- I certainly don't want to beat a dead horse,
but you guys know that a week and a half or so ago,
Ariana had that parthenogenesis baby, that virgin birth,
which was absolutely amazing.
And one of the highlights of my entire career,
I'm not going to lie to you, having that baby Anaconda.
And just producing any Anaconda has always been
like the pinnacle to me
and to have one virgin birth by Ariana
was absolutely ridiculous.
I mean, I was so excited
and to have a female that we could raise up
to eventually be part of the reptarium
was absolutely wonderful.
And every day I looked at that animal and I was like,
"Oh my gosh, it's so beautiful."
And it was doing so well.
And I don't want to start the vlog off on a down note guys,
but this morning came in and...
let me go show you what...
it definitely has broken my heart what happened.
I don't know any other way to say it,
but let's go take a look.
So just like every morning,
checked on the little baby green Anaconda
and literally yesterday it was completely fine,
handling it, tongue response, amazing.
Everything completely, completely fine.
Of course it hasn't shed because it wouldn't be shedding
for seven to ten days after it actually is born.
And it wouldn't eat until after the shed.
So obviously it wasn't eating,
but came in and literally it looked fine.
You know, like it looks completely good,
but I mean, I am guys,
I'm gutted right now, I mean, gutted, it passed away.
It passed away and now, you know,
parthenogenesis is always tough, you know?
And there can be other things, because again,
it's not a normal snake, it's a virgin birth, right.
It doesn't have any chromosomes from the male.
And oftentimes they are born stillborn or kinked,
but this one was perfect.
I mean, a hundred percent perfect.
My first baby green Anaconda ever produced
and not just normal green Anaconda,
but a virgin birth, parthenogenesis.
I was absolutely infatuated with this animal.
And I was so looking forward to the story, you know,
when she was a year old, two years old, three years old,
to be able to tell kids about the fact
that she was a virgin birth
and just that story was going to be so amazing
and touch so many people's hearts.
You know, obviously I don't know what to say, man.
She passed away, you know.
I mean...
It's so crushing
and I have to tell you guys, you know,
I'm not gonna keep it from you.
I tell you guys everything,
I'm not gonna, you know, lie about it.
I'm not gonna say, "Oh, she's doing great" when she's not,
I mean, this is it.
She was fine, you know, she was in the water a lot.
She had a cage, it was absolutely perfect.
And there's just no reason.
There's no reason other than the fact
that maybe it's because of the parthenogenesis.
Guys, I mean, I'm just...
There are days where you feel like you want to give up.
There's days where things are going so well.
And when we had this girl,
it was like an apex pinnacle day of happiness.
And now on the flip side, it's deflating, you know.
It just, I literally want to cry.
I want to cry because I just love this animal so much,
even though I've only had it for a week and a half.
It was what it stood for that was so special to me.
I don't know, guys,
I just needed to tell you because it sucks
and I share everything with you guys.
And I don't know what else to do.
I'm going to do the best I can do to try to salvage this day
and not get too down about it.
But, you know, there's no other way
to say this "effing" sucks.
And I'm going to do the best I can do to get past it.
But yeah, there it is.
My baby green Anaconda didn't make it.
Today is a day that I definitely
need to spend some quality time with my girl Ivy here.
My therapy animal, as I call her.
There's no day better than this,
than to spend some time with her and just try to decompress.
You know, I've been doing this for a long, long time,
and there's always been ups and downs working with animals,
and you're going to have losses.
But this one's tough because, like,
why was it born live and live for 10 days
and seem fine and then die?
You know, it's like, just doesn't seem fair.
You know what I mean?
It's almost like I wish that Ari just would have slugged out
and not had a live baby, you know,
because then I wouldn't have the pain I'm feeling now.
And, but I know this,
it won't discourage me from trying.
My girl Ivy sometime is going to be a mama
and Ariana's going to maybe have babies again in the future,
but bred by a male.
And I know it'll be super special
that day when I come in and there's a litter
of baby Anacondas that do thrive and do well.
And I know it wasn't anything that we did, you know,
I know we had the set up was right,
the temperatures are right, the humidity was right.
Had a big water dish so they could crawl in
and had spent a lot of time in it.
So at least I know I'm not blaming us, but at the same time,
it doesn't make it any better.
It doesn't make it any better at all.
And like I said, I'm going to spend just a little time
with my girl Ivy here
because she's such an amazing animal.
And I love her so much.
She always makes me feel better, no matter what.
I'll probably take the next half hour or so to chill out.
And then we'll get on to some fun stuff.
As a matter of fact, we had some baby ball pythons hatch
that were really exciting today.
So give me a little bit of time to spend with my girl Ivy,
and she's already being such a good girl,
just kind of crawling up to me.
My girl is so amazing.
I mean, she's such an incredible animal
and it's almost like, she seems like she knows
that something's wrong.
So she's going to come over and be my pal for a little bit,
but give me a little bit time.
And then we'll look at some baby ball pythons
that hatched and celebrate the life that way.
So yeah, just give me a few minutes, I'll be okay.
(dramatic music)
All right, moving on to that ball python clutch
I told you about.
Some good news, you know,
let's get back into the good news spirit of the day
and try to make this day the best we possibly can.
I appreciate it.
I'm sure you guys are commenting really nice things.
I appreciate it. You guys always support me and you always
make me feel better
even on days that are a little bit difficult,
but we did hatch some really cool stuff.
Remember the world's first that we ended up,
we ended up getting a couple, actually,
to be honest with you more than I thought.
So this happens to be just a fire bamboo ball python
right here, which is really cool.
Again, you know, there's been fire bamboos before,
but again, we ended up mixing a vanilla
that was in with a fire,
which makes the vanilla creams.
And of course the first one that we produced
which I think is a world's first,
but I'm not a hundred percent sure about this one.
And this is actually a vanilla cream
spider bamboo ball python
Absolutely wonderful.
And again, I've never seen any of these online,
so I think this is the first one ever produced,
but I'm not a hundred percent sure.
And if someone else produced it, I'm sorry.
I'm not trying to steal anyone's thunder.
It's not like I get an award or anything like that for it.
The fact is is that I think that that's what it is.
And then we ended up getting two of these guys.
When I cut the eggs, to be honest with you,
I thought it was only one,
but these are actually definitely world's first.
These are pastel vanilla cream, bamboo spiders.
Absolutely ridiculous the way these look.
The vanilla cream stuff is so cool.
It's what you get between vanilla and fire.
And then you add in the bamboo and the spider.
Oh my goodness, these things are absolutely incredible.
So again, you know, even on a day that there's some tragedy,
there's also life that's here
and I'm going to celebrate this life
and be so happy to actually see these guys out of the egg
looking healthy and stuff like that.
The fact that we have three, probably world's first animals,
that's absolutely a blessing for sure.
So let's make the rest of the day the best we possibly can.
- All right guys, so I am here.
Obviously, if you guys watched the vlog for a while,
you know who this is, this is Brian's nephew, Chip.
Why do they call you Chip? - I eat chips.
- Me too. That's okay, I don't get called chips.
I got like 18 different nicknames and Chip's not one.
Please don't make it one.
You guys know how I feel about spiders.
I hate them so much.
He's also terrified of them.
We're going to be doing a little work
with our lady Black Beauty here.
She bites a little bit sometimes.
(groans)
It's awfully creepy!
Oh god, I'm sweating so bad right now.
I got her out and I'm shaking just a little bit,
but that's okay.
Sweat dripping down my back.
This one don't shoot poop.
- I feel like it's going to bite you.
- No, if she's going to bite me, she'd already done it.
So all you gotta do is hold out your hands.
Come on, you can do this.
If I'm doing this, you can do it, trust me.
You're good, you're good.
Wow Mike for the win!
Come on Chip, you got this.
You're doing great, she's not even moving.
Sometimes she'll crawl up your arm, but you're good.
- Dude I'm gonna cry myself to sleep tonight.
- Oh I am too.
I can't believe I just got it out of the cage, I'm shaking.
- [Chip] Go on, take her back.
- For you, I'll do it.
Two months ago, I would not have done this.
I don't care if it's for the vlog
or just for my own personal reasons,
I would not have done this at all.
And now I got Chip doing it.
Go answer your fears guys, and by the way, drink water,
Water is life. - Don't pollute.
- You know, the one thing I've been doing lately,
and this even helps with my mental health
when it comes to anxiety and stuff like that
is to be grateful, right.
You know, it's really easy to dwell on negativity stuff.
But you can be grateful for things too,
like Waffles, the black throated monitor
and all my animals for that matter.
I just can go cage by cage and just be so thankful
for what we have, right?
So I know that it's really easy
to get into this negative mode.
Like, "Oh, why would that animal not made it?
Why, why, why?"
All this type of stuff and you really can obsess about it.
But the fact is, is that if you can actually
kind of be grateful for the things that you do have,
you know, all these amazing animals at the Reptarium BHB,
hatching so many amazing babies every single year.
I mean, you go through this and,
Waffles, going back, you going back, buddy?
Okay. We'll see you soon.
I mean, I've always wanted a big black throat monitor
that was super tame
and Waffles hasn't disappointed at all.
So, you know, spending time with animals like this
or whatever makes you happy
when you have something negative happen,
really can change the tide, right?
You basically just become grateful.
You become mindful.
And then, you know,
it doesn't take the part of the suckiness away from it.
You know, it's still sucks really bad
that that animal didn't make it.
And it's never going to make me feel good.
But if I can be grateful for all the other things
that I'm so blessed to have,
even all of you guys that follow me,
you know, it just takes a different spin on it.
And that's what I'm going to do today
is I'm going to just spend as much time with as many animals
and doing the things that I love,
and grateful for what I do have
and not dwell on the things that I've lost.
Down here in the Colubrid room just looking at some animals
that are going to be up to size,
to breed next year for the first time.
So this is like the, some of the razor colubrids
that are just about ready to breed.
This happens to be the black milk snake
or what they would call gaigeae.
I remember these guys when they're born,
they're just like any other milk snake.
They're black, yellow, and red.
And then as they get older, they get this jet black.
And this thing is already jet black.
You can barely see a little bit of pattern on it.
So almost looks like a Mexican black king snake,
but it's just a milk snake.
I can't wait to produce these guys.
It's been a dream of mine.
I've never produced these in my entire life.
And I've worked with so many milk snakes.
I can't believe that I've never had this one.
So hopefully next year will be the year.
Then take a look at this albino,
scaleless diffuse corn snake.
I mean unbelievable, just how soft it looks,
that diffused just really changes
the kind of pallets for sure.
And then the albino, oh my goodness gracious.
This is a little female.
She's definitely going to be up to size to breed this year.
So we'll get her in brumation in a month, month and a half.
And wow, I can't wait to see what babies
she produces next year.
I only have one pair of Knoblochi
or what they would call Tarahumara mountain king snakes.
So this is another female that's going to come up to size.
They only have like maybe five, six eggs tops.
So I've only been producing a handful of them each year.
So having another female up to size
obviously will hopefully double my production next year.
And I'm going to have to hang on to some more for sure.
Cause they're just a really cool mountain king snake,
just absolutely beautiful color and pattern.
It's one of my favorite things
to just kind of open up the drawers down here
in the razor rack here or upstairs on the other side
where they're getting big too,
just to see what's coming up for the next time,
that excitement, right?
This happens to be a pastel pink hognose snake.
I used to work so much with hogs
and now we don't produce that many anymore.
So we have some more coming up.
Of course the pastel pinks have always
been one of my favorites,
but there are so many colors of hognose
that we're going to be working with.
Of course we have the tri-color hogs
that will be ready this next year, too.
So next year's breeding season for colubrids
definitely looks like it's going to be an absolute banger.
And it's just always cool to see how far these guys
have come from little tiny babies
to now being ready to breed.
Guys, I realized this wasn't a feel good vlog.
I mean, I get it.
It sucks, but you know what I'm going to do.
I'm going to try to look at the good things.
I'm going to look at the happiness,
all the positives in my life.
And I really encourage you guys to do the same.
If you don't mind, could you do me a favor,
hit a couple of videos over here?
It would really mean a lot to me.
Also it would mean a lot to me,
is to subscribe to my vlog channel right over here.
Have an absolutely wonderful day Reptile Army,
Remember, be kind to somebody
and I promise I'll see in the next one.