- Hey, good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
Hope the start your day is absolutely incredible.
You know, over my life
I've been called a lot of different things.
Yeah, a lot of different things.
But lately I've heard more and more
that people are referring me to the Bob Ross of reptiles.
And I'm not going to lie, I'm not mad about it.
And the truth is,
I actually do look at us as living artists.
That's right, we basically take different color palettes
and we take different morphs, and we mix them together
to try to produce beautiful creations
like this Pastel Soul Sucker Rousseau
which is basically a pastel hidden gene,
het Rousseau absolutely gorgeous.
But oftentimes these animals come
from just our own minds, right?
What we think the possibility
and the endless kind of amount of colors
and mutations and patterns that we can actually create.
And I tell you what,
I've been doing this a long time and it never gets old.
So just like any artists
you have to understand your palettes, right?
You have to understand your colors
and how they interact with things.
And when you want to make a beautiful snake here,
like this pastel, Calico yellow belly,
you have to understand the palettes that go into it, right?
So we're going to start with a pastel.
Now, this is just a normal, incomplete, dominant animal.
This is a beautiful animal that increases yellow
makes things a little bit more blushed out.
So you want to take that animal
and then you're going to want to put it into a Calico.
Now the Calico is that animal that has a little
white blotching in the sides.
And it actually is, again, an incomplete dominant animal.
So you can actually produce animals like this with white.
You can mix that together,
and then you can add one more gene
which is a yellow belly gene.
And you can see the belly is a little bit yelly
but also there's flaming up the sides.
So what you do is you start mixing all three
of those morphs together and you can produce, of course,
this beautiful creation, this work of art, living art
which is a pastel Calico yellow belly.
And that's how it all works, right?
It all starts kind of with the vision
and understanding the palette of colors and patterns
that you're working with, and then
creatively putting them together
in hopes to produce my Mona Lisa, which
of course are these beautiful animals that we
create every single year.
And although our easels may be living animals,
and we have to certainly understand
that there is a life there
and we appreciate them as animals.
The truth is is that we're trying to also create
the most beautiful possible work of art
that we can in this living body, right?
I mean, how amazing it is.
It may not just be about pulling out a blank slate
and just drawing or painting away one afternoon.
It may take us years, maybe sometimes seven, eight,
nine years to actually realize the creation
of what we have in our mind.
But when we finally do, it's absolutely breathtaking.
This happens to be a banana leopard enchi clown ball python.
And, oh my goodness.
Take a look at that.
I mean, it's amazing.
And again, over the last 25, 30 years
it's incredible how far the hobby has come
when comes to this living art.
And I'm actually, for one, very grateful
to be a part of it and to have kind of seen it
right from the beginning
to see how amazing these animals are.
And if I can be anything like Bob Ross
and inspire an inspiration to love reptiles
like he inspired people to love art,
I'll tell you what, I'll take that title any day.
So just like art, it all starts with a blank canvas
and our blank canvas when it came to ball pythons
was this right here, a normal wild type ball python.
And by selectively breeding things
all we're doing is taking away or adding proteins
that are different pigments, different colors,
different patterns and stuff like that.
And you know, it's pretty amazing
because when I started this journey, when I was just a kid,
literally our blank canvas was basically all we had.
And within a few years, the only thing we really
had were a couple mutations to start this amazing journey.
One of the first mutations that was ever produced
in ball pythons that really got it started was,
of course, the albino ball python
that was produced by Bob Clark.
And it was back a long time ago,
and they were $15,000 when they were first born.
Pretty amazing.
But again, this is kind of what started the journey
you know, seeing an albino.
And honestly, we all understood what albinos were
so that wasn't a big stretch
when it came to the imagination.
And then entered the piebald ball python
with Peter Call, of course, that proved a genetic.
And this was really an interesting animal
because, again, it started to take away color
with white blotching.
And when the first pieds were actually introduced
into the country, a lot of people thought it wasn't genetic.
They thought it was maybe an incubational flaw,
like maybe some fungus on the egg
caused pigment to be reduced.
And what was actually proven to be recessive.
Everything started to change
because now you started to have albinos, pieds.
By then, pastels and spiders started to come around
and other mutations like ghost and hypo ball pythons.
And now you start to have a pretty cool color
palette to start working with.
What would an albino bred to a pied look like?
And you have to remember, you know, these things take time.
So we didn't know what an albino pied
was even going to look like, right?
And because they were recessive mutations,
you have to breed an albino to a pied
and get normal looking babies that are what they call
double heterozygous for both albino and pied.
And then there's something that's called Mendelian genetics.
That is basically just the odds of producing
the double recessive mutation.
In this case, it happens to be a one in 16 odd.
And then eventually, someone was able to produce
the first albino pied and it looked like this.
And it represented the colors perfectly, right?
You had the orange and yellow of the albino
but you had the white blotching of the pied.
And that's really how it kind of started, right?
People started thinking like, wow now we can mix things,
and actually start turning what our visions
of this color into actual living art.
And it's been an amazing journey to come this far.
And so I'm just going to go ahead and own the Bob Ross
and I'm going to do a little Bob Ross impression.
Of course, what we have here is a beautiful
white and normal colored piebald ball python.
But, you know, wouldn't it look nice
if we added a little smiley face right there?
Just an eyeball, an eyeball, and a smile right there.
And how about this?
How about if we had an eyeball in an eyeball, in a smiley
on the other side, wouldn't that make it happy?
Enough screwing around the truth is is, like I said,
I've always been a huge Bob Ross fan.
I really have, I've loved the guy since the beginning.
And I think it's actually funny that people would think
that I somehow have the same attributes.
You know, I think the fact
that not only was he so passionate about art
and all that stuff, it made you want to do it, right?
Like every person that watched Bob Ross wanted to take
out an easel and actually start drawing,
you know what I mean?
And listen, I obviously tried it a lot
of times and I wasn't very successful.
I can honestly tell you I'm a lot better
at breeding snakes than I am painting.
There's no doubt about that,
but it was cool to have a guy like that
that inspired a generation to get into art.
And I can only hope that I make even a little bit
of an impact on people to get into not only keeping
and loving reptiles, but maybe even breeding reptiles.
Because it is really, truly, an amazing experience.
But it's still just funny to think of a little bit.
And I definitely miss those mornings,
those Saturday mornings waking up and seeing Bob Ross
you know, doing that stuff, painting those happy trees.
And you guys know that occasionally
I'll sport a Bob Ross shirt too.
But the truth is is my easel is right here,
right where I'm standing, right?
And the work that I put into this,
of what males and what females go together,
and how I'm actually going to, hopefully,
be successful each year
not only with, you know, breeding animals,
but then hopefully hatching the animals.
And listen, luck goes into a too.
I mean, when you have beautiful animals
like this killer leopard clown being bred to another animal
that's another leopard pastel clown or whatever, you know.
You got to get a little bit of luck too, right?
It's not just like mixing purple
with this color to get this color.
I mean, the fact is is that we have to sometimes
just get lucky and hit the right odds on things too.
But the truth is, is that the work that I put in right now
that's really where it really comes down to, right?
You know, making sure the right males are
in with the right females at the right time
because if I can't do that, nothing really matters
to be totally honest with you, does it?
And literally, we're at that time of the year
when it's super crucial to do the right thing.
I mean, to have the right animal in
with the right animals at the right time
because this is kind of that critical
month, month and a half.
I always say that there's certain times
during the breeding season that is like super critical.
This is one of them.
And then the other one is towards the end
of the breeding season when it's super important
to not miss a breeding or miss a feeding
or whatever the case may be.
But listen, we've got a long way to go.
This is the first crucial month, month and a half coming.
And then again, maybe two and a half months from now
it's the second critical side of it.
And I tell you, if we can keep the motivation
we can keep the passion, we can keep the excitement,
the enthusiasm for coming down here every day
and switching our males and getting females together.
And listen, I don't think that's going to stop.
It hasn't stopped in the 32 years that I've been doing it.
Believe it or not.
This is my 33rd breeding season that I'm starting right now.
So, I don't think I'm going to lose a focus on it now.
And, and listen, it should be a really fun year this year.
Last year was amazing.
This year is even better
because we have a lot of cooler animals to produce.
So it's going to be an awesome time.
I cannot wait to share it with you guys.
But yeah, this is my Bob Ross moment,
and I'm going to own it.
And I know I've been talking about ball pythons,
but the same goes true with any other snakes
or reptiles or any animal for that matter.
Remember, all these things are made up of proteins
that are made up of colors.
And it's insane for me to think that a reticulated python
could be white with black freckles all over it.
Like my girl Perdita here.
I mean, this is one of the most stunning
and beautiful snakes I have ever seen.
There's no doubt about that.
And again, just unbelievable living art.
And I just am so happy that I've been able to be
a part of seeing the kind of whole revolution
of producing these incredible animals
from back when I was a kid.
Seeing only wild caught, normal reticulated pythons
and now seeing so many people producing these
amazing animals, it's ridiculous.
So I am curious though,
do you really think that I am like Bob Ross?
I mean, what would you categorize me?
Let me know in the comments.
Like I said, I don't take offense.
As a matter of fact, I own it.
I think it would be amazing
if people really did think of me that way.
But I am curious,
is that an accurate depiction of actually who I am?
And again, take a look at each and every animal
even their wild type color like Nova here
or course Bread Loaf, the Dunmeril's boa.
It never gets old looking at these animals.
Night Fury, the beautiful black iridescent snake.
Gramps, the albino king rat snake.
Or even, you know the craziness of the color
and pattern of, of course, Ben and Jerry.
Even though they have two heads
they're still beautiful, gorgeous animals.
And that's one of the things that I am always blown away by.
Look at the blue-green basilisk
which I love in this new enclosure.
They're doing so well.
They're getting big.
It's going to be so awesome
to see these guys produce in the future.
So again, these are really all living art.
I mean, look at the emerald tree boa.
Just look at that animal.
Again, the dart frogs.
I mean how crazy can think of nature can be, you know?
The colors of poison dart frogs.
But that's what it's all about is just being excited.
And if I'm the Bob Ross, I think Bob Ross
was super excited about the things
that he was passionate about
which was art and bringing happiness to people.
And that's really all I'm looking to do
with all of these amazing animals is to bring happiness
to people that come to the Reptarium.
Bring happiness to you guys that are watching.
And try to bring, kind of, a renewed excitement
about these beautiful animals.
And again, they are living art.
I mean, look at Daisy over here.
I mean, I could never have imagined
an albino reticulated python when
I was a kid looking like that.
So it's pretty cool.
I mean, look Nosy Be Panther chameleons.
I mean, are you kidding me right now?
I mean, this is a living animal
that you would find in the wild of Madagascar.
I mean, I will never cease to be amazed
at how insane these animals actually are.
And if, if I have to a little goofy every now and then
to bring that to you, I don't mind it
because the truth is I am a goofball.
And this is Bob Ross signing off
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