- Hey, good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is amazing.
It's a pretty special day today because I have a cool person
coming in from Florida to hang out with us.
And this person happens to be an amazing reptile keeper
and also a venomous snake keeper.
His name is Will Nace and he does a little free handling
with venomous snakes too.
Pretty cool videos and we have a few venomous snakes
of Bruce's here that we're going
to get a chance to play with.
And we're going to talk to Will about kind of
his philosophy behind what he's doing.
Now, I'm going to be honest with you before he gets here
I want to express the fact that you know,
I don't encourage people to free handle snakes
unless you're really, really good at it.
And I think sometimes people will say like if you free
handle snakes that you're encouraging other people
to do things that could potentially get them hurt.
I personally don't subscribe to
that type of a philosophy right?
Whether you're a skateboarder like Tony Hawk
you're a sky diver, you're a professional motocross person,
I mean you do influence people right?
Tony Hawk influenced a generation
to do crazy stuff on skateboards.
Yeah, did some of those people get hurt?
Maybe the possibility, but the fact is
is that just because somebody does something kind of crazy
it doesn't mean that other people should follow suit right?
So I think you have to be smart about that.
You know, I personally don't think if Will or Chandler
or Tyler or any of those guys are free handling snakes
it encourages teenagers to go out and free handle snakes.
And if they do then that's really an issue with them
that they shouldn't have had.
That's just my personal opinion.
I know it's a controversial one.
I don't personally free handle the venomous snakes
because I don't want that responsibility.
And I don't want to take the chance with my life.
But that being said, if you have the utmost confidence
in yourself, like guys like Will, Chandler and Tyler do,
I don't necessarily have a problem with that.
We're going to talk more about that when Will gets here.
We're going to see some venomous snakes today and just get
the philosophy behind what he's thinking about as well as
just show him around the reptarium.
So what do you say we push our problems aside
next 15 minutes because it's about to get dangerous.
(water gushing)
Before Will gets here I just wanted you to know that one of
the things I'm really excited about is like picking
his brain you know.
People that can have the relationship with an animal,
whether it's a crocodilian or a venomous snake
and have the confidence,
I want to understand what that is right?
Because I have that confidence with almost everything.
Will I free handle venomous snakes?
I don't think I ever will.
Do I have the confidence to?
Probably, but I really want to get into Will's brain
and understand it.
And I realize that it's a little controversial
so hang on guys, don't get crazy on me here.
It's going to be a really good time and I can't wait
to just hang out with Will,
cause he seems like an amazing guy.
So we're going to be able to get into someone's mind
that deals with cobras and rattlesnakes
and all kinds of stuff on a level that most people don't.
All right so Will Nace is in the house.
Thank you so much for coming first off.
I'm going to put all the links
in the description to all his stuff.
Go show him some love when you go there
tell him that I sent you please
and you're going to love his content.
That's why he's here.
I love his content.
By the way, we're doing a podcast.
So that's going to be really dope as well.
I have some venomous snakes because you're,
I would say you're a venomous snake expert.
I don't know if you say you're a venomous snake expert
but I think you are because you're very good at it.
I know I get weird when people call me an expert
about anything so I don't want to insult you.
But the fact is, is that I love the fact that we have
someone that is very in tune with venomous snakes,
and we're going to get a chance to kind of learn
what you know so want to start with a Monocled Cobra?
- Sounds good.
- All right, this girl is named Jasmine
and we could take her, take a look at her
and see what she's got going on here.
And so how long have you been working with venomous snakes?
- Professionally about 10 years now.
- About 10 years.
And then, but you work with a lot of different animals,
not just venomous snakes.
You work with and even mammals and stuff like that.
- Yeah.
- So, so, you know, it's kinda cool.
I love Florida people because they seem to always
be really well-versed and everything.
- Yeah, I grew up around a lot of it.
- Yeah, we grow up around a lot, but yeah.
So let's take a look at this girl real quick.
Like I said, she's usually really well-behaved and again
I love to just see how people handle stuff
(cobra hisses)
because again yeah, she's a little snotty for a second there
but she oh she is going to hood up for us.
She normally doesn't even hood for us, so she's pretty good
but she's a really well-behaved animal but seeing people
that mess with these animals all the time
and just the calmness right?
Cause that's what it's about, isn't it?
Like being calm, reading the animal
and look at how beautiful she is ha?
Do you have these?
- Um, I have Monocled Cobras.
I do not have Leucistic Monocled Cobras.
I did have one, but she passed away unfortunately
about a year ago now.
- Okay, okay.
- Um, she was a good size
- And again you can just see that,
(host chuckles)
that crazy confidence that Will has with a snake like this,
just padding around the head and stuff like that.
And you don't listen, like I had mentioned at the beginning
of this vlog, I have zero problem with people that are going
to free handle the venomous snakes when
they have the expertise to do it.
I mean, when did you feel confident that you could literally
free handle something like this?
- With different animals, there's a different level of it
I guess you could say cobras are relatively some
of the easiest stuff to handle.
- Very predictable.
- Uh, rattlesnakes on the other hand, like I,
I focus mostly on rattlesnakes cause a lot of people
absolutely hate rattlesnakes
and I like to change people's ideas on that.
- Yeah.
- Uh, so like all my rattlesnakes I can pretty much
free handle all of them.
- Wow.
- But I've also worked with a lot of them from many years.
- Right.
- So-
- So you know them as a personality, yeah.
- Yeah, so like I have an Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake.
He's my favorite.
I've had him for two years now.
I had him right after he got born.
Um, I mean I can literally like have him just sit on my lap,
crawl on my arm, he'll just charm you, he's a sweetheart.
- Oh my God.
- Yeah
- And that's why, listen, I, I feel more comfortable
with Elapids because they seem to be more predictable.
Those pit Vipers, to me, that's,
(host guffaws)
that's a different level man.
- It's a different level-
- Because they don't seem to have that again.
When you get a monocle Cobra like this
if you can, you can tell exactly what it's going to do.
Like you said here, you're kind of manipulating it
hoping it does what you want it to do.
And it's easy to read but Pit Vipers on the other hand,
they just seem to be springy.
- They are.
They're very springy.
You never know what exactly they're going to do.
- But I love the comfort dude.
It is so awesome to see someone so comfortable
with a snake like this.
I mean, this is what I mean guys I just, I'm brimming
with like happiness right now because I love seeing people
that are super competent in what they do.
And again, you're all about changing people's perceptions.
- Yeah, I fell in love with animals because I love educating
people on animals that they fear and snakes are one
people absolutely fear especially venomous snakes.
- That's amazing.
Now I know I saw you handling your King the other day.
It seems like a little bit of a pistol, huh?
- He, yeah he was, I kind of bought him as a rescue.
I named him Anubis.
He, well, I do have two.
I have a baby Malaysian King and then
I have the bigger one who is an Indo King.
He was imported at some point I think last year.
And he was at the importer's house
and wasn't getting the best care.
So he became available to buy and I saw pictures of him
and I was like, you know what, let me just get him.
So I got him and he was in worse condition than I thought.
- Wow.
- So it was a struggle getting him to eat cause he would
only eat stuff native to Indo and-
- And he finally ate a Burmese python?
- Yeah, he finally ate a Burm for me last week,
which was amazing.
I was so thrilled on that.
So he's doing a lot better.
He's gained a lot of his weight back.
He had almost no sheath to him when I first got him.
Whop!
- Come on silly
- You're staying in the bucket
- She's such a gorgeous snake though, you know?
I mean just beautiful.
So he's doing good?
- Yeah, he's doing a lot better.
That's the thing, when you feed a King Cobra a snake,
it's not one pile,
(Will laughs)
(host chuckles)
it's not two piles, it's everywhere!
- It's like when I feed Ivy a giant pig, you know
she's going to poop every day for about five or six days.
- Yeah.
- So one day , Bruce and I have talked about it,
we're definitely going to have a King one day.
That's like the pinnacle.
And because Lori won't let me keep them, they're going to be
kept over at Bruce's house
(Will chuckles)
but I can go play with it.
- Get a baby cause then you can raise it up,
you learn that animal I mean, that's, I love getting
baby snakes cause then you raise them up and you get
to enjoy them their entire life so big difference.
- That's what we'll do, that's cool.
All right onto the next.
And now we're going to move on to your forte
which of course is rattlesnakes.
This is actually what he calls Burt Reynolds,
Bruce's timber rattlesnake.
He said you guys don't get them the black ones down there.
- No, no, no.
That's definitely a more of a Northern thing.
- Exactly, so you're going to love this animal.
Trust me, it is gorgeous.
Got a ton of buttons on it.
Just absolutely, yeah.
It's really beautiful, isn't it?
- Wow.
Yeah that's uh - my, I have two females at home.
I have one she's beautiful pink colors.
And then I have another one that's more of like
just those many shades of browns.
I definitely have no blacks.
- Look at that.
(host sighs)
I tell you every time he brings this one in, I just go crazy
because what a gorgeous animal!
And again, this one is a really pretty chill animal.
I mean it's very, very cool.
- And not even rattling right now.
- They are unbelievable.
- Yeah, people, when people come into my house
and they come into my big snake room they're like, wow you
have a room full of rattlesnakes and not one is rattling.
- Every now and then I'll hear it like something
maybe I'll bump something and I'll hear
a rattle in your video or something.
- And it's usually my Western Diamondback.
- Is it the Western?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, yeah Atrox are known for that, right?
They're little monsters, but it's beautiful, isn't it?
And again, just the, you know, when you're, you're messing
whether you're using a hooker or like Will is
now kind of free handling in a sense,
it's all about reading the animal.
It's all about the comfort zone
of where you're at and actually going through.
And again, you can tell that that animal is really chill
and that, that's amazing.
I'll tell you what dude, it gives me chills to see it just
because I know the amount of hours that has went
in for you reading an animal like that is ridiculous.
And I know Bruce is over here-
(group chattering)
- I told you he's super chill.
- He is a pretty chill rattlesnake which, you know,
I'm not one on big doing stuff with snakes I don't know.
- Right.
- But I know he also knows a lot about venomous snake
so I definitely trust him when he says
you know, he's a relatively chill snake.
- But again, you're never cow boying it up.
That's the thing I like about you.
You're not a cowboy.
You're you know, always well within your comfort zone,
which I think is so important.
And again, guys, we are never, I know, Will is the same
as me, we aren't asking you or telling you that you should
do stuff like this.
If you one day aspire to do it and you have the experience
and knowledge and stuff like that, then you know
you have to make that own decision for yourself.
But we don't want a 16 year old kid going out
and emulating what Will's 10 plus years of professionally
doing this and who knows how many years of doing it
as a hobby before he got this?
I mean, each year thousands and thousands of hours.
- My sister got her venomous permit when I was like six
or seven-
- Oh my God - So immediately
I was triggered.
(Will laughs)
That was my turning point.
- Is that crazy or what?
Think about that.
Six years old, he's messing with this stuff.
So listen guys again yeah, we're not condoning anything
but we want you guys to understand that when you put
the amount of hours and energy and just the knowledge
and just expertise into it,
it's amazing what you can do with these animals.
And I find it absolutely beautiful.
- But you did bring one more for me, right?
- Yep. There's one more.
- Is it the biggest one?
- No, it's not actually that big
but it is, of course we do have one more animal
we're going to show Will and again,
keep showing him some love down in the comments,
as well as over on his channel please.
He's a wonderful human being so please
go show him some love.
And finally this is one of my favorite animals
in the whole world.
If I was going to keep venomous snakes,
I'd keep two venomous snake, King Cobras and this one
so why don't we take a look and see what we got?
And she's not a big girl at all but she's a nice one.
- The way he did the tote threw me off.
- Yeah. Yeah.
(host chuckles)
Bruce brought the biggest tote that he possibly could
to bring this here but of course
this is a beautiful Gaboon Viper, unbelievable.
Look at the head on that thing.
(host exclaims)
Gosh, look at that beautiful animal huh?
I mean there's just something those guys
that just kills me every time I see them.
- This is a Congo Gaboon actually.
- So yeah, there's East and West, right?
- Yeah.
- Yep, so yeah.
- The Congos have the actual silver
and the gray on their back.
- Nice.
- Same thing as the Rhino Vipers too.
- Right, exactly, well, it's a beautiful animal.
I mean they're super cool of course,
biggest fangs in the world though.
You don't want to get bit by that, that monkey.
(host chuckles)
Did you ever see that footage when Robbie Kesey got bit?
- No, I don't think I did.
- Yeah, oh my gosh, this is crazy.
He was like tubing or he was, he necked it
and it pushed its fangs through-
- Oh through his head, yeah I've heard of that
- And just, it got him, but thankfully it was a dry bite.
So I mean talk about, and it was all on film.
They were filming it for Nat Geo.
- Oh man, I've heard of people who got bit
and the fangs went directly through the hand and they'd get
venomated but then when they pulled the fang back out
there was venom on it so that's how they die and they got it
like on this side versus getting on this side.
- Oh my gosh, yeah, so, but they're just amazing animals.
I mean again, pretty springy so you gotta be careful.
(hot laughs)
There's no doubt about that.
- Yeah, I mean, I have at home of a big female.
Her name's Lori Patterson.
She was a tiny little deaf Burm and I very, very
very rarely will free him just because these
guys are so fast that it's not something you want to risk.
- Yeah, you can't read them quick enough
- Yeah, they're very temperamental.
So like they could be fine one minute but then
the next minute want nothing to do with you, so yeah, that-
- And that's a perfect example right there.
I'm glad that you said that because it's not
like you're just free handling everything.
You know what you can do, what you can't do.
What's dangerous, what's not dangerous.
I mean, it's all dangerous, but you know, you know when
hey, even at his skill level he's not going to cowboy
something that is potentially can't really be read
quickly enough because these guys have one of
the fastest strikes on the planet, right along
with Death Adders and Puff Adders
and all that type of stuff so you definitely don't
want to mess with that but-
- Even feeding them still, you still, you
you get hit by it and you're like, oh man, you still-
- And they hit hard.
- Oh yeah, oh yeah.
- They hit hard.
Yeah, so they're amazing.
So but this is awesome man.
Again, I hope that you guys took a lot out of this as well.
Just, you know, just having the knowledge and being
around someone that's so comfortable is absolutely amazing.
We're going to have a ton of fun.
He's going to be filming a bunch of stuff on his channel
so definitely go check that out.
You'll see his perspective of what's going on here.
So have a good time with that.
So yeah, I tell you what, Will thank you so much brother.
- You're welcome.
- It's been amazing.
So there it is guys.
I hope that you enjoyed this.
I certainly did.
Will is amazing with snakes
and I want you to definitely go show him some love.
If you enjoyed this video, do me a favor.
Check out this playlist
of all kinds of crazy reptiles that I've handled.
Up here can you do me a favor in this corner?
Can you subscribe to my podcast channel
called "Checking In".
Over here I hope that you're subscribed to this channel.
If you're not please hit that subscribe button,
turn all your posts notifications on
and have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember, be kind to someone and I promise,
I'll see you tomorrow.