- [Noah] Look at, oh!
- Oh my god!
(upbeat hip hop music)
- So someone actually came in
and donated a turkey to us.
So I figured it's a great opportunity
to feed all my animals.
I always talk about how I like
to switch things up from all kinds of different stuff.
I'm gonna go ahead and just kinda
butcher this turkey up the best I can.
And I have a couple ideas.
Number one, I wanna see if RJ will eat from me.
You guys know that it's been probably
eight or 10 months since RJ has eaten from me.
He'll eat for Noah, he'll eat for Eric,
he'll eat for everyone else.
So maybe I'll entice him with some turkey.
Because it's a fresh turkey, it might be kinda
good for him, he might like it.
Of course I'm gonna try to get all this stuff off here,
just to kinda butcher it up.
I just got some in my face, oh my gosh.
I just gotta make sure I'm taking all of this stuff off
- That was God giving you payback.
- Oh my gosh, and I tell you what,
this turkey neck is gonna be crazy!
I don't know who's gonna get this,
but they're gonna absolutely love it.
And again, I'm just gonna kinda,
just dice all this stuff up the best I can.
That's gonna be big, that'll probably be RJ right there.
RJ loves this stuff, I think that he'll
do really good with these turkey legs.
I think that this is gonna be really good for him.
Alright, so there's that. I think what I'm gonna do is just
cut some of this breast off right here.
By no means am I butchering this great,
but I think what gonna end up happening
is that we can use this stuff for Elvis too.
And what I was kinda thinking is,
you may notice that Noah is filming on the back over there.
- [Noah] Oh yeah!
- I'm gonna actually cut some pieces of this off
and I wanna take the target training to the next
level when it comes to Elvis.
What I'm thinking is if Noah has a blue ball,
I have a blue ball, we'll offer the blue ball
and some food to Elvis and then we'll hide it
and we'll try to get further and further apart
down this isle way.
Just to give him some enrichment going back and forth.
So I'm just gonna cut up a bunch
of these breasts, kinda in slivers.
That we can get him to go, it'll be great
enrichment, it'll be great exercise
and it's gonna put this turkey to good use.
So the idea is, again, I'm gonna take the blue ball
I'm gonna get Elvis out on the ground,
I'm gonna feed him and then Noah over there
is gonna try to get the ball over there
and see if Elvis will go all the way here.
Once he eats there, we'll try
to turn him round, come back here.
Each time we're gonna have to hit the ball,
we're gonna have to hide the ball
so he doesn't see the ball in Noah's hand.
Only sees the ball in my hand,
and we'll see how far we can get him.
Again, if we practice this over time
we might be able to get him to go
all the way down and all the way back.
Which is just gonna be great enrichment
for him, and also great exercise too.
So, let's go ahead and get started.
Hey Elvis, Elvis come on, come on out here!
Elvis, you got it, you got it buddy
come on over here, come on over here.
Okay, so here you go, I'm gonna
go ahead and reward him.
He doesn't see my ball now,
let's see if he sees Noah's.
- Elvis, come on, over here.
Over here, look at him, he definitely sees it!
He definitely sees it!
Oh he got the ball, he got the ball!
- Let's see if he'll bite it.
Okay hide the ball.
Now we've got to try and turn him around the other way.
Elvis, yeah, Elvis!
- [Noah] Look at him!
- Come on buddy, come on!
So far so good, but he being a little bit lazy,
so we'll see if he'll make one more trip.
Let's give him the big piece on the way back.
- [Noah] Elvis, oh look at that!
Whoa, look at him, look at him!
Oh, this is awesome!
All right, touch, he got the ball and then food.
Big bite!
- Maybe one more trip down and then that's it for Elvis.
I think he's got a good meal in him,
but I think this is more-- Good, huh?
- Yeah, all I gotta say is that if we were
octopuses this would be a lot easier.
- The one problem is, definitely don't
have enough hands to do this.
But, it's working out.
Come on buddy, come on slow poke!
There you go buddy!
Come on, little more, little more.
There you go buddy, there you go!
All right, so I think that worked out well.
What the idea is gonna be, going down the road is,
to try not to walk him down.
Where he'll just literally know as soon as he eats,
he can turn around, see the ball over in Noah's hand
and he'll just run back and forth.
Without us actually having to kinda lure him in.
It's just the first training session,
but I think it went really well
and Elvis got a really good meal.
Let's go ahead and let Noah work with his boy, Artemis.
We'll feed the usual suspects first,
of course with Artemis first
and then we'll go ahead with Abusuku
- [Noah] He's really ready, yeah he's really ready.
- Okay, you can go whenever you want.
You wanna take a piece first on
the stick, just to have it.
- [Noah] Ah, sure why not.
- Okay here we go.
- Alright, Artemis here you go.
The ball, ready?
I wanted to get him out, okay.
Now you can touch it now, you can touch it.
Okay tap, hide the ball, food man.
And here you go, refill on the food real quick.
Okay, there we go, what're you looking at?
There you go.
Come on, boom, look at that!
Here we go.
Once more piece, and we're gonna
try to get him back into his cage with this one.
Oh, oh, there we go!
So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna actually
put the ball in my back pocket.
I'm gonna try to do what my dad
ended the last session with, pick him up
and slowly put him in his cage.
Nice and slow, there we go!
And that is how we tame your monitor.
- We've had so much luck with
ball training and target training
that we're gonna start going it with Abusuku.
Because again, very food aggressive, really a good animal.
And you guys know that I said we
put her on a diet from when we got her.
She was a little over-weight,
she's looking really kinda slim and good now.
So, I'm ready to start kinda getting that training going.
I don't know how she's gonna react at first,
but we're gonna give it our best shot. Alright girl?
Okay there's the ball, she doesn't know
what that means yet, but now she's got food.
So again, now she's gonna start, hopefully
associating the ball with food.
We saw how quickly we had it work
with Elvis and Artemis and of course Bella.
So, with any luck we'll get her to that point,
and that way when we open the cage,
much like Artemis, she won't come running at us
like she thinks it's food every time.
So, this is just the beginning stages.
She's getting a turkey neck right now,
which I think she's absolutely gonna love.
And I'll give her a couple of other pieces
of turkey just to keep her happy.
But, again, I'm gonna continue to work this target
so that she knows that it's not food.
I love it, I'm so glad we're starting
to do this behavioral thing with them.
And it's safer for us, safer for the animals.
It's just an all around good thing to do.
Number two, again, I don't know that she's
gonna absolutely associate with the ball yet.
I don't know, actually she seems to kinda be like,
all right last time I saw that ball I got food.
So lets go ahead and see what she does
- [Noah] Come on girl, there you go girl.
- Alright, good, awesome, this is a good start.
I think we're gonna leave it there,
again, I keep her kinda lean.
I'm still kinda getting her to the point
where she's lean and mean.
She was way over-weight when I got her.
So, she's looking good so I think
I'm just gonna leave the training session there,
we'll come back to it.
Let's go see if RJ will actually eat from me.
I'm hoping that he'll be enticed
by this fresh turkey, we'll see what happens.
- RJ, okay we got some turkey leg for him
Eric, you're gonna be feeding him
not yet though okay.
So, we're doing a little experiment,
my dad's all the way down over there.
The weird thing with RJ is that,
he doesn't like to see my dad or hear my dad.
So he's gotta be real far away.
That is when we're feeding, okay.
That's when feeding is around,
RJ gets a little weird around my dad.
- He does, he's like I don't feel violent or hungry at all.
- Exactly, very strange alligator.
So yeah, with that being said
do you wanna grab one of those turkey legs right here.
I dunno, you choose which one you feed him.
- I'm gonna go with that top boy.
- Look at those ligaments--
- It so heavy I can't even--
- Oh yeah, okay good.
So Rj is literally right here today,
um yeah, you just do the honors.
- Sure sure sure, I'm gonna give him a little clack.
- Oh look at him!
- Yeah, he knows that, go ahead and feed him,
let it rip.
Okay, here you go buddy
- Oh god almighty!
Oh, he's a little fatty!
He fell off and fell into the thing.
- Man that was awesome, that was cool!
- That was awesome, oh look at--
- Oh my god!
- [Noah] Oh my god!
Dude, that is aggressive!
- [Eric] You can hear the bone crunch man!
- [Noah] Did you hear that?
- I did, think about that--
- Oh yeah, that would snap it right--
I mean I drink a lot of milk.
- That would hurt so bad, that would hurt so bad.
So, our experiment is, so since we just fed
RJ, now were gonna see if you can feed RJ.
- So we'll let him finish up and as soon
as he finishes up, I'm gonna try to feed him.
And hopefully he's gonna be kind of in food mode,
and he'll come over and eat.
It's kind of a good thing because number one
we wanna give him some of this fresh turkey,
but on the flip side, I wanna see.
Can I get him to start feeding from me?
Because then I can start doing more training
with him as well, like trying to get him into
a certain spot in offering him food.
So, uh, we'll see what happens.
My inclination is, he may not eat.
But who knows, maybe I'll get lucky.
- Real quick, usually he takes like
ten, fifteen minutes to eat something like that.
He ate that in like 30 seconds, just so you know.
- [Noah] Come here baby boy!
- [Brian] Let's see what happens.
- [Noah] Maybe he is hungry for more.
I don't know.
- [Eric] Come on RJ!
- [Brian] RJ, come on, come on buddy!
I mean like, I don't even understand.
I mean it's like, he doesn't wanna eat in front of me.
It doesn't make any sense.
Let me see if I, again, maybe if I walk away--
- Yeah, that's so weird Brian.
What he needs, he needs a mask of my face,
it'll work every time.
Come on, it's a juicy one!
- [Noah] That is juicy.
Oh, here we go, here we go!
- [Eric] Here he goes!
Come on up, come on up, come on up!
Can you come up?
- [Everybody] Oh!
- That so strange, what the heck!?
- [Noah] For some reason, I don't know why, he doesn't.
What does that mean? - I don't know what it means.
If anyone knows behavior of crocodilians like that,
I actually talked my friends down at Gator Land
that are like the experts of crocodilians.
And they couldn't even explain it,
they we're like, I don't know what that's about.
So I don't know, if guys have a theory
down in the comments, let me know what your theory is.
Obviously he eats for Eric, he eats for Noah,
he eats for everyone else, he doesn't eat for me.
- It's super strange.
I don't know, but there he goes
enjoying the second one over there.
Look at those little chomps.
- Last animal I think I'm going to try
to feel this turkey to, is Rico.
Oh, he's in shed but he might go, I'm not sure.
Nah, he's in shed.
- [Noah] Oh oh, he got it, look at that!
- [Brian] Even in shed he's like,
I'm not gonna pass up this opportunity
to eat a big old turkey neck.
- [Noah] Look at that.
- [Brian] Look at him man, holy moly!
- [Eric] So cool!
- [Brian] Come on buddy, do it!
- [Noah] Chew on it.
- [Brian] Oh my god that's so cool.
How cool is that, oh my god.
- [Noah] Rico's got a big old turkey neck over there.
- That's awesome
- That's the thing that's nice about Cribo's too is,
they'll eat fish, they'll eat turkey,
they'll eat chicken, they'll eat all kinds of stuff.
But he is definitely going to town right now.
- I just love how much Matilda
is kind of coming out of her shell, you could say.
She's definitely fitting in here,
and I think feeling more comfortable.
She likes to stand up when we come in here.
She loves to get her front legs rubbed,
and then when she reaches her neck out too
she likes it when we pet under her neck.
She's such an amazing animal, I tell you what.
You know, from afar you can just appreciate
how cool they are, but to actually
get up close and personal with
an animal like this is definitely amazing.
I'm loving her so much, and I love the fact
that I think she's getting to know us
and I think growing to love us as well.
- I tell you what guys, I think that's
enough excitement for the day.
It was really cool that someone donated that turkey,
and we we're able to put it to use.
And I tell you what, Elvis' training
is coming along so well.
The same with Artemis and Abusuku will get there too.
It's amazing to see the behavior of these animals,
I mean it is just life changing
to see how smart, to see them turn on.
The relationship I'm having with
so many reptiles here is beyond what I've
ever imagined possible.
And I am so thankful that I have
the opportunity to work with them.
With that said, have an amazing day.
You guys are wonderful and I love you so much,
be kind and so on, and I promise
I will see you guys tomorrow.
(rhythmic hip-hop music)