- Hey, good morning everybody, and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible.
We've been draining our anaconda's enclosures.
Of course, Aries over here, Ivy over there in shed.
Still got some work to do to get these guys cleaned up,
but it did make me start to wonder
do anacondas make good pets?
I know I show you guys how we interact with them
and how amazing they are, but let's really look at
are they a good pet snake for you guys?
My obsession with anacondas really started
at an extremely young age.
I mean, after all,
anacondas are unbelievably iconic animals, right?
And I actually babysat some anacondas
when I was like 16 years old with some friends,
some really giant, like 16-footers,
and I fell in love with them.
And then for years, and years, and years, I never had one,
and then finally I got Verdi, Verdi the anaconda.
Now let's just step back and think
what an anaconda is, right?
These guys come from South America.
Of course they live in the Amazon region,
and they're actually a water snake.
There's no doubt about it.
As a matter of fact,
their technical name is eunectes murinus,
and it's from the Greek (speaks Greek word),
which means "good swimmer,"
and then murinus, from the Latin, which means "of mice,"
because they eat mice.
But you know, these guys are really kind of iconic,
but also kind of have an allure
that isn't always the truth, you know?
These guys aren't the largest snake in the world.
When it comes to size, reticulated pythons
get much, much longer.
Typically, an anaconda can only get
about 16, 17 foot, a big female.
Now with that being said,
definitely the heaviest-bodied snake in the world,
with the female getting over 200 pounds
and sometimes up to 300 pounds.
These guys are amazing.
Now the deal why they got kind of a really bad rap
is that the animals from the wild, and even F1,
which means the first generation in captivity
oftentimes are unbelievably aggressive.
And you don't want a huge aggressive anaconda as a pet,
there's no doubt about it.
But much like dogs and cats,
these guys do get a little domesticated, right?
So basically, Verdi is an F4 generation.
It means four generations in captivity,
and of course we're breeding behavior,
so you're gonna breed the tamest animals
to the tameness animals, to the tamest animals,
and every generation, they get more and more tame.
And that's what Verdi is, as well as Ivy and Aries.
But with all that said, I mean,
are anacondas a good pet for you?
And honestly, it's a little bit of a tricky question,
to be totally honest with you.
First off, you certainly need a large enclosure
with a large water basin,
'cause these guys, again, are water boas, right?
They wanna be in the water as much as they can.
So if you're gonna have a large anaconda,
you do need a large enclosure.
And I'm not gonna lie to you,
there is a lot of maintenance with these guys.
I mean much more than most snakes.
So I'm gonna go ahead and finish off the maintenance
I need to do today, get this enclosure cleaned up
so that they're looking beautiful.
(gentle upbeat music)
But don't get me wrong.
I mean, working with Ivy and Aries
is one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done.
I mean, they are truly amazing.
Their curiosity, their interaction,
it's like no other snake I've ever worked with,
so they are absolutely amazing animals.
Do I think that they're a pet?
It's a really tough one,
because I don't think that most people
could actually house these properly,
so I think that if you ever do decide to get an anaconda,
number one, know what you're getting yourself into.
I mean, it's a huge snake that's gonna need
a huge enclosure with water,
and it's gonna take a lot of maintenance,
and hopefully you will get one
as amazing as Ivy and Aries,
and you won't get one that's a little aggressive,
'cause I'm gonna be honest with you,
I've had my run-ins with some not-so-friendly anacondas.
Not gonna lie to you right now.
She already took a couple pops at me!
Whoa!
There she is! Whoa!
Whoa! Come on!
(ominous music)
Almost...
Whoa! (woman laughing)
The problem with anaconda bites,
when they bite you, there's all that blood.
(gentle upbeat music)
And again, as you can see, I mean, they climb up there,
they do a lot of these urates.
That's one of the things anacondas do
more than probably any snake I've ever worked with.
But of course, as they urate here, they pee.
Now it's dripped down here, it's in this crevice,
it's down on the ground,
so I just have to keep on cleaning.
That's what keeping anacondas is all about.
(gentle upbeat music)
Now all that's left to do is to fill her up.
(gentle upbeat music)
And speaking of anacondas,
look at how absolutely cute they are.
This is like the anaconda version of holding hands.
Ivy's over here, Aries is over there,
and look at, already, I was just in there,
and they've already got some urate.
So to wrap this up, do anacondas make good pets?
You know, I think that's an individual choice
that needs to be made, you know?
If you have the ability, the size of enclosure,
the want, the desire, everything else,
I think they can be pretty amazing.
Are they the average normal pet?
Probably not, you know?
If you just want a pet reptile,
a ball python, a corn snake, king snake,
something like that, great.
Even a boa constrictor, if you want something pretty big.
But I'm not gonna say that anacondas can't be amazing,
'cause I will tell you this,
they have been the most incredible experience
I've ever had keeping snakes.
So it's a tough question to answer,
to be totally honest with you.
I love my anacondas.
I couldn't imagine life without my anacondas.
With that being said, you have to decide,
are you willing to put in what they need
to have a good life?
That's hard to say. Not many people can.
I love the male plasma corn snake
that fathers this bunch.
So these are a bunch of diffused corn snakes
that are het for plasma.
The plasma is actually the diffuse lavender corn snake.
Absolutely incredible.
So these are a bunch of diffuse,
or what sometimes are called blood reds,
and it's basically just got
a little bit different head pattern,
a little bit of reduction of pattern on the side,
and then a pattern on its belly,
but as these get older, they turn red.
All of the pattern fades away,
and they become predominantly a solid snake,
a little bit of pattern, and then of course the lavender
gives it that kind of really cool lavender look too.
So these are, again, all blood red or diffused corns
that are het for lavender.
Ooh man, I tell you what, I love these animals right here.
These are actually just albino motley corn snakes,
and then this is an albino motley scaleless.
Ooh, come on little monkey.
That's an albino motley scaleless.
Now interestingly enough, when motleys were first produced,
they used to call 'em motley mutant corn snakes,
and then they shortened them just to motleys.
And basically what the deal was is they kind of
had these hurricane patterns down their sides,
and that's why they were called motley mutants.
I'm not exactly sure who named them,
but nevertheless, that is the whole story.
And again, this guy is a little albino motley scaleless,
and the rest are just beautiful albino motleys
that are het for scaleless.
Guys, we've got some bugs.
We said we're retooling that whole bug wall.
Got a surprise for something later on,
but we did get some cool stuff here.
- We kind of did this a little bit
under the veil over Laurie over here, but--
- Yeah, Laurie was not happy about this.
At all. - Yeah, I know.
- As a matter of fact, I think what Laurie said is that
she's gonna count how many are here, and if any are missing,
she's gonna kill whoever let them loose.
So just keep that in mind.
Of course, these are some hissing cockroaches here.
Unbelievable.
I actually think they're supercool, man.
I like them a lot. - Oh man.
Dude, honestly, this was the one
that we all knew as kids, right?
- Yeah. - This was the one you saw
on the National Geographic.
It was the one where you were like,
"Man, that's a cockroach with a lot of attitude,'
you know? (hissing) - Oh my god.
- Like making the craziest noise.
But these guys are actually pretty chill, actually.
They're not really hissing at all.
- Yeah, they hardly, they haven't been hissing,
But these guys are, these are so pretty.
- Now this was my surprise to you, Brian.
I know we've already talked about it or whatever,
but I was just like, I had to get some really out there,
standout ones, and man..
So this is a Halloween hisser.
I am not really 100% sure where they're from,
but they are incredible, incredibly beautiful,
very, very aesthetically pleasing animals.
And, oh man, honestly,
they're a little smaller than Madagascar hissers,
but man, most people don't really care
about that much difference.
- Oh my god, these guys are really beautiful.
I don't really know much about bugs,
so I don't follow it as much,
but when I saw these, I was like,
"Holy cow, those things are cool."
- So we got a M. giganteus,
which is the whiptail vinegaroon, the giant vinegaroon.
So this one's name is Aaron, he's a male.
- (laughs) Aaron.
I like it. Oh my god, that thing is dope.
And these guys live for a long, long time, right?
- Oh dude, up to 20 years.
And it turns out, actually, they only breed one time
in their whole life. - One time.
I wonder if Aaron's ever bred before.
- I don't know, you wanna ask him?
- And again, these are kind of cool things
that people can come in and hold,
you don't have to worry about getting bitten
and stuff like that, so that's gonna be a great addition.
And then lastly, I'm stoked on this,
but this is gonna be a work in progress.
It's gonna take some time.
- Oh man, I'm not gonna lie.
I might've jumped the gun in getting
a little excited about it.
So I was just like, "Dude, we gotta get these,"
and I didn't realize it takes up to nine months-
- Nine months. - For these guys
to actually get to what they are.
So what they are is actually a Dynastes grantii.
So it's what we call a Hercules beetle,
or a Western Hercules beetle.
These are actually the largest beetle
known to North America.
Right there, boo-yah.
Found it! - The next stage
will almost be like a mealworm.
- Yeah, yeah.
It'll be more of a--
- And then it'll turn into a beetle.
And these are the ones with the big horns on them, right?
- Yeah. - The males have the horns.
- So only the males.
The females don't have it, but that was the biggest reason
why we got three, 'cause--
- Hopefully we'll get a male.
- We hope we get a male, and then we at least,
if we have another female,
we can potentially even try to breed 'em.
That'd be cool. - 'Cause they don't live
a whole long time, but to have a big beetle
with that big horn on it,
that's gonna be absolutely incredible.
So we just keep adding stuff
to the bug wall now. - Oh man.
- And we're gonna keep on going, and like I said,
I do have something coming here in the next,
it might take another few weeks or so,
I'll give you a surprise what's gonna happen there.
I'm excited about this.
- Oh dude, me too.
- Always excited when baby ball pythons
hatch out of the eggs,
and this was that actual VPI axanthic clutch
that was bred to the double het lavender snow,
and so we have a bunch of these beautiful
little silver babies here.
Look at these guys. Oh my gosh!
And again, these are the VPI strain of axanthic,
and I absolutely love 'em.
I always say that they remind me of
a picture of a ball python in black and white, right?
It's like a colorless thing. It's just so incredible.
So what we have here is...
Oh, and look at how clean this one is here.
Oh doggy, that thing is a ripper. Unbelievable.
And again, these are axanthics
that are possible het for lavender.
And of course, these are all het VPI axanthics
that are also possible double het for lavender.
So absolutely gorgeous babies.
I tell you what, they are unbelievable.
The pastel het for clown that was bred
to an albino clown clutch has hatched out,
and oh my gosh, remember, we killed it
on the odds here with clowns.
These are actually just some normal
double het albino clowns, but we have a bunch of clowns,
and pastel clowns, and stuff like that,
and they are so absolutely incredible.
I mean, look at this pastel clown here.
And of course, this is a pastel clown
that's het for albino, to boot.
So that's pretty cool.
And of course, the normal clowns
are really variable as well.
This one has a really good dorsal striping on it,
really cool freckling on the sides.
Unbelievable.
We've got another little clown here,
we've got another little clown here that looks really good.
This is actually a really nice reduced clown.
It doesn't have hardly any patterning on the sides.
It'd be similar to what they would call a blade clown.
And then of course we have another little pastel clown
right here that looks really good.
I mean, this clown clutch was beautiful. All clowns.
It's one of the most popular recessive mutations right now
in all of the ball python world,
so we really crushed the odds with clowns
and pastel clowns in here.
And again, they're all het for albino,
so these guys are unbelievably cool,
and I couldn't be more happy with the way they hatched out.
So the anaconda cage is all cleaned
and ready for people to come visit us here
later on at the Reptarium.
I love anacondas, you guys know it.
I know I talk a lot about 'em,
I hope you guys aren't getting bored.
If you guys did enjoy this video,
right here is a playlist of giant reptiles
that I've messed with over the years.
I think you guys will enjoy it.
Up here, you can subscribe to my podcast channel
called "Checking In."
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Remember to have an absolutely wonderful day,
be kind to someone,
and I promise I'll see you tomorrow.