- It's been a lifelong dream of mine
to do something like this.
(energetic music)
Hey, good morning everybody.
Welcome to the vlog.
How is your day going?
Before we even get started right now,
I want you to do two things.
Smash that like button.
Let's get this over 10,000 likes.
Leave a comment because I wanna know what's up
with you guys, what's happening, and then we'll get going.
I wanted to get into kind of an interesting topic today
if you don't mind, a little more cerebral vlog of sorts.
Not really, I just wanted to you about my passion.
Like why did I start The Reptarium?
What had been my road blocks?
You know, during the last two months of people coming,
I've had a lot of people say, "I wanna follow my dreams.
"I wanna follow my passions.
"How did you get where you got?"
And I'm not gonna tell you what to do.
All I can really do is share with you why I've done
the things, and the challenges that I've faced.
So I figured I would talk a little bit about that
in today's vlog, but in the meantime we're
just gonna have some fun with the animals.
Before I get into anything too deep today,
I think I'm just gonna spend a little minute
here with my girl Bella.
Hi, sweetheart.
How you doing this morning?
You okay?
I bet ya she's happy that Noah's not in here. (laughs)
You know, she is so amazing.
Literally every morning when I come in,
the first thing she does when she sees me, she'll be way
up there, she jumps right down like, "Come pet me, Dad."
And I always have to show her a little love.
Bella, you are such an amazing little puppy.
That's right, you're an, aw that's it, I found the spot.
Good job, girl.
These Jackson's chameleons are doing so good.
I mean, take a look at this female here.
She's nice and green, getting pretty plump.
This girl is awesome, look how brown.
She just blends right in with the rock.
And then of course, here's the male over here
looking absolutely incredible.
And there's actually a third female in here somewhere.
I'm not exactly sure where she is.
They are so good at hiding and blending in for sure,
but regardless, all four of them are just doing incredible.
Look at how this girl changed from that brown,
already changing to that green color.
Oh my gosh, how trippy is that?
Oh and by the way, there's that female in the back there,
hiding right back there, and just so that you guys know,
chameleons don't actually change color.
What they actually do is they have
what they call chromatophores, which are basically something
that lighten and darken, so an animal can kind of change
the hue of the color, but they're the same color.
They don't go from like green to purple to red to yellow.
That's not how it works, but this is a perfect example
of how different they can look.
Sometimes she'll look just as green as the male,
and other times, look at that brownish look
that she has right now.
Oh my god, I love these guys.
Since we've opened The Reptarium,
it's been a pretty common thing
for people to say, "I wanna do something similar.
"I wanna follow my dreams to work with animals."
So I figured, number one, I would talk about
why did I open the Reptarium?
And what have been my challenges over the last three decades
when it comes to working with animals?
Let me start by saying, the reason I opened
The Reptarium is really simple.
It's been a lifelong dream of mine
to do something like this, and basically the reason
behind it is that I wanted to build something
that I would've loved to go to when I was a kid.
That's right, not just to go and look at amazing animals
or go to a pet shop where everything is for sale,
but to go basically to a zoo, but instead of just looking
in the enclosures and wondering about the animals,
being able to go look at animals
but then take 'em out and feel 'em
and get up close and learn about 'em.
And that's why I decided I was gonna do something like this.
I realize that it's not quite orthodox for me to do it
because most zoos don't let people handle all their animals.
And I know that I have to always be concerned
about over-stressing the animals.
It's something that we keep in mind every single day.
How is the animal acting?
How is it continuing to do, 'cause we don't want anything
to go wrong with these animals for sure.
After all, we love 'em to death,
and they're amazing ambassadors.
By now, you guys know I'm gonna feed the frogs.
(cheerful music)
Like I've mentioned before, it didn't just start
with The Reptarium, you know.
It started all those years ago when I wanted
to start breeding snakes for a living here at BHB,
and the truth is a lot of people struggle
with the fact that they don't get support
from their family, their loved ones,
people around them think they're crazy, sort of like that.
Well guess what?
I had the same issue.
Yeah, I've always had Lori on my side for sure,
but the rest of my family has always thought I was crazy
for pursuing my dreams.
They always were like, "Why don't you just get a job?
"Brian, you work so hard.
"You're not making enough money.
"This isn't worth it."
Because listen, we had good times.
We had bad times, but in the beginning,
when you first something like BHB
or any business for that matter, it's gonna be a struggle.
It's gonna take time, and those first years are hard.
I mean, there are lean times, you are working and working
and working and making no money
because you need to grow your business.
But listen, it's worth it.
You have to pursue your dreams
because if you listen to the people around you
that are saying, "Don't do it.
"Go a conventional route."
And then you're unhappy the rest of your life.
What did that get you, right?
I don't wanna get too deep on you guys,
but I encourage you to follow what you're passionate about,
even if it seems like sometimes the path
to get where you wanna go is really, really difficult,
trust me, you gotta just keep forging forward.
So I know a lot about a lot of things,
and I know nothing about a lot of things.
And I'm not too big to admit when I don't know something,
so I called my buddy Steve from Bashsea Aquatics,
and I said, "There's something wrong
"with this sump right now, I don't know what's going on.
"The water levels are dropping, and I don't know."
Well, apparently, you have to have to add water.
Who would've known it evaporates?
I just thought that this kind of fed this.
I didn't know, so I've got a hose out.
I'm gonna fill this thing up.
He thinks it'll probably work a lot better
when your water is actually where it's supposed to be.
So you learn something every day.
Not really 100% sure what Chicken Strip is doing up there.
What are you doin' buddy?
Hanging from the ceiling.
Hey Cheeto, what are you doin' bud?
Hey silly Roswell.
Take a look guys, one of Lucy's babies,
a little Tiger Citron, how amazing is this?
And I do wanna get a little deep with you guys,
just for one second, bear with me for one second here.
You guys may not know a lot about things other
than the things that you see in the vlog,
but I really didn't have a dad, right?
He was out of the picture when I was really young,
and then I had a stepdad that was a great person,
but he hated snakes.
My mom didn't like snakes.
She never really was supportive of it.
You know, don't get me wrong, she was supportive
of my decisions and stuff like that.
She really always thought I was crazy
and was never like, "Brian, you follow your dreams."
She was always kind of like, "Brian, why don't you cut
"your hair, Brian, why don't you get a job?"
I've never even said this on the vlog or Snake Bytes
or any other place, but she's never been to this place.
She's never been to The Reptarium.
She was never at my old place.
I mean, the last time that she's ever seen any
of my businesses were probably 15 or 18 years ago
when I had a small collection.
She visited once, but that's been it.
So I haven't had family support.
My siblings have never thought I was doing the right thing.
They always were against me.
Even to this day, when I bring
up something like, "Hey I'm gonna open up a reptile zoo."
It's always like, "Why would you do that?
"That's just so stupid, Brian.
"Why are you wasting your money?
"Why are you wasting your time?
"Aren't you too busy?
"You shouldn't keep going, you should pull back.
"You should do this."
And it stinks, because you wanna be able
to share these things with the people around you,
your family, but hey listen, you gotta sometimes push that
aside and just follow your dreams,
as long as your dreams are positive and inspirational
and they're gonna be good in the end.
And even if financially it doesn't make sense,
sometimes it's still worth it because you love
what you're doing, although most of the time,
when you do what you love and you're passionate about it,
eventually the money does come.
Take a look at Potato.
I mean, he is deep in shed.
I tell you what, it's unusual to see 'em that blue color
like a snake like this.
Oh my god, and these guys don't shed like a snake.
They'll shed kind of in pieces,
but he usually does a pretty good job.
And if you ever have a blue-tongued skink,
a little word of advice, you wanna make sure all
the shed is off their toes, because if their shed's stuck
on their toes, they can actually lose their toes.
So make sure you always keep that in mind
when you have a blue-tongued skink.
I've mentioned it in the past
that people absolutely love Nova,
but I just get such a kick out of this thing,
of course the Indonesian frilled dragon.
Oh my gosh, Nova is incredible, and what I love
about Nova is when he jumps and runs.
Look at him.
Oh, what are you doin'?
Oh my gosh, what's up with you?
You don't normally do that.
Normally, he just kind of scampers off to the back,
but he was definitely a little bit afraid of the camera.
It's okay buddy, it's alright.
Again, he hardly ever frills up.
When he does, it's definitely a treat.
Ooh doggy, take a look at this
sunrise northern blue tongue skink.
Oh my god, I am so excited
about the blue tongue skink breeding season this year.
Oh my gosh, we should have some amazing babies,
and it's right around the corner.
They're cooling off now, and they'll start breeding
in about six or seven weeks.
So oh my gosh, it's gonna be so exciting
to see some of these animals hopefully have
some incredible babies this coming up year.
So why am I talking to you guys
about The Reptarium and why I did it
and why you should push forward?
It's 'cause every now and then,
I just feel so grateful I wanna share it with you guys,
and I hope that you guys don't mind
and think, "Oh my god Brian, just shut up
"and show us some animals," or whatever the case may be.
Trust me, most of our vlogs are gonna be that way,
oh and by the way, Eric and Mary are back today.
They'll be back into the shop here tomorrow
or the next day from their honeymoon.
It sounds like they had a great time,
but you guys are missing Eric and Mary.
And you'll get a chance to see them again in the next day
or two, and we'll get back to some normal stuff.
My point is that I'm so grateful for being able
to follow things that I love and work hard
at the things that I've wanted to do, but in truth,
you guys are the ones that make it all possible.
And I want you to understand that you're along
for the ride, and I want to encourage you
to live your life to the fullest.
Is every day great?
No, honestly I wake up sometimes
and feel like not doing stuff.
I wake up sometimes, and I'm not in the best mood.
But the fact is that you push through it.
You try to look at the positives.
You work hard, and you just kind of keep going
because that's what life is about.
And I always tell people even when something is going bad,
being upset about it and being in a bad mood doesn't make
it better, so you might as well just try
to be as positive as you possibly can
and keep on working hard to fulfill your dream.
Okay, so that's enough of that.
I know there are some people that watch the vlog,
and they'll go, "Shut up Brian, I'm sick of hearing you guys
"talk about inspiration and stuff like that."
So let's go ahead and get back to other things.
We have some things to do over at The Reptarium.
We are open tonight, so we're gonna have
a really fun time tonight, so that concludes
the boring part of this vlog.
But I really, truly think some of you needed to hear it.
That's why I did it.
When any of the animals get stressed out,
kind of like Nova did, I wanna kind of just give 'em
a reward so that they don't think
it's bad thing being handled, right?
So I'm just gonna give him a couple super worms.
Here you go, bud.
There you go, buddy.
(laughs) Nova absolutely loves his super worms,
and again, that just kind of gets that relationship back,
where it's like, "Alright, just because I took you out,
"and you got a little stressed out, I still love you.
"Here's some super worms, here's a treat."
So he likes me again, you know how it goes.
I wanted to share with you guys one
of the newest animal ambassadors here at the zoo.
This is actually Jasper, the African fat-tailed gecko,
and a friend of ours actually donated it.
So it's pretty cool that we have another gecko
that is similar to a leopard gecko,
but this one is totally chill.
It's gonna be really good around kids,
and this is his new cage.
We're about an hour into the opening of The Reptarium,
and I'm gonna be honest with you,
it's just been so packed and so busy
that I haven't had a chance to pick up the camera.
But it's been a unbelievably fun night tonight,
a lot of really great people.
We're having a blast here.
You guys are-- (laughs)
And we let this guy out, so you were in charge of this one.
You did a good job.
(energetic music)
Oh my god, this has been a great, great, great start
to the night.
It's been amazing, and we're having a blast.
Casper's out, people have been loving him.
We have stuff all over--
(sighs) This is fun.
I could do this every minute of my life.
This is the best feeling.
- Oh yes!
- You may notice that everyone
is getting over by Lucy's cage.
That's because we are feeding Lucy today.
Last time we fed her, she was up in a tree,
and it really wasn't that exciting.
This time, she's down so it should be pretty cool.
I'm gonna go get a rabbit,
and just for the record, we always put out
that we are feeding frozen rabbits,
so that if anyone's kind of sensitive to that,
we want to definitely be aware of that
and be understanding of it, so we are gonna get
a couple frozen rabbits.
We're gonna feed Lucy, and then hopefully
maybe we'll feed Daisy, too.
We'll see how she is, but Daisy isn't as entertaining.
She just kind of takes it.
It's no big deal, so anyways, let's get some rabbits.
So Lucy is definitely ready to go.
Everyone else is ready to go too.
- [Everyone] Hi!
- Okay, oh my gosh, this is gonna be scary.
(energetic music)
What do you guys think?
(spectators cheering)
She was definitely hungry. (laughs)
Alright, so Lucy ate really well.
I'm gonna be totally honest with you guys.
It was little closer than what I'd like to be.
I don't wanna get bit in front of people,
so I was really using my inner snake ninja zen,
trying to make sure, but there was a point where she got
about six inches from my leg, and I knew that if she struck
and missed that rabbit it was gonna be a problem.
Thankfully, it worked out.
She was in the absolute worst spot
that you could possibly be in the entire cage.
If I had to choose one spot in the cage I would like her
to not be, that's where she was.
But we had like 100 people watching.
It's not like I could just say, "Sorry guys,
"we can't do it."
But it all worked out fine.
She ate like a beast and here she is right now.
Look.
(energetic music)
An absolutely amazing night here at The Repatarium,
definitely really busy tonight, huh?
- Yeah, it was very busy. - Jessica was crazy.
I'm really really happy because you came to visit us.
She is from Scotland.
Now, she didn't come from Scotland here,
but she did make a special trip here.
You've been touring around the world.
You've spent time in Australia.
You've spent time on the west coast,
and you're on the way back home and you stopped here.
- Yeah. (laughs)
- So you've been able to handle a lot of animals
that maybe you didn't.
You were handling all kinds of stuff in Australia.
Was there something that you liked the most today?
What was it here that you liked the most?
- I loved Lucy.
- Lucy?
Oh my god. - So cool.
- Oh my gosh, and by the way, a little secret,
I didn't film it, but I did let her feed Lucy
the second rabbit by the way, and Jessica was mad
about that but-- - Yeah, I've never fed Lucy.
- Next feed, Jessica's feeding.
- I've never even held R.J., Brian.
- What? - Yeah.
- Oh my, what is wrong with her?
Okay we got some things to check off the checklist here,
but thank you so much, seriously.
It's amazing, I am so inspired by people like you
that go out and travel the world
and experience these things,
and I know you're gonna
do great things 'cause you're gonna continue
to work in animals, right?
- Fulfilling my masters in animal conservation.
- Nice, that's awesome, love it.
We had a great night tonight.
We have a handful of people hanging out after hours,
just having a really good time, you know chin waggin'
and all that type of stuff.
If this wasn't enough of a reason
to show you why I opened The Reptarium,
I don't know what is.
Tonight was absolutely incredible.
It was bonkers.
It was everything that I wanted this place to be,
and I couldn't be more excited about it.
And I hope that you guys enjoyed coming
along for the journey, and I hope that I inspired you guys
if you wanna follow your dreams and your passions.
And maybe someone was thinking like, "I don't know,
"you know, everyone doesn't want me to do this."
Maybe this will push you over the edge.
Be smart about it.
Don't do silly stuff, obviously,
but if you really wanna follow your passion,
go after it, work hard.
It is so worth it, and with that said,
I'm gonna go ahead and end the vlog here
and wish you guys an absolutely amazing day,
evening, whenever you happen to be watching.
As always, your support means the world
to me, and I truly, truly, truly love you guys so much.
Do me a couple favors before we get outta here,
can you smash that like button?
Try to get this video as many likes as possible.
Turn those post notifications on so you know
when I upload a video.
Make a comment down below
because I love reading about you guys.
Be kind to someone, and I promise
I will see you guys tomorrow.
(energetic music)