- Good morning everybody
and welcome to the vlog!
I hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible.
You guys might know that Lori's out of town.
And you guys may know that Lori kinda has told me
that I shouldn't get anymore big snakes.
However, today, I'm going to get another big snake.
And so my buddy, Chad, who actually had a handful
of reticulated pythons over the last few years
has slowly been downsizing those retics
because just life has changed and that happens
when you have big snakes.
Sometimes it's like, okay, I can't really take care
of these guys anymore.
And he's been kind of slowly giving me the animals
including Sunflower here which I absolutely love.
So he kept one last animal that was a gorgeous animal
and he was like, "I'm just gonna
"keep this last one as a pet."
Well, he called me up this morning
and was like, "Brian, I really need to rehome this animal.
"Could you come get it?"
And of course, what am I gonna say?
Of course I am.
Because I really am gonna love this animal.
But before we go, I've got to tell you
that there's always that one day
that you know Fall has hit and that's the day
that I have to bring my guy, Speedy, in from outside.
He's had a wonderful Summer in my backyard.
He's definitely grown a bit.
He's eaten a whole lot of grass
and all kinds of other stuff.
But it was getting cold.
This is the first day that it literally
isn't gonna warm up past the low 50s fahrenheit.
So, it's time to bring him in.
So he's gonna spend the rest of the winter
in BHB like he always does.
Yeah, he gets in the way a little bit.
The crew sometimes is like, "Oh my God,
"he's always in the way!"
He is absolutely a character.
I love him here as much as I love going home
and seeing him in the backyard,
I love seeing him here because he is so much fun.
So Speedy's gonna be with us for a little bit here
at BHB and I'm sure we'll do some Speedy cams along the way.
And with that said, let's go ahead, gear up,
and hit the road.
(relaxed music)
Now I'm not saying you should go against the wishes
of your spouse or your girlfriend or boyfriend
or your parents or something like that.
In this case, I had to make an executive decision.
Lori's out of town.
Frankly, obviously, I really love this snake.
I saw it a couple months ago,
and ever since I saw it I was like, oh my God,
that thing is so incredible.
With that said, do me a favor.
Don't tell Lori, okay?
And just like most snake deals,
yeah, we're meeting in a parking lot.
(relaxed music)
All right, just to set things up here,
I'm actually in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Actually, the University of Michigan football team
is actually playing, so, this parking lot
is usually empty but because the game is on,
it's a busy day.
So it's gonna be a little weird,
pulling out a big snake in a parking lot.
Hopefully people won't think we're absolutely crazy.
Of course my buddy, Chad's over here.
So let's go ahead and see the snake
and let's get this thing going for sure.
My gosh, it's so gorgeous!
Oh, dude.
That thing is ridiculous.
That's right.
This is actually a mochino
which is a mocha and a albino,
and it is crazy.
Just look at the color.
And this thing's a--
And you said it's a boy?
- Yup, male.
- [Brian] This is a boy.
And he's cool, he's chill?
- He is.
- [Brian] He is good?
All right.
You didn't say that as confidently
as I'd like you to.
- It's usually great.
I hope he isn't agitated from the drive.
- Always so sketchy when you're pulling out
a big snake in a parking lot, you know?
He's nice and warm right now.
But look at the beautiful, oh my gosh,
this thing is so absolutely gorgeous.
That is one pretty snake, man, holy cow.
It's okay though, sweetie.
So okay, so I'm just gonna go ahead,
transfer into a container I brought.
We're gonna go ahead, get this little guy home,
get him setup and should be good to go.
But that is a gorgeous snake.
All right, so let's just go ahead,
get him tucked in here.
Definitely a little chilly outside.
So it's nice and warm in the car.
And we got about an hour and 15 minute drive
to get back to the Reptarium.
And we're back here at the Reptarium.
I'm telling you what.
This sucker is beautiful.
Again, this is a mochino.
Unbelievable color on it.
And it hasn't been handled like this a lot
so it's gonna have to be a little bit
of habituation, it's gonna take us some time
before it's probably gonna be hanging out
over here at the Reptarium.
But again, we'll probably keep him over at BHB
for six or eight weeks, kind of a little quarantine
period, and at that point, we can be handling it a lot
so that when we can bring it over,
it will hopefully handle a little better.
Because this guy is all over the place.
But it'll be great when he's settled in,
starts to feed, and all that good stuff.
And speaking about feeding,
there's actually something I wanted
to talk to you about, about feeding.
I want to talk to you guys about this particular thing
because a lot of people have asked me,
you can see right now, Perdida, I opened the cage.
She's definitely fired up to eat right now.
So if I went in front of her right now,
she may think I'm food.
So what a lot of people will do,
I just have to make sure she knows I'm not food,
a lot of people actually take their snakes out
just like this and put them
in what they call a feeding bin.
You put it in the feeding bin,
and now you feed the animal, and that's the way it goes.
And people have asked me why don't I do that?
Or what do I think about that?
I want to kind of break it down.
Number one, I want to start by saying
if you do that, if you take your snake out
and you put it into a feeding bin,
and it works for you, that's completely fine.
But the idea is is that the animal won't associate
you going in its cage and thinking that you're food
because you're putting it in a feeding bin.
Which is completely understandable.
But this is what I think about it, a little bit.
Number one, it does cause a little bit of stress
to the animal, right?
Because you really shouldn't be moving
your animal before you feed it,
and some animals, when you do move it, won't eat at all.
So that causes one little step.
The other thing is is that if every time
you open that cage to go into the animal,
you feed the animal, so say you feed it once a week,
but you don't handle it the other six days,
yes, it's probably gonna think you're food.
But if for six days you're handling it,
and only one day you're feeding it,
the animal's probably not gonna associate
you going in the cage with feeding all the time, right?
Or you can just take a snake hook,
or something like that, tap the animal,
make sure it knows you're not food,
and you're 100% fine.
Now the other thing that you think
if you kind of go down that path
is that if they think that you taking it out
and putting it in a box is food,
maybe every time you go in the cage to take it out,
it's thinking it's getting fed,
and it starts going to food mode.
So, I personally don't use feed boxes.
I'm not against them.
I think they can completely work.
I just think that the rationale behind them
isn't as well thought out as people think it is, right?
If you handle your animal a lot
and only feed it one out of every seven times
you handle it, it's probably not gonna consider you food
when you open the cage, number one.
And number two, if you are taking it out
and putting it in that box, it's gonna potentially think
that you're feeding it every time you try to take it out.
So, in my personal, humble opinion,
is snake feeding boxes don't really serve
the purpose that people think they do.
Again, I'm not saying it's wrong if you do that,
I'm not saying you should stop doing it,
if it's working for you, continue to do it.
I personally just think it's a little added stress
to the animal and something that doesn't need to be done.
But I'd like to hear your opinion
on it down in the comments.
I've talked to you guys before
about the fact that I'm so busy
and I love listening to audio books,
and Audible has been a great supporter
of the vlog in the past.
So I just wanted to mention that right now
I'm listening to an amazing audio book.
It's actually Bob Irwin's "The Last Croc Hunter."
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I always tell you guys that I read your comments.
Of course, the feeding box was a comment
that you guys made and also another comment was
why don't snakes eat when they're in shed?
You can see Snazz is in shed right now.
And see those eyes are really what they call in blue,
or really milky?
Let's go ahead and think about what snake shed is about.
So snakes basically have three layers of skin.
The outer layer is called an epidural layer.
That layer is basically a layer of dead skin,
and it can only stretch so far.
So unlike a human that as we grow, our skin stretches,
these guys have a set amount that they can actually stretch.
What happens is when they grow
and get to that maximum amount of that shed,
the outer layer is ready to be molted, or shedded off.
The next layer, that kind of mid layer,
actually excretes a secretion that has like this milky
look to it which causes their eyes
and all of their body to kind of go blue.
That's why when a snake is shedding,
people say, "Oh, they're in blue."
Well now, once they shed out that next layer can grow.
So basically what happens why a snake doesn't eat
when it's in shed is number one,
its eyes are blue so basically, they can't see really well,
which means they probably aren't gonna eat really well.
The other thing is, that outer layer
has kind of stretched to its maximum capacity
so it doesn't wanna eat more because then if it eats more,
it's gonna grow more, and that's why its shedding
is so that the next layer of skin can grow that much more.
So once you understand the anatomy of what a snake shed
is doing, you can understand why typically,
they don't eat and shed.
Now, occasionally some snakes will eat and shed,
which is completely fine,
there's nothing really wrong with that.
But the fact is, is usually once a snake sheds,
within a couple days, it's very hungry
because again, it's ready for growth.
So I hope that answer, both the snake feeding box question
and why snakes don't typically eat in shed.
All right, guys, you gotta check this out.
This is the new animal.
It will be an addition to the Reptarium.
- Oh my God, this is what I thought it was.
Oh my gosh. - Isn't it insane?
It's super tame, too.
It's a little bit weird about handling
in the sense that I think that they played with it
but haven't maybe not around the neck as much,
so it kind of moves around a little weird.
So we're gonna have to do it.
But-- - This is a mochino, correct?
- [Brian] A mochino, yeah.
- Oh my God, I was talking to some people yesterday
about this and they were so excited when we were out,
and oh man, I was so stoked--
- It's gonna be a great animal here at the Reptarium
because it's big but it's not too big.
- Exactly.
- [Brian] It's beautiful.
- Oh my God, look at that color.
- I know.
- [Girl] It's so different from all the other stuff
we have too, which is nice.
- Yeah, exactly, because it's radically different.
- Right, yeah.
- It's not black or white.
- It's cool because it has that wild type
of pattern too on it.
I love it, man.
- Yeah, it's a beauty, huh?
So like I said, we got a little bit of shed,
so I'm gonna soak it right now,
get it in some quarantine,
and then eventually it'll come over here.
We'll figure out where to put it.
- Oh yeah.
- Pretty excited about it, huh?
- Oh yeah, dude, I've been waiting
for this thing to come in.
- Oh and by the way, guys, I do need a name
for this mochino right here.
It's a male.
It's obviously about 10 foot long, something like that.
No idea what to name it.
Down in the comments let me know what name
you think we should name this guy.
I'll pick the top three or four
that you guys comment and I'll do a poll
over on the community side.
So let me know what you guys think.
We actually opened up at the Reptarium tonight
so we have a bunch of our normal maintenance.
You know, just cleaning, fresh water,
make sure the glass all looks good, stuff like that.
So a lot to get done, to get ready to open up tonight.
(relaxed music)
And it's time, folks.
It's been a while since we've kind of taken you
along on the journey of a Reptarium night.
So let's go ahead and open up
and have a good time.
Hey guys.
Hi, how are you?
How's it going?
Oh, I like that, that's awesome.
(chatter)
- [Woman] Working on my fears.
(chatter)
- [Brian] What's going on, what's up?
How are ya?
How's it going, how are ya?
Good, how are you?
Having a good time at the Reptarium tonight.
Definitely a lot of people, a lot of fun,
about an hour, hour and a half into the day.
It was a bonkers morning, for sure.
But can I squeeze through here real quick?
I'm so sorry.
You're okay.
See what else we have out here.
We've got Joker over here.
(crowd chatters)
Ah, we got Raul out, the chameleon.
That's nice.
(crowd chatters)
As you can see it's definitely a fun night out here.
I am always excited when I get a new snake.
And that is a gorgeous snake.
I hope that you guys enjoyed this.
If you did, here's another video
of another giant snake.
A playlist of giant snakes if you so like.
Over here you can hit that subscribe button.
While you're at it, can you turn those post notifications
on for me, please?
Have a wonderful day.
Remember to be kind to someone.
And I promise I'll see you guys tomorrow.