- [Brian] Now, if Perdita is at that,
uh oh, she's gonna bite me.
Oh my gosh.
- I don't have the squirts anymore.
- Hey good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog,
I hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible,
Take a look at this Arizona mountain king snake, here.
These guys are about to go into hibernation,
I'm kinda saying my last goodbyes,
probably next week or so.
We're gonna put em down into hibernation
but you know, I'm over here at BHB
and I realized that lately,
I have spent a lot of time at the Reptarium,
I love it over there but I still love it here
but I read you guys's comments about a bunch of things
and I've heard some people saying "look hey, can we get more
of BHB", so I'm gonna give you a little BHB fix
as we're goin on here but other people have been saying
"hey, can you put more of the crew in the vlog."
- I could totally see why people wanna
know and see more about me.
Pretty interesting guy.
- I miss you guys too.
- I've also had a ton of comments over the last few weeks,
saying "Brian, do some more stuff
on beautiful leopard geckos", like this sun globe,
all white and yellow.
I had a lot of people asking "show more Bowser",
people absolutely, love Bowser and so do I.
My point is, is that I read your comments
and I'm always listening to you guys.
I think today, I'm gonna start with trying to do a little
bit of education stuff.
People said that I show the animals
but I don't talk a lot about how to care for the animals,
so let's go head and start with big snakes.
How do you keep a big snake like Lucy right here?
Obviously, each cage is gonna be a little different, so
there's some things that you ave to keep in mind.
Let's start talking about temperature here.
So basically, you want a hot side
and a cold side of the cage,
let's see where she's at right now.
Right now, she's at 81 degrees on this thing
but you can see, if I come up here,
it's actually upper 90's, where if she wanted to climb
onto this rock,
If she wanted to climb onto this rock over here,
it's about 85 degrees
and then actually, the cool side is all the way down to
about 78 degrees, so you wanna give them a lot of variety.
Obviously, this is a really large enclosure, so
she has a lot of options,
all the way from almost 100 degrees, down to 78 degrees
and all kinds of stuff in between.
If you have a smaller cage, you just really wanna be
about 90 to 95 degrees in a hotspot,
with the cool side basically, down at the low 80's
and give them that option, so they can thermo regulate.
If they eat and they wanna digest,
they're gonna go to the hotspot.
If they're cooling off, say for breeding
or something like that, they're gonna go to the cold side,
you get my idea.
Now, you certainly want a nice water basin,
if at all possible because big snakes do like to soak
if they can't but if you don't have a large enough cage,
at least something that they can get water,
definitely make sure that you change that water at least
three or four times a week, at minimal or if it's soiled,
like everyday that she soils on it, we change it,
no matter what, even if we just changed it the day before.
And then, as far as humidity goes,
we're gonna keep the humidity at about 50 to 60%
in a cage like this.
One of the ways you can do that in this cage, is again,
a large water basin.
This is actually, reptile prime coconut bedding here that
retains moisture really, really well and so basically,
what happens, is we can actually mist this out,
brings the humidity up and that really helps out as well
and if you're having a problem, you can even put like a
moist hide box or something on that lines.
Again, you want that humidity to be about 50 to 60%,
that way they can shed really well, even though sometimes,
Lucy just blows her shed up,
even with the humidity as it is.
Now, going back to lighting, We actually keep these guys
12 hours of daytime, 12 hours of nighttime,
you can manipulate that a little bit but you gotta remember
that they're close to the equator, so they don't get a lot
of temperature or light cycle really, in the wild.
They basically, have a wet season and a dry season,
a little dip in temperature, a little rise in temperature
and a little change in light but not very much.
We do actually have, UV light in this cage,
most snakes don't need UV light so much but we figured,
we'll go ahead and put it in and that basically,
how we're gonna keep a cage like this, which is Lucy's.
And again, each cage is gonna be completely different
but as long as you know those parameters,
take for instance, Caspers cage.
The hotspot over there is about 90 degrees,
he has about an 85 degree temperature, right over here,
84, 85 degrees and where he's laying right now, is actually
about 78, 79 degrees.
So, we're giving the animal the options,
I think that's so important, is give them a lot of
opportunity to find what they wanna be comfortable at.
Again, right after Casper feeds, he's probably gonna go
spend some time in the hotspot but because it's getting
to that time of the year, where he's thinking about breeding
Casper has found the coldest spot in the cage and he's
wanting to hang out there, which is completely fine.
Let's go ahead and just stick with reticulated python, so
you have the same animal, all throughout support.
But, we have Night Fury right over here and let's see
what temperature is, he's actually at 77 degrees, which
is the cool side of the cage but he can come right up
over here and again, it's almost 90 degrees,
giving him that temperature fluctuation.
Let's go ahead and talk about food because I wanna cover all
the "how to's" of keeping big snakes.
With an animal like Fury here, he's just six months old, so
he can eat a lot more often, we feed him every seven days
and he's gonna actually get a medium rat.
What you have to remember is, as these giant snakes
get larger, their metabolism actually slows down.
Now, Cordita is at that si,
uh oh, she's gonna bite me, oh my gosh.
Wow, that was close, I've never seen that before.
Perdita, what is going on, monkey?
What you have to remember is, as these giant snakes
get larger, their metabolism actually slows down.
Now, with my girl Perdita here,
she's still small enough where her metabolism
is cranking along really well, as a matter of fact,
when I opened up the cage right now even,
she's actually showing like she wants to bite me.
What is going on girl?
what's the matter?
It's okay, whoo doggy!
That was a close one for sure!
The fact is, we still feed her at least once a week
and I just fed her a couple days ago
and she seems hungry right now but she is
passing food through really quick but as she gets larger
and maybe another year behind her, her metabolism is gonna
start to slow down.
When it comes to the bigger snakes like Daisy here,
I mean, their metabolism slows down a lot, so
we actually feed them a little bit larger meals, again
Daisy's gonna probably get a five to seven pound rabbit,
every 10 to 14 days because it takes em
that long to metabolize.
You gotta remember that snakes never stop growing, so
Daisy is gonna grow until the day she passes away
but she's gonna slow down, tremendously.
Again, in eight years, she got 17+ foot,
now over the next eight years,
she's probably only gonna grow two or three foot.
Whoa,
what do I?
- [Cameraman] Yup, watch out.
- So it's interesting, today all the snakes
seem to be really cranky.
There's been several really close calls,
even Perdita, of all snakes.
It just seems like there's something in the air today, so
I'm gonna go ahead and let Daisy rest here
and get outta this cage.
And literally, Daisy just took a lunge at me,
as I was climbing out of the cage.
This is bizarre, I literally don't know,
my tamest snakes, all seem to be a little bit edgy today,
it has to be like, barometric pressure
or the breeding season or something whacky going on
cause they never do this type of stuff.
But that's just it guys,
you have to always read the animals, you might have an
absolutely tame snake, if it's giving you all the signals
that you have to be careful, you have to read those signals
cause if you just blindly go and start handling animals
and they do something, that could be a problem, so
this just teaches you a lesson and even me a lesson
to always be on guard.
So lemme know down in the comments, if that covers
some of the things about the
"how to take care of big snakes" thing,
I'll try to go through all of the comments
and see what else you guys wanna do.
Again, I'll get more BHB, I'll show you guys leopard geckos,
I'll show you ball pythons, I'll show you bigger snakes,
I'll show you Bowser, I'll do all those things
cause I literally read your comments and I wanna make sure
you guys get everything you want, so
lemme know in the comments, if I did a good job,
you wanna see more "how to" type stuff like that.
I'm happy to do it, I'm always tryna figure the best way
to keep you guys entertained and educated
and even a lot of people had asked if
I was gonna do some more travel stuff, I promise you
that travel is in my blood.
I've just kinda been grounded a little bit
with the Reptarium and I love being here now
but I do have to get some amazing travel coming up,
we're off to Italy, next month.
Down to Florida in about a week or two,
gotta get out to LA, gonna do some stuff in Chicago,
gonna definitely head over to Australia soon, so
don't you worry, I promise that the scenery will change
from time to time.
So Kelsey, where are we at down stairs, what is going on?
- Downstairs, we are getting ready for 2019 breeding season.
- And actually, she's been waiting on me
because I have to get some breeding schemes together, so
- Yes, have you looked at my list yet?
- I'm starting to work on it and basically,
what'll happen is, I'll come up with a basic scheme
that I'm gonna let Kelsey, kinda make the final decisions
and hopefully, we'll start breeding ball pythons
and all the other pythons, by the end of this month
by the absolute latest.
I know I'm tying you,
- I Know the girls are ready, I've even seen some leaving
scent marks in their cages.
- Ah, we're ready to go.
Alright we gotta get out, this is on me,
I've gotta get it goin.
Guess who's back, Eric!
You got over the Ebola virus then.
- It's still working its way through,
I actually you know, I just was rumgaging through my old,
just taking some medicine, I feel a little better,
you know, but
- So you still have it though or gone though?
- I don't have the squirts anymore,
- Oh my god, too much information, too much information!
- I'm just kidding, I'm feeling a lot better,
I'm getting there, it's just taking some time,
I keep getting sick.
You stay back there just to be safe, so
- [Brian] Alright well, it's good to have you back but, uh
can you wear a mask?
- I might have to,
by law.
- [Brian] Alright, bye.
- Been a while since I've updated you
on this little girl right here,
I should say "getting big" girl, of course
this is big Bertha the leachianus.
Look at how big she is,
remember when she was just a little tiny baby,
she is not only adorable but she is just a puppy dog,
I mean, what an absolutely gorgeous animal.
And then, here's our little male leachy,
oh my God, he is so adorable!
I mean, they grow so quick,
I remember big Bertha was literally, this size
like three months ago.
I can't imagine a year from now, when they're both huge,
I absolutely love them and there is no doubt
that we'll be adding some more Leachianus.
And with all that being said,
I just wanna know that I hear you guys,
I believe in you guys, I love you guys
and I certainly listen to you guys.
I do not want you to become bored with the vlog,
I want you to enjoy every morning and evening
or whenever you happen to be watching,
I want you to look forward to the vlog
cause you guys mean so much to me
and I wish you guys an absolutely amazing, amazing
day, evening or whenever you happen to be watching.
With that said, I am gonna go ahead and end the vlog
and ask you guys to do me a couple favors,
can you smash that like button?
Turn those post notifications on,
make a comment down below, lemme know what you think
about what I have told you during this vlog.
Be kind to someone today and
I promise I will see you guys tomorrow.
(mellow outro music)