- Come, come, come on.
There you go, girl.
Woo, I tell ya.
I love starting the day feeding my alligators.
They are absolutely incredible.
There you go, there you go, Pepper.
Come on, Salty, come on.
There you go.
And they are getting big.
I tell you what.
It's kinda crazy to see how big they're getting.
Come on.
There you go, girl.
All right, come on, Pepper.
We'll get Salt over here.
Come on, Salt, up here.
(indistinct) girl.
Come on.
There you go.
Come on, up, come on, Salty.
I'll tell you what, these are amazing,
and you remember when we actually moved this enclosure in?
I tell you what, come on, one more, girl.
There you go, sweetheart.
All right, we'll give one more to Pepper over here.
There we go, and when we moved this enclosure in,
remember this place was completely empty
and this was the first enclosure that we wanted to have set.
So it was crazy to think that, believe it or not,
one year ago today is when we opened up at the reptarium,
not when we moved this enclosure in, but one year ago today
is when we actually opened up.
How crazy is that?
And look at how big these guys have gotten in that year.
What amazing animals.
Oh, and by the way, welcome to the log.
I hope the start of your day is amazing.
Two people outside, moving the braces
to center them in the middle.
We're going to move back my way two inches
towards the alligator tank.
No, okay, (indistinct).
- Hopefully nobody dies. (laughs)
- Three, two, one, up. - We'll see.
- Now we're way out of whack.
- The amount of strokes I'm having.
(upbeat music) (power tools whirring)
- There's no doubt that this year has affected all of us.
There isn't a person on the planet that hasn't been affected
in the last year, and each of us in our own ways.
Some good has come out of it.
A lot of bad has come out of it obviously,
and you guys know that I personally suffered
pretty heavily with anxiety.
Getting much better now.
Working on it daily,
but there's no doubt that it was a challenging year,
but that light, I promise you, is at the end of the tunnel,
and I certainly remember bringing in
this enclosure right here.
Of course, Ivy and Aries enclosure.
Ivy, what are you doing?
Nope, we're not feeding, we're not feeding.
She initially she thought maybe she was going to get food,
so I've gotta be careful.
She's a little bit into the food mode.
Now she knows there's no food and she submits.
She's a great animal,
but she's thought maybe I was coming in here to feed her.
Girl, you're okay, sweetheart.
I love you so much.
You're such a good girl.
And I had no idea about how amazing this enclosure
was going to be for me and for Ivy.
Remember, when she was her first in here,
she was only about six foot and maybe 40, 45 pounds.
Now, she's over 100 pounds and 11 foot,
and the behavior has been absolutely amazing,
and you guys know that she's my spirit animal.
I spent a lot of time with her.
I love her to death, but I tell you what.
This enclosure was quite the bear to get in
and to get set up.
(upbeat music)
Keep coming, keep coming, down, down.
Everyone good? - Got it.
- Great job, guys.
Good job, guys. (claps)
Pretty cool, that was awesome.
(power tool whirring)
(people chattering)
Anaconda cage is in right here.
We're just working on shimmying.
We have a little bit of issue with it
just lining up perfectly, but we're slowly working it out.
I've got great people working on it.
So it's going to work its way out, I'm sure,
but this is the centerpiece I've been talking about.
It took a few weeks of a lot of hard work to get everything
in here, set up, fixtured out, seamed up and ready to go,
and we had a lot of help, and we appreciate each
and every person that came out to help us out,
but after a few weeks of busting our butt,
we're finally ready to open the doors for the public.
It was Friday the 13th,
and it was ready to get the show started.
People lined up, who were coming from all over the country
to join us for this grand opening of 2.0.
what an absolutely amazing time.
It was packed.
It was crazy.
It was wild.
We had so much fun.
Who could have known that this was the last time
that we were going to have a giant gathering here
at the reptarium, because this is the way we used to party.
(upbeat music)
Now what's going on, Jay? - Boom.
This week on can you guess that shed.
- Oh, no, another shed.
Oh my God.
Is this reptarium shed? - Reptarium shed,
and this week, we're upping the antics.
No more big pieces.
- Oh. - Ready?
- All right, let's go.
Well, this is impossible. - [Jay] No, no, it's not.
I thought you were a professional.
- I am a reptile expert, but it's impossible.
Let me think about it.
- Come on, pops, you got it.
- I'm going to say Tiger Lily.
- What? - Oh my God.
- What, what?
- Was I right? - What?
- What? - How did you do that?
- What? - I don't know.
I looked at the belly scoots.
They remind me of rainbow (indistinct)
- [Jay] Oh my God.
- I still got it. (laughs)
And honestly, the reptarium really has changed forever.
I don't ever see a time where there's going to be hundreds
of people here at the reptarium at the same time,
and that's okay,
because I think it's more an intimate experience for people
that we have 35 or 40 people per hour.
That being said, the second week in September
is going to be our third year anniversary.
Obviously, we had a bash on the first year.
The second year, weren't able to do anything.
Well, hopefully, we'll be back to some sort of normalcy here
by September, and I definitely want to have a big gathering
and I cannot wait to see all your faces
and give you all hugs.
Weirdly enough, this whole crazy event that we've been in
the last year actually helped the reptile hobby as a whole.
When it came to actually people buying animals,
like this beautiful pastel leopard clown ball python,
sales exploded.
BHB had its best year ever,
and all my friends that are doing reptile supplies
or selling snakes have had banger years.
Take a look at this pastel lesser clown ball python.
Again, it's been amazing.
Obviously, people were home,
so they wanted to spend more time with their animals,
which is completely understandable, and of course,
they wanted to get new animals.
This happens to be a spider super stripe,
and what an absolute ripper, and, like I said,
we were sending out animals like crazy,
which was really cool, because again,
it made BHB have an absolutely incredible year.
So again, I try to look at the positive
that came out of the last year,
and try not to dwell too much on the negatives,
'cause I realize there are a ton of negatives.
Don't get me wrong.
Even something like this pastel ivory ball python.
Every single snake that we produce seem to sell
almost as quick as we could get it on the site,
and we really are getting super low on inventory now.
But the good news is, it's egg season,
which means baby season's right around the corner.
What's going on?
- Okay, I gotta show you something crazy.
- Okay. - So last night,
the reptarium was open.
It's going great, and I looked over there
and this little girl was hanging out by Taz's cage,
and then she pulls something out of her pocket,
puts it on the ground.
Come check it out. - What?
What was it?
Oh, it's like those cool stones,
but it looks like a little dinosaur.
- Read the bottom. - Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh, in loving memory of Tazzy.
Oh my God.
I'm literally want to tear off.
Oh my God, that is the cutest thing I've ever seen.
- But there's more. - There's more?
- So then, just this morning, me and Jay, hanging out,
standing by the gators.
You've got to go find it yourself.
- There's another rock over here?
- I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm look...
Oh, here it is.
What have we got?
Juliana, 2021.
Thank you, Juliana, that was so thoughtful of you,
when it came to Tazzy.
You know how much I'm still hurting about that,
so thank you so much, and I hope that you had a great time
at the reptarium.
Where'd she go? - I don't know.
- She's gone. - What the heck?
- Where is she? - Lori?
- Amy? - Lori, are you downstairs?
Lori, you down here? - Gift shop, gift shop.
Her whole life is the gift shop.
- What?
(people chattering)
- What? - Right down here.
- Oh my. - Jesus.
- Where's Lori? - She just walked
in the bathroom. - Are you in there, Lori?
- No. - No.
(group laughing)
- Of course we've got so many new animals
since we opened up the reptarium.
I remember getting Tiana just a few days
before grand opening and she was so crazy, remember?
She hated people, and now, of course,
you can see she's absolutely docile and she loves it.
Definitely cool to have a bunch of new additions,
and certainly some animals are a work in progress,
like my guy, Beetlejuice here, my bells phase lace monitor.
You can see he's curious.
He's definitely coming around,
but it's going to definitely take some more work
before he becomes a real great animal ambassador, but hey,
we're working on it.
You know Potato's been a huge hit,
ever since we opened up reptarium 1.0, and the fact is,
is when we were able to reopen, after being closed,
it wasn't about the money, it wasn't about putting people in
because of a business decision.
It was about the comradery.
It's about the fact that we wanted to share these animals
with people, and it was such a bummer not to be able to.
So certainly, when we opened up,
albeit it to 10 people only, and I'll be honest with you,
it certainly was a bit different.
Got that first thing?
- Ah, no, we've got two more that we're waiting for.
- We've got two more we're waiting for
and then we're good to go.
Okay. - Here we go.
(upbeat music)
Who, doggy, I tell you what.
Daisy is an absolute beauty, there's no doubt about it,
and as things are starting to open up here in Michigan
and hopefully continue to get better and better,
albeit we're only able to get 40 people per hour,
and it's amazing to have all those people
and to see your eyes all full with happiness is amazing,
but I'm not going to lie to you.
I definitely yearn for the times
where I can see those smiling faces again.
(whimsical music)
- Hey, guess what? - You lied, Noah.
- No, I didn't, she was hiding from me.
- No, you did.
She was standing right there.
- Now, where is she gone?
- (laughs) She's in the Clover room.
(door banging)
- [Brian] Lori, why are you trying to run away from us?
Oh, your hair looks pretty.
- (sighs) What do you want?
- I wanted to give you good and bad news.
Which do you want first? The good news or the bad news?
Do you want the good news or the bad news first?
- Can I say neither? - Look at both of us.
- No, it's good or bad news.
- Oh, God, what?
- No, no, you've gotta pick, good or bad?
- They're both going to be bad.
- No, one's good. - No, untrue.
One's really good.
- All right, give me bad. - All right.
Jay took the sloth out and let someone hold it.
- And what's the good?
- He got $100.
- We get $100, 'cause the sloth experience is 150,
so after, you owe me 50.
- I told you, dude. - Damn it.
- I told you. - This didn't work out well.
You guys may remember,
this was actually a snake massage room, so of course,
when we got shut down, this room was empty,
and even once we opened back up,
we didn't feel comfortable with doing snake massages,
so this room, basically sent dormant,
and then someone commented and said,
"Hey, what do you think about turning this
"into a sloth room?"
So guess what?
We ended up doing a lot of renovation in here,
and before you knew it, this was a sloth room,
and we headed down to Florida to get this little monkey,
and then, of course, Drogo has become such a big part
of our life here.
He is so absolutely adorable.
I honestly never thought that I would ever own a sloth,
and I didn't think Lori would ever allow me to own a sloth,
to be honest with you, but now, she loves him to death
as much as anyone, and he is such a cutie.
I tell you what.
This little bugger is an awesome addition to the reptarium,
and I tell you what.
I couldn't be more happier
with how absolutely amazing he is.
Take a look at Aries, just shedding like that.
That's what's so amazing about this place to me,
is that I can see this type of stuff.
I never thought, years ago, that I'd be sitting,
watching an Anaconda shed in a huge enclosure
with a water basin like this.
It's absolutely incredible, so thank you guys so much
for joining me for the last year, where we've been open here
at the reptarium 2.0.
It's been an amazing run.
Been some ups and downs,
but we're going to have great times ahead.
If you enjoyed this video
and you want to see how we built this place,
here's a playlist of us building the reptarium.
You can watch one or two of those videos up here.
You can subscribe to my podcast channel on this side.
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turn your posts notifications on.
Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember, be kind to somebody
and I promise I'll see you tomorrow.