- Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is incredible.
We have a pretty busy day today.
You know we're going to have snake eggs.
We've got all kinds of work to do.
I have to just start my day spending a little time
with my girl Perdita here, because she is
absolutely wonderful, and I tell you, she is missing people.
She needs to be handled a lot more that's for sure.
She is usually spoiled every single day
and she's definitely not getting the attention she
used to so, hopefully with any luck
we'll be open soon enough and we'll talk about
that maybe in the next day or two.
Cause I have some ideas on that, but for now
I'm just gonna spend a little time with
my girl and then get my day started.
Remember the other day we had that spotted python that
laid the eggs where there was a couple see through ones.
This one's a little see through, but look at this one
right here. It's still doing okay and you can start
to see the snake actually coiled in there.
You can see the coils of the snake.
Now, again I don't know if this is gonna make it or not.
I have no idea, but the black dot is it's eye and it's head
and then it's body comes around and swirls
and that's it's tail right there.
I have never seen this in all the years
that I've been doing snake breeding.
So I hope this egg makes it because it's absolutely
gonna be incredible to see it develop, but again I don't
have high hopes because again obviously
something wasn't right why it didn't calcify.
Now this egg here, you can't see the coil
but this one looks like its gonna go full term
because it's mainly calcified, but you can still
see through it a little bit. So I have a feeling
we're gonna at least get a glimpse into it.
But to watch the development of a snake in an egg
like this would be absolutely incredible, if it stays so.
I'll keep you guys updated so far it's been incredible.
(Funky Music)
This is a pretty nice clutch right here
looks like a big clutch of eggs.
I always love when females are kinda piled
onto where they can't even keep the eggs
in there, so many eggs. So I'm assuming this is gonna
be a pretty good clutch. In the male I bred her to
was this little stud right here who's actually a
Banana Fire Spider so we could get
Banana Fire Spinner Blast we can get a whole bunch
of combinations thereof, but he's not a big guy.
Probably only 550 grams first time breeder.
This is his first clutch and it
looks like it's pretty fertile.
Let's see how many eggs it has, like I said
this looks like a huge clutch.
Holy Moly! Can you believe that?
What in the world! I'll tell you what, that looks
more like a Burmese Python clutch then a Ball Python clutch.
I mean my gosh, that is a huge clutch of eggs.
Mama, you did so good! I mean look at her
she definitely looks deflated, we'll get her cleaned up
we'll get her kinda washed up and stuff like that.
Get her ready, hopefully she'll take a rat this week
because I'll tell you what, that looks beat up.
Some females put so much energy into production
that's why they have this many eggs.
Other females don't have that many eggs
and they don't even look like they've laid after an egg.
Wow! This girl, it looks like she laid a lot and she did.
Two, four, six, eight, ten, eleven eggs!
Hoo, hoo, hoo, all right twelve eggs was the record for this
year so far, I think last year we had one clutch
of thirteen eggs. But eleven eggs, that is ridiculous.
(Funky Music)
Ivy is such a trip. Of course I'm filling
up the water right here and you can see
the water pressure going and we've seen her go
underneath the water fall with her head like she
seems to enjoy and she's just sitting there.
I swear to god that's like a snake massage.
Not like a sense like our snake massage but the fact that
the water is messaging her. Again I've never seen a snake
do the things that Ivy does, she's just nuts.
Time for my daily check up when it comes to Nova and Lilith
to see if there's any eggs. I see both of them high up.
Nova is kinda hanging out over here protecting.
Lilith definitely looks like she's still got some marbles.
I don't see any excavating in the nest box so another day
with no frilly eggs. I'm telling you guys any day we're
gonna have eggs I cannot wait, but still
on egg watch with the frilly's.
(Woosh)
I've really been working on this with Speedy.
Speedy! Go this way. Hey Speedy! That way, that way.
Come on, go this way. Speedy, go this way.
Speedy. Go this way. Go. Go this way. Come on.
Turn around, let's go. Let's go, Speedy. Go that way.
Go that way. Speedy, go that way. Come on, let's go.
This way, Speedy go around. Go, this way. Come on, this way.
Let's go, all the way around. Let's go. Let's go.
Walk that way. All right get going, keep going.
(Snaps Fingers)
Get going. Thank you Speedy.
Keep going. Get out of here now.
(Laughs)
We're working on that training where he just follows
your hand and he literally just turns around
and walks the other way so, I don't know.
Behavior of reptiles is awesome and Speedy's been a
little special project for me and I
think its working out pretty well.
(Woosh)
Guess what time it is? Calubrid egg time.
All right this one is a banger of a clutch.
I am super excited about this.
This is a Tessera Corn that's had Versalis so the
Tessera's that cool kinda stripe pattern, I'll show
you in a second and it's bred to a Motley Scales. Wow!
This male has been good. He's fathered a couple
other clutches, they've been really fertile.
So fingers crossed there's some fertile eggs in here.
Cause this is gonna be amazing.
Oh yeah! And you can see that's the Tessera, almost looks
like a Garder Snake type of pattern with those
racing stripes and look! She's actually tied right
through the eggs right here so somehow I've got
to get her to get out cause she's right through the center
of this eggs so I can't get the eggs unless she moves.
Come on little monkey! And look at that clutch right there.
Come on, you're keeping the eggs from me baby.
Okay I can just get around like this, there we go.
Whoop! Whoop whoop! There we go.
Looks like, wow! That's a beautiful clutch, but look
at how incredibly gorgeous that snake is.
Again, we can get Tessera's we can
potentially get Motley Tessera's if she's half Motley
which I'm not sure if she is or not.
A lot of Corn Snakes have all kinds of hidden genetics.
Regardless, gonna be some crazy stuff.
Does look like we've got two little sluggers
little outliers here, get rid of this one here and
this little monkey right here, but the rest of them
look amazing, look at that. Two, four, six, eight,
ten, twelve, fourteen good eggs.
Wow! That was amazing, I was waiting
for that clutch, I'm super excited.
(Woosh)
Next up is one of those Abbott's Okeetee's, again just
a really good classic Corn Snake that is a Okeetee with
beautiful patterns and again, a nice clutch!
Beautiful snake, ouch! Come on mom!
I'm sorry! She's just being protective, you're okay momma.
We'll get you all cleaned up, we'll get you some water.
She'll be happy by tomorrow, and look it, another really
beautiful clutch. Wow! It's a good day for eggs.
There's no doubt about that. Let's go ahead and just
pop these over here, we've got two, four, six, eight, nine!
Again this is just Abbott's Okeetee to Abbott's Okeetee
so they'll be nothing but Abobott's Okeetee's
no mutations or anything like that.
So those are gonna be some beautiful babies.
(Woosh)
- Gloves? Where we're going, we don't need gloves.
One thing I wanted to actually hit up with you guys
is why I don't where gloves, 100% I get it. It's a
safety reason why a lot of people use them.
You don't want to get scratched up, however, for me
it's an actual feeling that I get in my hands when I'm
touching animals. So let's go ahead and show you
it's really, almost sort of this
self awareness that I have with this animal.
Where you see that my hands are placed here on the chest
and on the base of his tail. Now these are areas
where on their body it's going to flex, its going to
constrict and especially when he's upset.
Any snake any lizard any kind.
You'll feel it right there, especially where my thumb is
right here I can feel it right now
where his shoulders tensing up.
He's ready, right now he's just telling me to back off.
Eventually, once I feel the muscles start to loosen
a little bit, I know he's about to fling off me.
He's gonna try to jump off of me.
That little but of material between my fingers and
this animal right here not only in a weird way
makes me feel like I'm not as connected with them.
It also it keeps me from being able to feel certain
things, little warnings and triggers that I'm might feel
in their body that's a little bit more beyond
then just hissing and flicking their tongue at me.
(Woosh)
- I've mentioned this so many times
over the last two and half years I have changed
my opinion on the intelligence and what reptiles can do.
No animal has proved me wrong more then Ivy for sure.
I just believe that these animals can do a lot more
then we think and we've been working so hard
on so much training with them and its been unbelievable.
Again, you saw what happened with Speedy, we have all the
monitors, the Rhino Iguanas. Even working on the
snakes with Night Fury now with ball training.
So my point is that I really am inspired to take this
to the next level. I honestly believe that we can
train a lot of these reptiles to do things as much
as you see training with a lot of different animals.
So along with the crew we're gonna work really hard
to see how far we can push the envelope of training,
if you guys have any ideas down in the comments let us know.
What can we do with Elvis, we know that he's ball trained
and we can get him to do almost anything.
What else can we get him to do?
What can we get Didie and Dixie?
What can we actually start to work with snakes
and see if we can train them. I just believe
that we're just starting to touch the
surface, cause to be honest with you,
eight or ten years ago it was unheard of to even
do target training for the most part.
Now, It's become a relatively common thing in most zoos.
What will eight or ten years from now be? I hope
that maybe we can be some of the people that set the trends.
So we're gonna work really hard at some new initiatives
with training these guys, all of our reptiles.
I like to hear what you think about that and I'd
like to hear if you have any ideas down in the comments.
(Whoosh)
Of course I got to work with my girl Salt a lot
during this period of time because remember, when we're open
you know probably a hundred people a week would actually
handle Salt and now it's just kinda me and the crew.
So, she's obviously not being handled as much and
it's so important to keep her mellow.
It's okay girl, it's all right. Calm down.
And again you can see I'm not restraining her at all.
I'm just letting her go, stay calm girl.
And we just have to get her to the point.
During the virtual tours and stuff like that sometimes
I'll just pet her on the head, I mean I can touch her
mouth she doesn't snap anything like that.
So she's staying and remaining super calm, but I can't wait
until we get back and opened up, cause again, plans are
for this animal when it's eight or ten foot is for people
to be able to interact with her.
So in order to have that happen we have to keep her calm.
With any luck, hopefully we'll be open relatively soon.
Even if its limited numbers of people so that people can
start handling animals like Salt so we can keep
keeping her socialized. Calm down. Calm. Calm...
Again, we gotta just keep working with her.
She's definitely a little more challenging
then she used to be, but she's still
an absolutely wonderful animal.
(Whoosh)
Lastly, this girl is the first Albino Nelsons Milk Snake
to lay for the year. She's not a big girl at all
and I hope that they'll be nice and fertile
I'm not expecting a lot of eggs, but still
I love Albino Nelsons, the first one's I ever bought I paid
two thousand dollars from a guy named Doug Mooty
that produced the very first ones.
Oh my gosh! That's a much larger clutch.
There's a couple infertile eggs in here, but I can not
believe she laid that many. I thought there might be
maybe three, four at the most. I'll tell you what, this is
actually a pretty good clutch right here.
We've got two, four, six, seven
over here and a couple slugs. Two slugs.
That's amazing, and again, back then couple grand
for a snake that beautiful seemed like a bargain.
Now they're all like a hundred bucks.
So I mean they're really a pet trade available animal.
I think they're absolutely gorgeous.
(Whoosh)
Our last clutch for the day is actually an
Albino Cali King that's bred to a Lavender Snow.
Let's see what she's got. Oh yeah looks like
a really good clutch of eggs. I just love a normal, Albino
Cali King. I mean look at how beautiful that snake is
right there, you can go back in momma.
You did a good job. We'll get her cleaned up.
Get her water, as always. Let's see how many eggs she has.
Again, what we have that can hatch out of this is
Albinos, Lavenders, Lavender Snows, Snows, stuff like that.
Two, four, five eggs for a Cali King.
Cali King lays smaller clutches, I'm completely fine
with that. Should be some cool stuff and with any luck
we'll get that solid purple, Lavender Snow.
(Whoosh)
(Funky Music)
- Here we've got a baby Crested today and I'm gonna show
you guys how we set them up, the babies at least.
It's about the same as an adult its just on a smaller scale.
So we're gonna use paper towels, our sub straight
right there on the bottom. I've got a little hide here.
So just a little styrofoam hide so they can go under it.
And a little piece of foliage, just another
thing they can hide or climb on.
Then we make sure we mist it down and we mist.
Once a day, but if you have a baby at your house
you're gonna wanna kinda pay attention to when
the cage dries out and mist it whenever it dries out.
Last thing is we're gonna add is
one cup for water and a little cup for food.
These guys are so tiny they barely, barely eat.
I like to use just a little water bottle cap
or a pop cap or something. That way you can kinda tell
if they're actually eating or not.
Another way you can tell that they're eating is if
you'll see little poops and stuff in there.
They're so tiny when they're babies, they barely eat.
So we'll put that right in there.
Fill up the water, and now, it's ready!
- And we can let the little baby go!
- And there we go. That's how you
set up a baby Crested Gecko, or even an adult
you just gotta do it on a larger scale.
(Whoosh)
- If you liked this video can you
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Have an absolutely wonderful day!
Remember, be kind to someone and
I promise I'll see you tomorrow.