- Hey. Good morning, everybody.
Welcome to the blog.
I've got a box of snakes here.
I'm glad to be back and I'm glad to be unboxing.
What do you say we see what's inside this box?
(knife cuts)
All right, you guys ready to see what's going on here?
I tell ya, this is so exciting.
You know it's cool to be back
and see all the animals,
but it's even cooler to start getting animals again
for the time of year.
Zip ties, zip ties.
They're the bane of my existence,
but I have a little, well these are nail clippers.
So, normally I have them.
Anyways, it doesn't matter.
The point is,
is I have some cool snakes here
that I am ready to show you guys.
And you guys remember,
every year we actually unbox these.
So it is exciting.
It is a bunch of piebald ball pythons.
That's right. We're starting to really gear up.
We have already hatched, I don't know,
maybe 30 pies ourselves
which will be going on the website pretty soon,
but now we're starting to buy some pies
because we can never get enough piebald ball pythons,
you know, and of course,
when I ever get these animals in,
I want to look through them
and just get an idea if we have any smiley.
Oh, wait a second right here.
It's kind of a smiley.
Do you see it right there?
I mean, it's kind of, it's not the best smiley,
but it's definitely a smiley right there
and I always love to get the little emoji pies.
But just look at the variety in these animals.
I mean, you have some really nice high white ones
right here.
Like this one right here is beautiful.
It's probably 80% white,
have some kind of lower white ones
and that's the thing that's so amazing, right?
Pies are recessive mutation,
but they actually are very polymorphic,
meaning that, you know,
they can go from high white to low white
and it doesn't breed true, right?
Unless you have genetic mutations
like lessor or cinnamon or spider
that produces really high white animals.
The point is that they're all a little bit different.
Look at this one. Just how absolutely amazing they are.
So I think that there are 25 pies in the shipment,
if I'm not mistaken.
We'll probably buy at least two or 300 pies this year,
believe it or not.
Yeah, that's crazy. Right?
We'll produce probably a hundred
and then buy another two or 300.
That's how popular pies are.
Bag number two.
Let's see if we have any emojis
or anything else cool in here.
When pies first came out,
they were $25,000 a piece
and I'm holding about 10 of them in my hands right now.
So again, just to, you know,
15 or so years ago,
this would have been a quarter of a million dollars.
It's just crazy
and now they're pretty affordable and they're great animals.
I mean, listen,
I don't care who you are if you like ball pythons
like I do that is a stunning snake.
I always say, still, pies are my favorite mutation
out of all mutations of snakes.
Even though that they become pretty common
as far as being produced in pretty big numbers,
I still love piebald ball pythons.
And I'm just kind of again,
taking a little quick cruise through.
Almost the smiley here.
You can see right there, almost a smiley.
But hey, the eyes are connected.
So, maybe a little Groucho Marx smiley right there.
This has a pretty cool little pattern on it right there.
It's kind of interesting.
It's not a smiley,
but it's definitely interesting.
And then look at that little blotch right there,
different colors.
Absolutely beautiful.
Another little beautiful kind of lower white one.
This was maybe 30% white.
Absolutely amazing.
Got one more bag.
So, so far we definitely have one kind of so-so smiley
and we have a couple other cool pattern ones.
But again,
when I go to set these things up,
I'll look at each one
and sometimes I'll find things
that are really amazing,
and woo man, I tell you what.
There are, oh my gosh,
I get so excited whenever we get piebald ball pythons.
I mean, just take a look at that right there.
That's not a super high white one.
I mean, there's quite a bit of white,
but look at the pattern and color.
And that's one of the things that's interesting about pies
is that it'll actually jumble the actual pattern up as well.
So I'm getting lost here.
There are so many snakes and now so much paper here.
I just hope I don't lose any of these piebalds
when I'm going to set them up.
Look at that.
I mean, ooh doggy,
I'm just going to look through really quick.
Again, later on when I'm setting these things up,
I'm going to really take a good look at them.
But I don't see any other emoji pies,
but nevertheless,
absolutely beautiful.
Can you imagine that these pies
that I'm opening up right now
would have been worth a quarter of a million dollars here?
Just a handful of years ago.
So I, but I'll be honest with you.
I'm super happy they're affordable now
because now you guys can actually have one as a pet
and not have to spend $25,000 in doing so, right?
So absolutely incredible.
And oh, by the way,
I wasn't the only one unboxing things.
When I was gone on this trip,
believe it or not,
Lori got a shipment of ball pythons in too.
I'm interested to see how she did about that.
So what do you say, we just go ahead
go back in time a little bit
and see how Lori did on boxing a shipment of ball pythons.
- I have a surprise today. A box of snakes showed up.
I don't know what this is,
Brian must've ordered it.
So, I am opening it up
and I will be as surprised as you are.
Oh, okay.
These are
a bunch of ultramels.
So, it looks like we have in here
some ultramel pinstripes
as well as some regular ultramels in here.
Very pretty, very beautiful.
These are a fan favorite when it comes to ball pythons.
It's such a beautiful color,
kind of along the lines of a caramel vinyl,
but a little bit better if you don't have the keeping
and the issues that sometimes do come with those.
Oh, this is an unlabeled badge.
So, oh wait.
It's written up here. Okay.
So it has special and Mojave in it.
So you can see,
it looks like some crystals,
would be my genetics guessing on this
as well as a pretty pastel.
These are really pretty though.
Super nice.
They already look like they have a meal or so,
you know, we still set them up.
You get a couple meals in
just to make sure everything's good,
but this is a really pretty bag too.
All right.
So we have a few things in here.
I'm going to guess crystals again,
also some pastels and some Mojaves
in this bag.
Possibly some pastel Mojaves.
Once I can get a closer look at some of the heads and stuff,
but these are super pretty.
A lot of really nice ones.
They look great.
This is like at Christmas,
when I double wrap the kids' presents.
(laughs)
It's more fun for the person doing the wrapping
than the one undoing it.
All right.
This bag has some good potential. Let's see.
It looks like we've got some lavender albinos.
These are beautiful, beautiful animals.
As far as the albinos go,
they've got very bright, vibrant colors,
nice contrast to them.
These are really good.
And then these two would be het
because one of the parents was a lavender albino.
So you've got some hundred percent hets
and some lavender albinos.
And the last bag.
So, oh my goodness.
All right.
Let me look at this again.
Let's see
and some of these had just shed in the bag too,
which is more helpful.
Definitely have some super pastel genetic stripes.
You can tell by that really light head-on
where the pastels will be
still bright and pretty,
but not so much.
There's a super, like this guy here.
So that would be a pastel genetic stripe
because you can see it has some blushing on the head
and it's lighter,
but then the super next to it makes it much more extreme.
So this is a really pretty clutch.
It looks like it's all pastels
and super pastel genetic stripes.
And these guys are beautiful.
And like I said,
within the next couple of weeks,
these will all be available on the site.
- And good morning Reptile Army,
I hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible.
You know the movement,
you know what you gotta do,
do me a favor,
go to reptilearmy.com.
You can get your swag,
become our soldiers.
Get out there telling people how much you love animals.
It's a conversation starter
and I hope that you guys will be part of it.
Reptilearmy.com.
- So we're going to continue working with Vlad,
the legless lizard.
We are doing some ball training.
So let's just see how it goes.
Here he goes.
At least he's reacting to the ball.
As you can see it,
you have to be very consistent when they're training.
These guys don't just learn the ball
and think food over, right?
So we're still getting him used to seeing the ball
and then offering food
and then try to trick him to know that the ball
is all about food time instead of,
you know, being picked up and handled.
It's going to take a lot more time
where he's getting better at it.
You know what I mean?
From never seeing a ball in his life
to now seeing it every time we feed him,
he's definitely starting to understand and get that process
of it's food time, time to eat.
And as you see, he's crushing food.
He's doing amazing.
Let's go ahead and do a couple nother.
Worms.
- [Speaker] Come on,
come on.
Let's go.
Move it, move it, move it, move it, move it.
- So many amazing snakes hatched out when I was gone.
So I'm going to just go through and show you some stuff.
That's some heat, for sure.
This is actually a Pewter bee lesser bongo ball python.
So again, it's a pastel,
it's a cinnamon pastel,
it's a lesser,
it's a bongo and it's a spider ball python.
Just absolutely ridiculous.
The super lori leopards actually shed out when I was gone.
So they didn't hatch when I was gone.
But look at them now.
Ooh, look at that little monkey right now
now that it's shed out.
Absolutely ridiculous the way that pattern
and mutation turns out.
I was so happy to come back and see these guys.
And this one's a little pistol.
You guys know that I love piebald ball pythons,
obviously, we unbox.
This happens to be a Mahogany pie.
So this is the one step closer to the Sumer pie,
which of course is the all black and white ball python.
Now you can actually manipulate the pattern
as they get going too.
So this is going to eventually be an absolute ripper.
And this is the first mahogany pie I've ever had.
So I'm super excited to finally be working
with the true black and white piebald ball pythons.
And then there's the pumpkin gene.
This one hatched out when I was away and oh my goodness.
This is actually just a cinnamon pumpkin ball python.
Just take a look at the color in that animal.
I mean, I am so excited about this new gene pumpkin
and what we're doing with it this year.
We still have a couple more clutches to hatch,
but oh my goodness, that's a ripper.
Oh my gosh.
I don't even know what to say about this animal right here.
It is unbelievable.
This is actually a super pastel bongo cinnamon
lesser Cyprus ball Python,
all mixed together,
making one of the purplest,
kind of smoothest, beautiful snakes.
I mean,
I am blown away at how beautiful this snake came out.
And again, this was actually in the egg when I left.
So I knew we had cut the clutch
and uh, wow,
to see it out and actually shed now,
ooh, doggy,
this might be one of my prettiest snakes
I've produced this year so far.
- You got eyes here, the Mandarin rat snake.
Honestly, this guy is one of my favorite
of the smaller snakes that we have here at the zoo,
because I mean, just look at him.
He's gorgeous.
Say what's up, Oz.
There you have it.
Oz, the Mandarin rat snake.
- And then there's mystery animals that hatch out
and you just don't know what's going on.
This one's actually a super pastel bongo
that was actually bred to a pewter lesser Cyprus.
I don't know what's going on here.
It definitely looks like it's a super pastel.
I mean,
I don't, it doesn't look like there's bongo in it.
It doesn't look like there's lesser in it.
Doesn't look like there's cinnamon in it,
but why does it look so absolutely weird?
This is definitely no normal super pastel.
I love it no matter what it is.
And again,
it kind of reminds me of some of those mystery animals
that I hatched out last year.
So I'm thinking there must be a gene that's hidden
in some of these animals that I'm working with
that is popping out.
So I'm going to have to reverse engineer these guys
and figure out exactly what they are.
This animal's from that same clutch.
But I do know what the genetics are on this one.
This is actually a super pastel, lesser bongo
and wow, that thing absolutely a ripper.
Ooh, little feisty monkey too.
I tell you what, it almost jumped right out of my hands.
That bongo and lesser gene mixed really well together
and then you get into super pastel and ooh, doggy.
But boy I tell you what,
this guy is a feisty little monkey.
And again,
there are so many ball pythons that hatched out.
I mean, there's like racks and racks of ball pythons
that has hatched out since I've been gone.
This one is just really a pretty animal.
This is actually a pastel vanilla spider bamboo ball python.
And I just love the way all those mutations mix together.
What an absolutely beautiful animal.
I love this animal here.
I was so excited when his pairing actually laid
and to actually hatch one was super cool.
This is actually a banana GHI Mojave.
What an absolute crazy animal.
This is more like a Barney ball python
than the Barney ball python.
Meaning that, that GHI might be a good thing
to breed into the Barney ball python
as well as blackhead.
I'm telling you,
I can see the purple coming through like this.
So I know it's possible
to produce an all purple ball python.
It's just a matter of getting the right genetics together.
It may take me a couple, two or three more years,
but I'm going to get there and get a solid purple snake
because this sucker is an absolute ripper.
And I showed you guys the super Lori leopard ball python.
Well, while I was gone,
a normal super Lori ball python hatched out.
So you can see the patterns a little bit different,
a little bit more like jumbled up and stuff like that.
The leopard really adds a lot of,
kind of like uniformity to the pattern,
if that makes any sense.
Regardless,
you still have that bluish silver snake.
So, I mean, I tell you what.
Just so many animals hatched out.
It's so exciting.
And again,
that was just the tip of the iceberg.
I'll definitely update you guys on more stuff as time goes
and hey, we still have a long way to go
to be done hatching this season.
It's going to be an absolute banger.
Always awesome to be back home
and unboxing animals is always a lot of fun.
Man, I love piebald ball pythons.
If you enjoy unboxing by the way,
here's a playlist of a ton of unboxing
if you guys want to watch that.
Can you do me another favor?
Right over on this side,
can you hit that subscription button?
Would mean the world to me.
Have an absolutely wonderful day, Reptile Army.
Remember, be kind to somebody and I promise,
I'll see you in the next one.