- Hey, good morning everybody,
and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is incredible,
and you know why I'm saying that because I love you guys
or whenever you happen to be watching.
You know, I tell you what.
I'm just kind of checking out a few things,
and I need your help on a couple of things
to be honest with you.
And no, it's not about Ben and Jerry.
I just saw him and I thought it was too cool
to not at least pull him out.
I actually am trying to figure out
a new animal to add to The Reptarium,
and I'm kind of at a loss right now,
so maybe you guys can help me out with this
because you know obviously we have so many amazing animals.
I mean, look at the basilisk hanging out up here,
they look amazing.
And every time I come in here I'm always just blown away.
Look at this emerald tree boa right now.
I mean, that thing, look at it's just after it mist,
it's got all the little water droplets on it.
It's just absolutely crazy. (laughing)
Beetle juice up here.
I mean, okay, I'm getting distracted.
My point is, is that it is hard when you walk
around the Reptarium to not be distracted
cuz there's such amazing animals.
The point is, is that this enclosure right here
guess who used to be in this that's right.
Perdita, this was Perdita's enclosure for two
almost two and a half years.
Now she has that new,
beautiful enclosure that we're so excited about,
but I'm trying to think, what do I do with this enclosure?
It's kind of a tricky one.
You know, Perdita liked it,
there was no doubt.
It was really good for her,
but I don't know that I want another snake.
I look at this
as a lizard enclosure cause there's terracing, right?
Terracing, terracing, hotspot
You know to me,
a lizard would be perfect in here, but I don't know.
What to do you know?
Should we do another monitor?
Should we do like a group of like you know?
Remember, I've been talking about those collared lizards.
I really, by the way, if anyone knows those powder blue
or what they call blueberry collared lizards.
I wanna get a group of them.
Would it be cool to have them in there?
I'm not a hundred percent sure they are a desert animal.
It could work possibly.
But you know, it's rare that I get stumped where I'm like
I look at an enclosure
and I just don't know what to do with it.
Right? And this is a kind of an important area
because obviously we've got Snazz over here.
We've got Verde on this side, we've got the alligators.
And when Perdita was here, this was a super popular area
for people to kind of convene right?
Now with this cage empty.
It's not as busy over here, so I need something
that's really going to attract people over here.
So I need your help.
I need a new animal.
What should I put in this enclosure?
I don't know yet.
You know, so I figured I'd come
to you guys and have uh, you guys help me on this?
Uh, so hit me up in the comments.
Let me know what you think.
And let's, let's come up with a banger.
Just a quick checkup in the colubrid room.
Things are still in brumation.
I turn the lights on just to kind of come
in and see how things are going in here.
Cause it's important.
You know, we check on them almost every day
and stuff like that, but we're just literally
like ten days away from bringing things out of brumation.
And actually ironically enough,
someone's been asking to see Everglades rat snakes
which are right here.
And of course I said that their information.
So there you are, whoever that was
here's an Everglades rat snake looking good.
And you can see that, you know
the snakes will still be awake during brumation right?
It's not like they're going to sleep,
and you can't even move em.
I mean, they're still aware they'll still move around.
It's just, they're very cold.
It's about sixty degrees down here right now.
And we actually keep it dark.
And what basically is going to happen by the way,
this is a T-positive Albino Nelson's Milk Snake.
That looks just absolutely stunning,
and everything looks really good.
You know, that was the thing that I wanted to
make sure moving into a new environment.
First time we brumated it in this room.
I wanted to make sure
that the animals their self didn't look thin.
They don't look stressed out.
I mean, look at this beautiful Apricot Pueblan Milk Snake.
I mean, what an absolute ripper, that thing is.
Again, nice body weight seem to be fine.
They're not moving around.
One of the things that if you're just looking
down an aisle like this, when their information
if you start to see anything moving around
that's a bad sign.
You want them to be dormant.
Now, when I actually open up a tub like this,
again you can see tongue response.
It's completely aware that I'm here.
It's tongue is going to be a little slower, obviously
because of course it's in a cool-down situation,
but you want them to be alert,
but you don't want them to be moving around
because if they're moving around, that means
that they're going to actually be burning calories, right?
So basically I just want to come
down and take a look at everything
get an idea of where we're at, when it comes to, you know
the next ten days, and these guys are going to be up,
and that's when things really start going.
Of course, this is a coral ghost, corn snake.
Again, all of the animals look like they did really well
great body weight, all that type of stuff.
Of course we have scaleless corn snakes right here.
And again, like I mentioned
you can see they're moving around and stuff like that.
I'm not going to mess with them too much
because obviously it's not a good situation,
but they are going to get ready to come off.
And basically what will happen is right now
we have that fan that is sucking cold air
from outside the cool this place off.
We're gonna basically shut that off obviously.
Turn the heat on, get the heat, just going
up just a little bit over a seven or ten day period.
We'll bring it from the sixties
up to maybe the upper seventies or lower eighties.
A black and white, a barren Cali king.
And it's interesting to feel a snake that's cold, you know
cause that's just not, you know, typically
when you're feeling a snake, it's nice and warm.
And it's weird when you touch these snakes,
they're actually cold to the touch.
Cause again, they're ectothermic, right?
So if it's sixty degrees in here, they're sixty degrees.
They can't regulate their body temperature.
So once they actually get up to that upper seventies
lower eighties, over a seven or ten day period
we'll actually do the first feeding.
And then the next feeding, we start really ramping up,
and we start feeding, feeding, feeding, feeding.
They're going to go through a shed out of hibernation
it's called a post hibernation shed.
That is when they start to develop follicles,
and that's what we're going to breed them.
Now the next shed typically is a pre-lay shed.
So it happens really quick.
And then eggs are seven to ten days later.
So,
Uh, couldn't be more happy
with the way things look down here.
But oh gosh, look at this.
By the way, gray-banded kingsnake.
Oh I am so excited to be able to actually
breed gray-banded kingsnakes this year,
and they look absolutely ridiculous.
I am so excited.
So guys it's about to heat up.
I know that the winter has been a long winter.
Haven't had as much content when it comes
to cool stuff like eggs and babies, but it is on the way.
So I am getting more excited every single day.
So guys, guess what Valentine's coming up.
You may know that it's February 14th and
if you have a significant other
or want a significant other,
and you don't get them something, you're probably
not going to have a significant other for very long.
I've got a good solution for you guys.
Down in the description.
You can click on the link and there's actually
really cool customizable Repterium cards that you
can send that person that is going to absolutely love it.
You can get them in color.
You can get them in black and white.
You can email them, print them out,
whatever you happen to want to do,
color them yourself whatever.
I think you'll really like it.
Again, link is in the description.
It's only four dollars and ninety-nine cents.
Remember a couple weeks ago,
when we actually had to assist feed some of the Boiga,
including this little gemma santa.
Well, I'm happy to say that we assist fed four animals.
Two of them were,
double het for axanthic caramel albino mangroves.
One of them was a caramel mangrove.
And then of course this little gemma santa.
The good news is this little boy started eating on his own.
Unfortunately the other two were still assist feeding
But hey, that's great news.
We're making progress, right?
This thing is absolutely ridiculous.
One of my favorite new snakes,
I've gotten in a long long time
and I'm super happy that now it's eating on its own.
Now we just got to get,
these other three little buggers to get going,
and then we're off to the races.
I love talking about the snakes that I got
over at scales and tails of Ohio.
This is that puffing snake,
and look at how awesome that display is with that puff.
You know,
that's obviously why they call them puffing snakes.
They puff up that throat and it looks absolutely ridiculous.
This is a big colubrid snake.
I mean, it's going to get seven, eight,
maybe even nine foot eventually.
This will definitely go over to The Reptarium,
and it's going to be a great display animal.
They get much more yellow and they get bigger.
You can even get some that have nice reds on them.
Nevertheless, this thing is cool and it's doing great.
So I'm super happy about that.
I know it's boring.
I do it all the time, but it's not boring to me,
but I have to get my males in with female ball pythons.
Again, this coming up week, we start breeding
the rainbow boas, sand boas,
and all of that type of stuff too.
So it's just the daily mundane stuff that I have to do.
So I might as well bring you along on the journey.
(upbeat music)
- Back down to the basement here where we're kind
of working away, starting to put the floor in.
So I basically have to put down this foam
then I have to start doing this all the way
over this entire room here will be filled.
All the walls are painted now.
So this flooring here will go all the way
through here all the way around here, all the way here
all the way over to there.
And then there actually is going to be a wall
at the end where the podcast room is.
Again, the podcast room is over here.
So of course you're going to be able to come
into the podcast room.
This will be walled off because this is going to become part
of the new Caledonia room.
So we'll just have this hallway, this then some molding men.
Let me give you a division of this room, right?
TV here, TV there.
That way you can watch the podcast,
if you ever come down here with the cast.
We do the VIP thing or whatever Case says.
We're gonna have a couch here, a popcorn machine there.
We're going to have a tabletop Pac-Man machine here.
Over on this side we're going to have a couch.
We're going to have a big fish tank over here.
And over here,
there's just going to be racks where we store the water
for all the frogs and stuff like that.
So, that is what the space is gonna look like,
but for now I got to get to Florida.
Once I get to Florida,
I can start doing the trim and stuff like that.
So, uh it's starting to take shape guys.
Finally, seems like I've been talking
about this for months and finally,
we're getting some stuff accomplished.
(upbeat music)
But that's it for the day guys.
We just got about half of it done,
but you're starting to see the vision of what
this actual will look like.
Again, this flooring will go all the way through,
through the control room camera all the way around
into the podcast room.
Of course there'll be trim and everything will look really
pretty, but again, it's come a long way
from that dirty nasty basement from just a few days ago
to where it's actually now looking like a room,
and it's going to be so cool down here.
And hopefully maybe we'll have some VIP experiences
where you guys can watch the podcast down here with us.
More about that later.
But nevertheless, I'm happy with the progress for today.
Hopefully tomorrow we can maybe finish this puppy up.
You guys ready for another round of overrated or underrated?
Let's go,
- [Interviewer] Free handling venomous snakes
- Ooh, that's a, that's a tough one.
I think it's, it's I mean, listen, it's overrated.
I mean, you know, I'm not going to beat people up per se
for doing it, but do I think most people should do it?
No. And unfortunately the downside
of what happens is when you see someone doing it
younger kids will sometimes think it's cool.
I've seen a few kids that probably shouldn't be
free handling, handling venomous snakes.
Like some of their heroes have done.
So I, listen, you know, if you have the competence
and you're willing to take the penalty for our free handling
as an experienced keeper, I say you're all right
but listen, I think definitely overrated.
Don't do it
- [Interviewer] All right,
Pet tubers
- Pet tubers.
This is a tough one for me,
because of my history with that tube.
I'm not a pet tuber.
I can promise you that don't ever call me a pet tuber.
I think, you know, listen, I think it's overrated,
because that community had an opportunity to
do some really great things, some really positive things.
And unfortunately, most of that community
not all the community,
but most of the community went negative towards everything,
really negative videos about how bad everything was.
And didn't use the platform to really help people,
but more talk down towards people.
So for me, a personal overrated.
- [Interviewer] Kevin Mccurley
- I think Kevin's underrated.
I really do.
I think Kevin is a, is a hidden gem.
Lots of people know Kevin from NERD, but I still think
that not enough people know Kevin from NERD.
Underrated, I think smartest guy in reptiles.
I think personally smartest guy in reptiles.
I look up to him as a mentor.
So, definitely underrated
- [Interviewer] Breeding for investment.
- I think breeding for investment is probably overrated
because not everyone can,
only can not everyone do it but most people can't do it.
So what ends up happening is when people invest
many people lose their money, right?
Now, I think that it's, there's great opportunity.
And if you do it right, it's really good.
The problem is, is most people don't do it right.
They invest money too quickly
without really having the experience slash everything else.
And then ultimately they lose their money.
I've seen, listen, I've been doing this for 33 years.
I've seen more people lose money
than make money in reptiles.
So I'm going to go overrated only
because I think if you're going to do it, do your research
make sure you know what you're doing and be cautious.
If you do it right it can be amazing.
Let me know what you guys think.
If I'm right about my overrated underrated stuff.
If you want to see more of it down in the comments.
So again guys, if you can help me find the new animal
for Perdita's old cage.
I'd appreciate a comment down below.
I really do appreciate your help.
Cause I want to find something that's going to
be really amazing that people are going to be excited
about to come to The Reptarium for.
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Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Remember be kind to somebody and I promise
I'll see you tomorrow.