- Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible.
Oh, by the way Ivy's loft is almost gone.
I was in here cleaning and guess what?
Yup, she did all of this and that,
of course a turd.
Kind of crazy still that she ate a 15 lb pig
and only that came out, it's pretty crazy.
So I start my day jumping in
and just doing a little clean up here.
I'll probably have to do another drain here
in a day or so but Ivy, she always keeps me working.
(upbeat music)
Yup, that's the way my day is gonna start.
Perch just said that we have
a little bit of a problem with the Caiman Lizards.
Lets go take a look and see what's going on.
So you guys may remember that we made this
Caiman Lizard enclosure last week,
which I absolutely love.
Well we put one of them in here to test out,
just to see what was gonna happen
and a little bit of an issue came up.
Now that issue was it's not in there anymore.
Now there's no way it could have escaped
the enclosure itself, right?
There's just no way, there's a screen top,
it's locked down there's no way it could get out.
So I actually ripped this off
thinking that there was a chance it could be behind it
because I felt this little spot here
but as you can see it was foamed to the point
where nothing could have got behind this.
Unfortunately I had to rip this off.
I looked everywhere else,
we can look behind this here, there's nothing back there
because from the backside you can actually see.
There's no there holes but remember this was hollow
and I actually stuffed it with paper
and then we foamed just that side.
Well it looks like there might be a little piece
down here where it could have potentially climbed up
and it may be in this cavity now.
So I've got one of two choices here,
I can rip this hole thing apart, which would be a huge job
and a huge job of putting it back.
Or I can try to maybe cut a cavity out here
and see if I can go in there and take the paper out
and see if I can find the actual lizard.
Now the trick to this of course,
is that I've got this knowing
that the animal might be in there.
So I have to somehow go in on an angle where there's
no way I can cut the animal.
I just want to cut a flap big enough for me
to fit my arm into and then hopefully
we'll find it in there, we can take it out.
Then what I can do is I can just take all that paper out
and I'll just foam it, just foam the whole cavity.
I didn't want to do that in the beginning
but you know what, I can do that.
Then I can out this back down, seam it back up
and then we should be good to go.
So definitely a tragedy,
I was very unhappy when I came in this morning
and I couldn't find my lizard.
I was like, "what happened?"
But that's the only practical thing
that might have happened.
So lets just go ahead, cut this out
and hopefully we'll find this little monkey.
(upbeat music)
Well the bad news is that it is not in this enclosure.
There's no way it could have gotten out.
The only thing that I'm thinking is I'm looking right here
in this corner and this goes down behind the backdrop
but I swear I looked and I could not find it.
So lets just look and see.
You can see back here, you can see the entire thing.
This is the back of it, right,
and you just don't see it anywhere.
Oh my god, you got to be kidding me.
Do you see that?
Oh my god dude, no way.
Its freaking back there behind this thing.
Oh crap.
Now what am I gonna do?
I think I have no choice but to, (sighs)
maybe I gotta cut a hole in this backdrop
to try to get to it.
Well at least I found him I was freaking out.
I'm like, "How is this possible?"
But now I see what happened,
see right here, right at the top here.
If he climbed up there's a little space here
I should have foamed in.
He can actually climb in here and drop back here
and obviously found a little nook over there.
(sighs) I'm relived that I found it
but I am totally bummed that now I have to cut the backdrop.
I don't know what I'm gonna do here
but I have to see here where I'm gonna go here with it.
Okay, I think if I cut, okay, I've got an idea.
So he's actually in this crevice, in this piece right here.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna cut
this piece out here to the point
where I can reach my hand behind it
and grab him out that way.
I think that way I don't endanger trying to cut
into this here and potentially cutting the animal.
So, yeah.
Lets do that.
- [Camera Man] Jessica, I heard we have a little baby?
- Yeah, so this is our first hatchling of the year
from one of our sub species of Cave Geckos.
So these guys, whereas the other ones we have,
the Heminessas, they'll stay black
and keep the nice orange or yellow bars,
these guys between the orange bars it'll turn more orange
and break up and have like a spotty black pattern in there.
But they're really cool,
they're one of 14 sub-species of Cave Geckos.
- [Camera Man] Very cool and it's your birthday today.
Happy birthday!
- Thank you, we got the same birthday.
- [Camera Man] Yeah that's crazy and very cool.
Well, thank you Jessica I appreciate it.
- Awesome.
- Basically what I'm doing is I'm just gonna
cut this like this, the best I can.
(grunts)
Easy enough.
(grunts)
I just have to cut a big enough swatch out
that I can fit my hand in here
and hopefully get him out from behind here.
We know he's in this ledge right here,
so I know I don't have to worry about cutting him.
Andrea's in the back keeping an eye,
just to make sure that he doesn't climb out
so I don't cut him.
Then in the mean time I have to somehow get a spot cut out
that's big enough for me to fit my hand in here.
- I actually have a bit of a break time right now
and I usually actually spend a lot of my time still here
at the aquarium and spend my time with my buddy here, Diddy.
So me and Diddy, we go way back,
I was here from the moment he's been here
and a lot of what the work that, not only myself,
but a lot of the people here have been
working on him to be such a sweet little boy.
But now he's getting to the point where he's my lunch buddy.
I eat around him, me and him hang out,
me and Zoe will be here
and sometimes he's sitting at the glass behind me
just clawing like, "Hey come let me out, let me out."
He's kind of turned into a little bit off a puppy.
I figured, "Yeah, why not."
I'm actually gonna lean up here
'cause he's about to start hopping out.
Come on.
Wanna come out?
Come here brother.
(upbeat music)
- Okay should be able to get my hand in here now.
- [Andrea] She's a little to your right.
He's out in the water but he's over here.
- [Brian] Okay that's fine.
- [Andrea] Like way over in the corner.
- Okay.
All right, so now he's out of the ledge over here
but he's trapped over here.
I put some paper towel in there
so he's right in this corner down here.
So I'm wondering if I can't cut a piece here
to be able to fit my arm down and then I can grab him.
This has absolutely tuned into
a nightmare scenario for sure.
But at least it looks like
I can cut a hole here pretty easily.
I'm just gonna have a lot of repair to do
when I'm done with this.
- [Andrea] I can see his face,
keep going to your left, to your right, no left.
He's right in the corner, in the corner over here.
To your left.
(upbeat music)
- All right I finally got this little dude out.
What a nightmare, I mean,
this has been a disaster all over the place.
The cage is pretty much wrecked,
we got a lot to fix up here.
Definitely not what I wanted to see happen,
I'm gonna try and go back to square one
and see if I can't get this cage fixed up for him.
But what a bummer, I tell you what.
But we did finally get him out.
My hands are ripped up, everything done.
I'm gonna put him back in his old cage
and go back to square one.
Every day one of the first things I do in the morning
is come down and spend like an hour,
hour and a half with the Ball Pythons
because I always talk about there's a science
and then there's an art to breeding Ball Pythons, right?
The science is follicle growth, when to breed 'em
something like that.
But the art is how to feel about it.
So what ultimately I'm doing every day
is going through, checking females, ultra sounding,
figuring out when a male should be in.
Often times I say that we want to have males
and females breed at least every three weeks.
But the truth is,
sometimes a female can stall at say 18-20mm,
so putting putting a male in more frequently
and getting her bred two or three times
often times can speed up that follicle growth
or push them into follicle growth.
So the two things that I really use to push follicle growth
is breeding, number one and feeding.
Once they hit 20-22mm they typically go off food
so that takes away one of my things I can do
pushing them into ovulation.
So now I have to use the males to actually breed
and if a particular males isn't breeding a female
or hasn't bred for a couple of weeks but she stalled
I may switch the male up into something else
to try and at least get some copulation in.
So that way I can actually get that female to grow.
Once they get past 25-26mm it's like 99%
that your gonna actually produce a clutch of eggs.
Again, every day I come down here
and I'm looking at the science of the numbers
but I'm using the art of all the experience I've had
of how to actually produce these animals.
And I'm just super excited this year
that we're having such a good year.
Eggs are starting to come,
they're gonna come crazy in another two or three weeks.
Its gonna be a ridiculous time of year
Of course egg cutting.
So it's exciting, I love this hour and a half
or two hours a day that I spend down here.
It's some of the best times of my day
to be totally honest with you
because I'm seeing all of the hard work
turn into potential production.
Which is just absolutely been amazing this year.
Guys, I'm jus so distraught.
When I was catching this guy from behind the thing
I was pulling on his tail
and I saw that there was a little crack in it
and sure enough his tail fell off.
I'm just so bummed that this happened.
We worked so hard to make that enclosure so awesome,
not knowing that it would get behind there like that.
I didn't even know these guys could lose a tail.
I didn't even think that was possible.
I'm telling you guys,
I was just trying to do something awesome for these things,
and I'll get that cage fixed up
to where they can't do it again.
But I'm just so bummed that this one lost his tail
and unlike the iguana I don't think these tails grow back.
I have a feeling it's just going to be a stub tail
from now on and it's just such a bummer.
I'm still gonna love it and it's still gonna be
an awesome animal.
But this sucks, I can't believe that happened.
Totally my fault, not realizing that
it could actually get behind the backdrop.
I've had other animals in there with the same backdrop,
We just added the ledges.
I've never had anything get back there before.
It just totally sucks but anyways,
this guy doesn't have a tail now.
Spent a little time with my girl,
my Cuban Lewisi Hybrid here.
By the way, I decided that I was gonna name her Tianna.
Just so you guys know, meet Tianna,
and isn't it amazing how far she's come
in such a short period of time.
She was so afraid of us
and now she comes down and hangs out for pets,
just like Bella or Diddy and Dixie.
It's so amazing and honestly guys
I just needed a little time with Tianna here
because I was defiantly pretty bummed about
what happened with the Caiman Lizard.
I tell ya, I share everything with you guys.
I know a lot of people might hide that stuff
but I just think if I can share the things that go wrong
maybe it can help you guys in the future.
Obviously it's devastating that that thing lost it's tail
and I don't know, they may grow back, but I don't know.
I've looked online and I couldn't find
any information on it at all.
But the fact is that I didn't do it on purpose,
I didn't realize it could get behind there,
we had other animals in there that never got behind it,
and it stinks.
I'm definitely bummed and it make you feel like you're
a bad steward of these animals when things like that happen.
But the truth is when you keep the quantity of animals
we have and the enclosures that we do,
things are gonna go wrong, that's just the way it is.
I hope you guys don't mind
that I'm taking you guys on the journey.
This girl is an amazing journey for sure.
The fact that she has gotten just so absolutely
placid and socialized.
It just tells ya, you can really break animals
relatively quickly as well.
Regardless I'm gonna try to rebound here, stay positive.
Yeah, I'm bummed out but I'm still so blessed
to have all the animals I have like Tianna here.
So again, let me know in the comments
if you guys don't mind that I share this type of stuff
and what your thoughts are.
And in the meantime I'm gonna get into
the most positive mood I possibly can get into.
Guys look at how cute the two
little Albino Iguanas are sleeping together.
And look at Heins' tail, it's growing back so quick.
It's like 3/4 of the way there.
I don't know, if you guys have any information
about Caiman Lizards tails let me know down in the comments.
Do they grow back?
And if they do maybe I'll get lucky
and it will be like Heins'.
Again, it really stinks what happened with the Caiman Lizard
but I wanted to bring you guys along on that journey
and I'm sure it will heal up fine.
Hopefully it will grow back, I have no idea.
I'm definitely sad about it but well get this cage fixed up
and get him back in there again, eventually.
What a journey.
If you guys want some more journey,
you can hit a playlist right over here of unboxing.
Who doesn't love unboxing stuff, right?
You can also spend some time on my podcast,
over here checking in, if you don't mind.
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hit the button right over here,
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Have an absolutely wonderful day
Remember to be kind to someone
and I promise I'll see you guys tomorrow.