- Don't let it kill me, okay?
- I'll try not to.
- Okay.
(both laugh)
You never count your babies until they're on the ground.
(hydraulic slamming)
(jazzy hip hop music)
I'll tell you what.
It is pretty spectacular to have an alligator like RJ
that is so docile that you can trust, and listen.
It's not that I just trust him blindly.
The fact is is that I know everything he does.
Right now, even with me holding him,
I can see if he starts to tense up, and I know if I have
to worry about him maybe hitting me this way.
I'd never be concerned about him snapping at me or anything
like that, but the fact is he has a really bony head,
and he could come and kind of knock me out
or knock my teeth out or stuff like that.
So every time I'm holding him,
I'm really reading his body language.
I always tell people, listen, alligators aren't pets.
They really aren't, you know?
I know that I show this amazing animal and there's Bubba
and there's other great alligators
that entertainers are using.
But it's not something that I think most people should have
because they probably don't have the room,
the ability to care for 'em, or even the knowledge
of how to work with these guys. I mean,
I started working with alligators about 10 or 12 years ago.
Many years before that, I just was around 'em a little bit.
So I have so much knowledge of how to do it,
and I am learning all the time.
When I go down to Gatorland or out
to Critchlow's Alligator Sanctuary
or down to Crocodile Cows or whoever has crocodilians,
I always learn so much about these animals
'cause they are truly fascinating.
I gotta be honest with you.
When it comes to all reptiles, I think crocodilians
are the most fascinating animals, really.
Because there's just so much variety.
They're obviously apex predators.
They're so intelligent.
They've been around for 260 million years.
I mean how incredible is that?
But as for now, I'm gonna go ahead let RJ back in his pond.
Let him get back in there, do whatever he wants to do.
Go ahead, buddy.
There you go, sweetheart.
There ya go.
Oh god.
Did I tell you what?
I absolutely love his pond, and some people have asked like,
you know right now it's completely fine. I mean,
he's got tons of water, tons of space, and stuff like that,
but, yeah, eventually he is gonna need a bigger pond.
And I've been thinking about what I'm gonna do here
in the next two or three years when he does outgrow this.
Will I rip this out and put something else in its spot?
Possibly.
If I expand The Reptarium larger,
would I make a big enclosure for RJ?
Good chance of that because I think it would be really cool
to have him on display and to be able to pull him out
without having to walk him next door.
I don't know, but I know that as he grows, he'll continue
to get better and better housing, and I'll continue
to learn more and more how to make sure
the rest of his life is truly amazing
'cause I hope I have him for my entire life.
With that said, welcome to the vlog.
I did want to do a quick update on Bert and Ernie,
and be honest with you,
I try not to handle them hardly at all.
I know they can be really delicate, obviously.
Not only is there shell soft, but obviously
that heart issue and stuff like that,
but I did wanna give you guys an update.
They're still doing well.
They're still eating.
They still seem completely fine. I mean,
definitely a little weak compared
to what I would think a normal turtle like this is.
I know we have a long way to go before I can like
put this over at The Reptarium and let everyone see 'em,
but for now they're at least still doing well.
They're still eating well.
Mary's taking really good care of 'em.
I did wanna kind of update you.
And again, I don't like to really touch 'em that much
because I realize if that stomach
ruptures at all, it's game over.
So I try to leave in the tank as much as I can.
I see 'em swimming around quite a bit more,
a lot more than they used to, so that's a good sign.
But you can see it's so small and so delicate.
I'm really not sure what the future is.
I'm very optimistic.
We're gonna do everything we possibly can do.
And like I've told you guys in the past, you know,
I don't know. I mean,
we definitely have an uphill battle.
But with that being said, they are super cute,
and I sure hope that they go well.
Because I think a really big one of these would be so
cool for people to be able to see at The Reptarium.
They're so absolutely adorable.
So the moment of truth.
Will our little cactus lollipops work with Matilda
'cause again this is what we're hoping
to offer for a feeding with Matilda.
See if she'll like 'em.
That's right girl.
(jazzy hip hop music)
(Lori laughing)
- There she goes
- There she goes. - She likes it.
- It's like, yes, Matilda.
(Lori laughing)
Uh oh, here's, she's got a little buddy coming.
Uh, uh, nope, there it goes, it's fallen off the stick.
(Lori laughing)
(laughs) I think that worked out really well, huh?
- Yeah, yeah.
I think that she really likes 'em, and I think
when she sees 'em coming, she's gonna be excited.
- That's awesome.
What we have to do now is, again, just kind of train her now
that whenever she sees that, again,
much like I'm talking about with behavior, when she sees
that stick coming out with the cactus pad on it,
she's probably just gonna run over, and she's gonna love it.
This is really good for her too,
so it's gonna be absolutely amazing.
So that worked out well.
One thing I did wanna address really quick,
not to continue to go on the negatives, but
some people talk about my color coding of things,
and for some reason a few people have said,
"Oh, if there's a certain color tag,
that means an animal's sick."
Listen, (laughs) it doesn't mean that at all.
You can see we use pink, we use purple, we use blue.
These tags are actually lay-tags.
So if you see a tag in the background, guys,
it doesn't mean anything about the color.
It's just whatever sticky notepad that we have at the time.
We do make notes, and when there is an animal
that is ailing in some ways, yes,
we do put a sticky note on it, so that we all know,
"Hey, maybe we wanna pay attention to this,"
"Oh, we have to do this,"
or, "We have to have our vet check out."
Which by the way, yes, I do work with vets.
I work with vets all the time.
I'm constantly in contact.
Whenever we do have an issue that we can't treat ourself,
we call in (laughs) our vet to help.
So whenever there's any problems,
I always reach out to my vet.
I am so ready to start hatching babies.
You can see some of these racks
have some amazing babies in 'em right now.
Take a look at this beautiful
banana enchi ball python right here.
Oo, doggy. And 'ya know,
Just walking through I'm always like,
oh my god, there's so much cool stuff.
It's so cool.
This of course is a banana cinny, right here.
Oh my god.
I think this is our last banana cinny
that actually didn't even get on the website yet.
I think Lori is finally putting some
of the last stuff up on the website this week.
So, anyways, it's cool to kind of come down
and see these racks, but I wanted to show you real quick.
Look at these racks here.
Empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, empty.
So we are getting so low.
We've gotta get some eggs soon, guys,
so we can start hatching some babies.
The racks are definitely getting pretty slim,
but we are literally right around the corner.
I think my first clutch of ball pythons is due
to be laid in about a week and a half.
That is gonna be exciting.
As you guys know that the colubrid season
is well on the way.
These guys are together right now.
These are just some really beautiful corn snakes.
Their head for scale is creamsicle,
so with any luck we'll have some there.
Those are older stock that have been around for a while.
Then of course these are the Tarahumara Mountain kings.
There are now Blockeye that are going together,
so with any luck we'll produce some of those.
We have some new stock raising up with those guys,
they are absolutely incredible.
So I hope we'll produce some of those for sure.
Of course I've showed you before, sticking with
Pyrla these are the Albino Arizona Mountain Kings Snakes
Who taught me they have very small clutches,
I mean, you're looking at maybe 3 to 5 eggs
and they only produce once a year so
definitely not a high production animal,
but still pretty cool. These guys on the other hand
can be pretty high production, these are
Pueblan Milk snakes and we'll have up to
10 eggs in a clutch, and they'll produce
2 clutches every single year and typically
with Colubers a lot of times the second clutch
is actually smaller than the first clutch.
But with Pueblans often times its the exact same size.
Every now and then you even get a third clutch from them.
Definitely high production animals.
We have a lot of Texas Rat Snakes,
but I really love these Snow Texas Rat Snakes.
And what we're doing this year is we're breeding Snow's
to anerythristic's that are half or Snow.
So with any luck we'll get some more snows,
and some more anerythristic that are half or Snow.
Because both anerythristic and the albino that makes
it Snow are recessive.
Then of course look at these texas Rat Snakes here.
Of course this is a scale-less Texas Rat Snake.
And it looks a lot like Joker, actually.
I've never noticed that.
It's head looks almost exactly like Joker
over at the Reptarium.
But Joker's not breeding this year.
He typically has been in the breeding cycle,
but he has the year off because he's entertaining people
over at the Reptarium.
And I love these guys. I'll tell 'ya what.
Albino Honduran Milk Snakes.
Ohh Doddy these things are absolutely gorgeous.
We started producing these way back in the day.
I've told this story before.
We had the very first ones in the country,
so we're really on the front end of
the Albino Honduran Milk Snake.
And often times I've told people that really,
that's what kicked off BHB.
If it wasn't for the Albino Hondurans,
I'd probably wouldn't be where I am today,
because it kind of put us on the map.
It was the first time we had an exclusive project
that everyone seemed to want.
And speaking about an animal that everyone wanted,
these are actually the Albino Nelson's Milk Snakes.
And when these first came out, a guy named
Doug Moody produced them and everybody
had to have them. They we're $2000 a piece
for little baby albinos and there was a waiting list.
It was almost impossible to get 'em.
Thankfully now they're realtively inexpensive;
under $100 and absolutely gorgeous snakes.
Couldn't be more over-the-top excited
about Cal King production this year.
We used to have a really big group of
California King Snakes and over the last few years
we haven't produced very many.
But we have bunch more that are up to size this year.
So it should be really good like this
Lavender Snow Cal. Ohh doggy that thing is
absolutely gorgeous. And we have a whole bunch
of other stuff that will be up to size next year.
So our production will even get that much cooler.
With that said this Albino Hyoid California King Snake.
That thing is pretty cool. Its gonna be hard
to get much cooler than that.
So excited to produce more of these little monkeys
this year. We have a bunch of new
Brooks Kings up to size, again,
I used to produce a ton of Brooks Kings,
and I think last year we had like one or two clutches.
So it's gonna be cool to get these back in
the production scheme for sure.
Like this anerythristic right here that
is unbelievably gorgeous.
Or this Albino Jelly Brooks King.
Ohh Doggy!
That thing is awesome as well.
And I think you guys know by now that
I love garter snakes.
This happens to be an Albino-Checkered Garter Snake.
And she's already starting to look a little bit plump
like she's starting to swell up already.
It does happen pretty quick and these guys aren't
egg-layers, they're actually live-bearers.
So we'll definitely have some baby Ablino Garter Snakes
in the not-too-distant future.
You could see right here, this female
Mexican Black King just shed.
That is actually that post-hybernation shed
that I've talked about before.
Where that means she's starting to produce folicles
and that's when you want to breed her.
She has a male in with her of course
with this marker mark here so we know which one's
the male. So she is ready to go.
We should definitely see some copulation from them.
Black Kings. Oh my God.
They are so popular.
And I sure hope we produce these cute
little monkeys this year. We should have
a bunch of hog nose up to size to breed.
And just like so many other project, we're raising
up new groups, so next year's actually gonna
be a really big bump in a lot of our
Culebra production but I tell 'ya what,
you couldn't get much cuter than this.
And a female like this can literally have 14 even
sometimes up to 20 eggs.
And much like the Penuela Milk Snake,
these guys will have 2 sometimes even 3 clutches a year.
This pairing here is actually pretty cool.
This is actually our blizzard male here.
But this female here is actually a blizzard
Sunkist Corn and she is looking really good too.
That sunkist is actually a mutation that just
kinda changes the pattern and color of
the animal a little bit.
So it'll be really cool to produce
some blizzards. The one thing about
Sunkists you have to be careful of;
There's actually a gene that was in it
that was called "Stargazing Gene."
Now the ones we have have never had stargazing so
we've never had to deal with it,
but some of the lines of sunkist will have it
where the snakes will actually wobble much like a spider,
and don't even get me started on that one.
I feel like its been forever since
I've shown you Snap, Crackle, and Pop.
This happens to be Snap, Crackle's next door,
and then Pop is right over here too.
They're getting absolutely huge.
And again you wanna feed these guys smaller meals.
So even though they're getting big, they don't
eat something about the size you would think.
This could probably eat a small-large rat,
but believe it or not we keep 'em on small
to very small-medium rats,
because you don't wanna 'em really big and fat.
That can shorten the life-span of a Blackhead
quicker than you can possibly imagine.
Not to mention, if it's a female and you start feeding
it too much, it typically will never produce.
And of course they have these black heads
because this is what they use to thermoregulate.
They'll actually stick their heads out of
the crevices just that top of the head,
and the sun will go down in that black
which will attract the sun,
and it warms their entire body.
That way they don't have to expose their self
to predation being out sunning its entire body.
What a cool adaptation, and again,
basically these guys are a lot like normal pythons,
just with that absolutely stunning black head.
I've mentioned a bunch that kind of the biggest
surprise at the Reptarium is the popularity of
'rachid wall. Bruce really has it up back here,
he does it all, but, ya know,
I've been a little bit disappointed because
there's been a couple empty cages.
This one, and this one. So what are we gonna do about this?
- Well I'm actually here to tell you that
there's no longer any more disappointent needed.
I have 2 very very specials tarantula on their way.
And they're very beautiful. But its a surprise.
I don't wanna tell you.
- What?
Can you give me a hint?
- One's an oval tarantula. There's the first hint.
And the other one is a very commonly seen tarantula
people see them in the pet trade a lot.
But there's actually kind of a mover.
So you might get a little freaked out but
its totally safe, you're not gonna be
in any danger whatsoever.
- Great just what I need.
I've already been getting over my fears;
now I can pick up the scorpion, now I can pick up
the tarantulas now you're giving me one; the fast ones
freak me out but leaving it up to him.
Honestly I was trying to see if I get a hint out of him,
obviously he's not gonna give me it.
So when are they coming.
- Not gonna happen, not tellin' 'ya.
Lets put it this way, give me about
another couple weeks. Let me have them
come in, shipped in, and we're gonna rock.
- Alright, so there it is guys.
A couple more weeks and I'll get the surprise you
with whatever Bruces has up his head.
Just don't let it kill me, okay?
- I'll try not to.
- Okay
(Laughs)
- I keep mentioning how excited I am
about the blue tongue skink bredding season
but one of the things I'm probably most excited about
is girls like this. Which is the Eastern Blue Tongue
Skinks. I've been producing Northern's now
for the past several years, but I've never had
a litter of Eastern's yet.
This is a hypo-eastern right here.
And we have a handful of Eastern's that look like
they're getting look at how big her stomach is.
She is definitely getting full up of babies.
I am so excited about that. Again, little baby
Eastern's I've been dreaming about producing forever.
And it looks like possibly this year we might finally
produce some, but again, you never count
your babies until they're on the ground.
And look at this chunky monkey here.
This is a carmel Northern Blue Tongue Snink.
Basically just a real recap if you wanna know how
to breed these guys.
The Northern's actually cooled out to maybe
70, 72 degrees for a couple months
and we usually do that like November-December.
But the Eastern's need to cool a little more.
We took them down into the low 60's this year
for about 2 months.
Then we brought 'em up at the end of December,
early January, we started putting them together.
We got between 2 and 3 lots with each of the females
and the we shelved them.
And then basically you'll have babies about
3 months later, so, I think we're about a month and a half
into the 3 month wait.
So, again, a month and a half from now,
we should start having a bunch of Northern babies,
and hopefully some Eastern.
So we always have a lot of cool little
pet projects that we work on and you can see this
apricot pueblan has a really interesting
triad pattern. So sometimes we'll breed
little anomalies like this and see if they're inherent.
If they are we'll raise them up and we'll
continue to breed them and see if we can kinda
change the overall look of the snake. This is pretty cool.
Its just a little exciting Dinger project.
And obviously you guys have seen all the scaleless stuff
that I got from Forrest and Desriee so we're definietly
really excited about these guys breeding as well.
But I just wanted to give you a little bit of an overview
I mean, trust me, there are a ton of things I didn't cover.
So it's gonna be a really exciting year.
I'm gonna take you guys along on all of
the egg pulling this year.
So you guys will kinda see it as it goes.
Not too far off, maybe 3-4 weeks away from our first eggs.
At the end of a very long day, but you know what's
been a while since I've kind of switched the lights off here
and give you guys a little tour of the Reptarium at night.
Again, I do this every single night that I'm here,
'cause normally I'm here 'til after dark.
So it's really cool to just shut off the lights
and so I'm gonna go ahead and do that
right now for you guys.
I just think it takes on a completely different look
I mean, you look at how amazing Lucy looks
in there. Everything just pops at night.
I mean, the cages look great, Snaz is over here.
I mean, look at that. Oh my god. You got the
veiled chameleon here, look at daisy over there
looking absolutely incredible.
Obasuk who's in the water where she always is.
Here's my girl Bella in the back there.
Oh my gosh, look at Erwin, I just love the way
this looks at night. Its so cool.
It's been a while since I showed you guys this.
Look at the gator just hanging out over here.
Mokey Tail Skinks over here. Here's Perdita hanging out
up on the rock up there looking aboslutely incredible.
The Powder Blue Dart Frogs, I tell 'ya, it's just amazing.
I love this place at night.
With that said, be kind to somebody, people.
I'll see you guys tomorrow.
(Jazzy Hip Hop)