gonna be on sale.
Every single animal will be on sale.
So definitely check it out.
It's our 12th annual, it's gonna be a banger.
So, again, BHBReptiles.com,
starting tonight at 12 o'clock, midnight.
So I've been looking after Ivy here
for the last probably hour, hour and a half,
and she continues to kinda search around, and interested,
but every time she starts to go, she let's go.
I'm not sure exactly what's gonna happen.
Is this gonna be the third Thanksgiving in a row
that we fail feeding a turkey off?
I'm not sure what's gonna happen,
but I haven't given up hope
'cause she is still looking around,
she still does seem interested,
and she's done this before with the big pig.
I think the fact that she's never had a big bird before,
she's a little bit confused.
So, she did drag it in the water, which is kinda good news
'cause that's usually where eats big meals.
So, I'm not giving up yet, but I definitely am bummed.
I thought this was gonna go a lot smoother.
Ah, look at her. She's absolutely incredible.
There you go, baby.
Get on some heat,
and digest that nice belly of Thanksgiving dinner.
We still have a few more animals we're gonna feed.
We'll go ahead and feed Toothless next.
Of course, that thing is becoming one of my favorite lizards
of all time because he is so amazing.
Toothless, come on bud. Come on.
Come on, all the way up, all the way up,
all the way up, all the way up, come on.
There ya go, bud.
(chuckles) He doesn't wanna come up my leg today.
He's got his food down here,
and he's just kinda crushing it.
That's okay, we'll get him down here. No problem at all.
You ready, Toothless? What some more?
There ya go. There ya go, buddy.
And when they get to a certain size,
and Toothless is finally at that size,
where they just really turn onto food.
As you can see, he is just food-motivated now.
And this is when he's gonna really start
growing a lot as well.
I mean, over the next six months or so,
he's really gonna come on,
and become a really much larger animal.
And I think that probably within a year or so,
he's gonna probably be a good four foot long.
So, he is just really amazing.
It's just such a kindhearted animal.
For those of you guys don't know,
this came from Kevin over at N.E.R.D.,
and believe it or not,
when he had the egg, he put my name on the egg.
So when Toothless hatched,
it literally was my animal right from in the egg.
And then Kevin started bonding with it,
and we picked it up when it was about a week old.
So, we've had Toothless since it was a little tiny baby.
And that's why you can feed him like that,
and still just pick him up like this,
like he's absolutely got no fear of people.
He's unbelievably docile,
and definitely an animal I'm super thankful to have.
And again, he's gonna be around for a long time.
These guys will live 30 to 40 years,
and he's only a little over a year old.
So he is absolutely incredible,
and he's gonna be a great animal ambassador
here at The Reptarium, again, for a long time.
And as he gets bigger, like 5 1/2, six foot,
it's gonna be a pretty impressive animal.
It's been a handful of years, probably about nine years,
that I've been giving RJ special gifts for Thanksgiving.
And of course, those gifts are turkey legs.
Ready, Arj? You ready?
Come on. There ya go, buddy.
Hoo-hoo, tell you what, each year I give him one,
he gets a little bit bigger, and listen real quick.
(water splashing)
I tell you what, you definitely don't want to get bit
by something like that, but it's awesome.
So we'll give him a handful of things.
He's gonna be really excited.
He, again, for the last nine, 10 years,
Thanksgiving has always been special for RJ,
'cause I always give him a little turkey treat.
But what an absolute wonderful animal.
And I've talked about when we do our next expansion,
RJ will be on display all the time,
and we're gonna go ahead and let people feed him.
Come on, bud.
(water splashing)
There ya go. There ya go.
You missed it. He missed it.
Come here, bud. There ya go.
(water splashing)
(chuckles) Having a big pet alligator
is pretty frickin' awesome.
I love when they arch their back like that,
their tail comes out of the water, their head,
they just do that arch.
It's just, ah, I love alligators.
I love crocodilians. They're so awesome.
You want more?
Come on. Come on.
Up, up, up, up, up, up. There ya go.
There ya go, buddy.
(water splashing)
It's, I know it's a weird Thanksgiving,
like I had mentioned, and it'll be the first Thanksgiving
in, (sighs) I think my whole life
that I haven't seen my mom on Thanksgiving.
But we have to play it safe,
and I know I won't see some of my other family as well.
But, nevertheless, I'm still thankful for so much,
and I hope that you guys will be thankful for things.
Remember, things are gonna get better.
Next year is gonna be a bash on Thanksgiving
for us here in America.
For the rest of those around the world,
I wish you a thankful day as well.
So, it's just amazing to be here.
And I'm definitely glowing,
just being around these amazing animals.
I tell you what, guys, this is like deja vu.
We're on hour three,
and she still has coiled it, she still is interested.
She goes around and looks at it and stuff like that,
but then, eventually,
she's just sitting there, doing nothing.
So, (sighs) (chuckling) I tell ya, I don't know what.
We're having a great time
feeding everything else Thanksgiving dinner,
but I keep thinking it's amazing, just one time,
I want a snake to eat a turkey for Thanksgiving.
It hasn't happened yet.
Hour three, we're not giving up.
Until she gets away from this, I'm gonna believe in this,
but it is definitely going down the path
like we have in the past.
Every year I try to feed Rico the Cribo some turkey as well.
This year, he seems to have taken a little turkey wing.
So let's see if he does it.
Half the time he seems to spit it out,
half the time he takes it down.
But today he seems pretty motivated to take this down.
Again, he's a blacktail cribo.
I'm not gonna lie. He's about 18 to 20 years old now.
So, he's starting to get to that point
where I'm starting to see age catch up to him a little bit.
Getting a little bit more thin in the end.
He's eating a lot, but not gaining weight,
which is a bummer,
'cause Rico has just been such an amazing animal
for so long.
But this year, hopefully, he will father a clutch
with Maya, of course.
In the meantime, look at him.
He's gonna crush this turkey wing.
Absolutely incredible to see a snake
eat a piece of turkey like this, (chuckling) a turkey wing.
I mean, how awesome is that? He loves it.
(smooth upbeat music)
All right, guys, this is crazy.
Literally, Ivy ripped a wing off,
and Ashley just ate the wing of the turkey.
You can see, I mean, it is gonna be such a mess
to try to clean (chuckling) this whole enclosure up.
It is disgusting.
It's gonna be, tomorrow's gonna be a lot of work,
but she literally ripped the wing off, and ate the wing.
I have no idea what's coming up next.
I don't know if she's gonna try to eat this whole thing.
I think I'm gonna hang out here for a while longer.
If she doesn't, I'm just gonna leave it.
Tomorrow, either way, I'm coming into a mess.
So I'm either gonna come in to her have eaten it,
or it's gonna be the stinkiest thing I've ever seen.
Anyways, we'll keep on seeing what she does.
But, unbelievably, she ripped the wing off,
and ate that thing.
You know I'm not gonna forget Salt and Pepper, of course.
Come on, girl.
(smacks lips)
There you go, sweetheart.
(smacks lips)
There you go.
Pepper's up now. Pepper!
(smacks lips) (taps stick)
Come on, Pepper. Salt'll come back for more.
(smacks lips)
There you go, girl.
For some reason, Pepper doesn't seem interested,
but Salty is eating like a monster!
(smacks lips)
There you go, girl.
(chuckles) Well, Pepper didn't like
Thanksgiving dinner today, but Salt certainly did.
Going in with the beast. Of course, Baby Kush.
This is the first Thanksgiving that we've had Baby Kush.
So, I'm gonna give it some food,
but it's always a little perilous.
I'm not gonna lie. It's a little bit of a spooky animal.
But look it, it's already like, "I know I'm getting fed!"
Let's go ahead and go inside and see what we can do.
Uh-oh. Take it, take it.
Whoa, whoo! I tell you what, man.
(smooth upbeat music)
And there it is, Baby Kush's first Thanksgiving with us,
the first Thanksgiving dinner.
Definitely a little intimidating. Doing really well.
It's definitely, you can see it
queuing off that ball extremely well,
but I still am a little bit cautious about this animal,
because at any time it could jump at you.
It's very athletic,
and we're trying to make sure that that doesn't happen.
So I'm gonna just slowly, gently kinda walk away.
Good job, Baby Kush. You did good.
Happy Thanksgiving, bud.
Tell you what, one of the coolest animals that I own.
There's no doubt about that.
It's exhilarating because you realize that it's so smart,
it's so athletic, that it could just jump,
and it's, the bite is so painful, and such penalty
because it's gonna rip you open.
It's got razorblades for teeth,
but we're getting it tamed down.
You can see, as long as we can get that ball training down,
we can slowly kinda socialize it.
And, again, I keep saying we're gonna get it really tame.
I promise you, I will do that. I have no doubt about that.
So it is now nighttime.
I gave her this turkey about 11 hours ago.
She, again, ripped the wing off,
but she's done nothing more.
So I am gonna leave her. It is gonna be a disaster.
Tomorrow, gonna have a lot of cleanup to do,
but hopefully, she will have a big lump in her,
and the cleanup will be much better.
So, instead of ending the video today on Thanksgiving,
I'm gonna end the video tomorrow, to see what Ivy did.
What do you say we check on her in the morning?
(snaps fingers)
And guess what, people.
That's right, came in in the morning,
and Ivy crushed the turkey, so, success!
We finally have a snake that ate a turkey on Thanksgiving.
The unfortunate part is, number one,
we didn't catch it on film 'cause she ate it overnight.
The other part is, look at how disgusting this water is.
There's feathers everywhere, it's goopy.
It's, actually, it's disgusting.
And now, I have to go ahead and get in there
and clean this up, but that's okay,
because I am just happy that she ate.
(chuckling) How incredible is that?
I hope that you guys have an amazing Thanksgiving.
Remember, tonight at midnight,
there's the BHB Black Friday sale, BHBReptiles.com.
I hope that you have an absolutely wonderful holiday.
I know that this certainly made it a lot better for me.
(chuckling) So that's awesome.
If you enjoyed this video,
actually, here's an entire playlist of snakes feeding,
if you so choose to watch that.
Right up here, you can subscribe to my podcast channel.
Please do that.
Over here, I hope that you're subscribed
to this vlog channel.
If not, hit that subscribe button,
turn all post notifications on.
Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember, be kind to someone,
and I promise, I'll see ya tomorrow.