- And here is that dwarf lavender retic.
Oh my gosh, and then there's this girl here
who's just a normal reticulated python.
(upbeat music)
Hey, good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
Yeah, it's a little bit rainy and dreary.
That seems to be what spring has been here in Michigan
this year which is crazy 'cause normally,
we have sunny and beautiful weather.
But regardless, I am of course,
standing in front of Lucy's cage.
We did the big update yesterday.
If you didn't watch it, go ahead and check that video out.
My vet is coming here later today.
We're gonna talk about not only just whatever's going on
here at the Reptarium.
It doesn't seem to be any major issues that we have
to worry about, but we're definitely gonna start
to talk about Lucy, what our strategy is.
So after she leaves, I will update you guys
on what she says, what she thinks we should do.
We'll see what's going on here.
As for now, I'm just gonna take a look around the Reptarium.
Head back over to BHB, see if there's any colubrid clutches
and what else is goin' on over there.
And weirdly enough here at BHB,
we only have a couple colubrid clutches.
Tell you what, I'm gonna be sad when we have days
that we don't have a ton of eggs.
But regardless, this is actually a het scaleless corn
and it's actually bred to just a scaleless corn.
It's actually really pretty too, I mean,
look at the black borders on the saddle.
I mean, this is actually bordering on an Okeetee
to be totally honest with you.
Absolutely stunning and again, that's just bred
to a normal scaleless animal, so theoretically,
half the clutch should be scaleless,
half the clutch should be het for scaleless.
Regardless, looks like some pretty good eggs.
We've got a couple of little sluggers in there,
but nothing too major.
The majority of the clutch is definitely really good.
You can see this egg right here is definitely
no good right there, it just dropped off and that's fine.
Right now, we have two, four, six, eight,
10, 12 good eggs and two little sluggers right here.
Not a bad way to start the day,
again, not a bunch of clutches today.
But hey, 12 eggs isn't a bad thing at all.
I'm always super excited to put colubrid eggs down too.
And you can see this egg up here is just a little bit
dimpled and if I left it like that, it actually could
desiccate a little bit more because the humidity in this box
is pretty high, but it's not high enough
to really get that egg to pop out.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna take a little bit
of this damp sphagnum that's right here.
The dampest part of it right here and you can squeeze it.
There's definitely enough water in it,
but it's not dripping wet 'cause I don't want
the eggs to get wet and I'm just gonna put that
right over there and that egg will actually absorb
that moisture from the sphagnum moss, pop back out
and it should be completely fine.
Let's go ahead and pull the other clutch.
This next clutch and last clutch of the day
is actually a het snow scaleless corn snake,
so it's gonna look normal,
but it's also het for albino
and anerythristic would make snow.
And then of course, scaleless.
And oh, nice beautiful clutch of eggs here.
Doesn't look like a ton of eggs,
but they're absolutely gorgeous.
Doesn't look like any infertile.
Nope, there's one little infertile, little slugger
right there, wouldn't ya know, that would have to happen.
But she looks really good, again the females
are doing really well this year,
they look nice and plump and ready for second clutches.
Haven't been having much retain eggs,
only that one girl from yesterday
which was a scaleless Texas rat that seems to be
doing about the same as she was yesterday.
Go ahead get this girl all pros-test up,
make sure she's in good shape, get her some water.
And I wanted to show you the male that she actually
bred to which is really cool.
This, of course, is the scaleless male.
You can see a little bit of faint patterning in him,
but other than that he's basically just a white snake
with not scales, absolutely gorgeous and beautiful.
And again, because the females have first snow
and scaleless and the fact that the male
is actually a snow scaleless, about half of this clutch
right here is gonna be scaleless and the other half isn't
but you could get albino scaleless that are het for snow,
you could get anerythristic which are the black corns
that are het for snow, and you can of course get
scaleless of all kinds of different stuff.
Regardless, we got two, four, six, eight, nine
good eggs and one slug so hey guys, that's it for today.
No more egg collecting, let's see what else we can get into.
And just so you guys kinda follow along,
these are the eggs that we've know put on the shelf
with our colubrid eggs all up here
so we're filling up pretty good.
Probably gonna have to move these all the way down here
'cause my thought is this will probably fill this entire
aisle up when we're done, maybe even a little bit more.
So absolutely incredible 'cause last year,
I don't even think we got half way down.
So we're definitely having a much better year this year.
So it's pretty exciting for sure, and hey.
In only like five or six weeks before our first
colubrid clutches are startin' to hatch,
and then we're gonna be hatching
for a good two months solid, every day we'll have
a bunch of really awesome baby snakes.
The one really exciting thing that is happening today
is my friend that actually gave me Sunfire and Butterscotch
and a few other snakes including Titan believe it or not,
had a few more reticulated pythons that he was hanging on to
and he's kind of in a position where he said like,
hey Brian is there any way that you can take
these last couple of animals?
We're gonna go and help pick up
a few more reticulated pythons today
which are pretty exciting.
And then we're gonna actually pick up some cages
for Bruce and Jessica that he had
laying around that they really liked.
Sunfire here is turning out to be a beautiful snake.
I mean just look at how gorgeous she is, I tell ya what.
And I think that there's a couple lavender albinos,
I think one of the dwarf, and then there's a normal retic
which I'm pretty excited about
'cause I love normal retics and I don't have one so,
Sunfire you're about to get some company girl.
I'll just let her kind of crawl around for a little bit.
She's an amazing animal.
So here a little bit later we're gonna go
on about a two hour drive to get
a couple new giant big snakes.
Since there's not a whole ton of like collecting eggs,
and a lot of busy work to do today,
I did wanna show you a few animals that I'm hoping
produce really good clutches that are coming up.
Starting with these mandarin rat snakes,
I mean take a look at this male right here.
He is absolutely stunning.
What a beautiful snake.
And then this is the female,
and she's starting to swell up pretty good,
I have a pretty good feeling
that we're gonna get a clutch of eggs from her this year.
But look at the difference between the two for sure.
This male is just so clean and absolutely gorgeous.
And of course the female is also beautiful.
Not as clean and bright, but nevertheless I sure hope
we get some mandarin rat snakes.
Because we've been producing for a number of years
and they are definitely gorgeous.
I just had about a half hour conference with my vet,
she came over just kinda looked around at everything else,
and then we talked quite a bit about Lucy
and her suggestion was let's leave her alone
for about a week, wait until she sets,
see if she does pass anything, then in about a week,
there's something that's called oxytocin,
it's actually a medication that originally was for birds
that were dystocia or egg-bound,
it kinda puts 'em into contraction mode.
And I've actually used it on a snake
probably 15 years ago with success.
So she wants to go ahead and give Lucy a shot of oxytocin.
If she doesn't start passing eggs in the next week
or 10 days then if the oxytocin doesn't work,
then we have to start looking at the more difficult thing
which is of course surgery.
She said she's never operated on a snake this size
so she'd wanna bring a couple other surgeons in
which is completely fine but she said
she had the connections to do that
so I'll keep you guys up to date.
As for now, we're gonna let Lucy just kinda stay alone
for the next week, we're gonna see
if she starts to pass eggs, if she doesn't,
we'll go ahead hit her up with oxytocin shot
which you have to shoot right into the heart
which will be really fun as you can imagine.
And then if for whatever reason oxytocin doesn't work,
then we're gonna have to look at surgery.
Regardless, we're on the path, I think we're gonna be okay.
I think it's gonna all work out.
She feels confident that we'll be able to save Lucy for sure
so that's all that matters to me.
No matter what we have to do, we gotta save Lucy.
Well we may not have a lot of snake eggs today,
but at least Jessica came to the rescue
with some gargoyle eggs, oh wow look at this one.
Which, who's this?
- This is Morticia.
- [Brian] Oh she is beautiful.
She's the mamma?
- [Jessica] Yep.
- [Brian] Oh my God, she looks chunky still.
Where you goin' little monkey?
- She's just a big girl.
Like she's actually one of our larger females.
- [Brian] Oh my God, that's amazing.
All right let's see what we got.
Hopefully some good eggs!
- [Jessica] Now this girl's kinda weird.
She always lays one good egg, and one infertile egg.
- [Brian] Really?
- [Jessica] Yeah.
So we'll see this time.
- [Brian] They look pretty good, no?
- No, one look.
This is the first one she laid.
One is obviously growing, one's still good
but it's not growing so we'll see.
This one might be infertile.
And there's the fertile one.
- That's crazy, huh?
Every time that's insane.
- It's so weird, like last year was the same way.
So maybe she just has one good ovary.
- Yeah, yeah, maybe one of the ovaries.
Well regardless, we got at least one good egg
from a gargoyle and on a day that we don't have
a lot of eggs, I'm happy for every egg I get.
This is another pairing that I am so excited about.
Of course, these are hundred flower rat snakes.
This is a male molendar-fi right here.
And then this female right here that's going into shed
but it doesn't look like a pre-lay shed,
it's actually a hypomelanistic.
So hope that this shed that she's going into right now
is a follicle shed and that she'll start to breed
and maybe with any luck we'll get some eggs.
Now last year they did lay a clutch of eggs
but unfortunately they were infertile and none hatched.
So hopefully this year will be the charm.
Andrea's just going through and doing all of her maintenance
this is all, what, for all the lizards?
- Yep, all the greens and fruit.
- Right, cool.
And then you're gonna feed dart frogs, right?
I'm gonna, you guys know that I like to feed dart frogs
but I'm gonna let Andrea do it this time right?
Don't, take care of my frogs all right?
- I will.
(upbeat music)
- There is nothing that makes me happier
than feeding those frogs, I don't know what it is.
They're just so darn cute!
I love 'em to death and it's something I haven't shown
in the last few weeks so I hope that you guys enjoyed it.
And oh doggy, look at this albino garter snake here
and how loaded she is with babies.
These guys are live-bearers and we have a bunch
of really cool garter snakes that are just full of babies.
So here in another probably two to three weeks,
we'll open up the cage one day and bam,
there's just gonna be a ton
of little baby albino garter snakes.
A girl this size probably will have
somewhere between 20 and 25 babies.
I can't wait to see those.
(upbeat music)
Glad I saw you guys.
All right, so I'm gonna go take off
and get these snakes, okay?
- Okay, bring back a dog or two.
- What?
- A dog or two?
No, not bringing dog.
So you're okay with me getting these?
- I love how you exactly worded that.
You're okay with me getting these, okay?
- What are you getting?
- We're actually getting a few bigger retic.
- Retic?
- [Brian] Retic.
- What's a retic?
- [Brian] Reticulated pythons.
- I heard of retake, what's a retic?
- [Brian] Jesus.
- Okay, well are they cool?
Like what kinda color are they?
- I think there's maybe an albino,
a normal, and I'm not 100% sure.
Same person that gave us Butterscotch, Titan, and Sunfire
so yeah, I think they're like 10 footers
or something like that.
- Oh nice, is it gonna be as nice as Titan?
- Oh Jesus.
Regardless, I just wanted to let you guys know
that I'm on my way, it's about a two hour drive
or something like that.
So by the time we get back,
you guys won't get a chance to meet 'em.
So tomorrow you can meet 'em.
- Oh sad.
No just jokin' that's cool man.
Safe travels.
- Jesus, goodbye.
You may be asking why do I need more retics?
Certainly Lori asked that question
when I talked to her about this too.
But the fact is is that I'm looking
for that kind of next size retic.
You know, we have Casper, we have Perdida,
we have Snaz, we even have Sunrise,
but we don't have that like next big size animal.
I mean we certainly have Butterscotch coming up
but she's still a pretty tough animal to hold.
So I'm hoping that some of these, the albino,
or the normal, whatever the case is,
is a really good animal that's a little bit bigger
and eventually will get much bigger 'cause we all know
too that Daisy isn't the greatest handling snake either.
She's super docile, super great animal,
but she does buck a lot.
She doesn't really like to be touched that much.
So I'm hoping that maybe a couple these snakes
will be great animal ambassadors once we actually get 'em.
But again, until I see 'em and see the size
and see how they act, I really don't know.
So in a way, I'm going here kind of blind,
hoping for the best.
(upbeat music)
And we made it to our destination.
So let's go ahead and go inside.
Check out these retics and see what he has going on here.
Wow it turned from a gloomy, rainy day
to a beautiful day out here.
And the first snake here is oh my gosh,
this thing is gorgeous!
How old is this?
- Three?
- [Brian] Three years old, oh my God, she is stunning.
Wow, Bruce, is that thing incredible?
- [Bruce] It's kinda hard to believe
it's that little, it's crazy.
- [Brian] Oh my gosh, that is stunning.
And here is that dwarf lavender retic.
Oh my God.
Her name is actually Sunny D, so we'll just continue
to call her Sunny D 'cause I think
the name is absolutely beautiful.
But this again is a dwarf
so this is a three year old reticulated python.
You can see it's really not that big.
I tell you what, that is spectacular.
And then there's this girl here who is just a normal
reticulated python which I think is great
because it's really good to have a normal
phase represented at the zoo.
These guys are going to quarantine for just a little while,
make sure that they're okay but they look absolutely healthy
my buddy Chad had these animals since they were babies.
So they certainly are really good and around anything else.
But this is another beauty and again,
I think it'll be a great addition to the Reptarium
because we'll be able to actually show
this is what a normal retic looks like,
then we're showing Casper, and Perdidia, and Night Fury.
We'll be able to show what they would look like in the wild.
And then lastly there's this girl here
who's a lavender albino reticulated python.
Again this is basically just like Daisy
was to be honest with you.
A little bit more lavender in all honesty,
but again I wanted to have a snake like Daisy
that was handled right from when they were younger
so that they're really incredibly habituated to handling.
Unfortunately as tame as Daisy is,
she wasn't handled a ton when she was younger,
so like I'd mentioned she's kinda twitchy
and a little bit weird.
So as this girl gets older, gets handled a ton,
she is gonna be a great animal ambassador for the Reptarium.
I couldn't be more excited about getting these animals,
getting 'em kinda habituated,
getting 'em into the Reptarium.
Now what we're gonna do also,
Chad's actually giving us these cages here
and I think that some of the crew will like these.
They're animal plastic, super nice cages for sure.
He doesn't need 'em anymore so why not take 'em?
So we just have to load these guys up,
load the animals up and then drive a couple hours home.
(upbeat music)
All right so we are all loaded up and ready to go.
Dude, thank you so much man, seriously.
Come visit any time.
All right, let's go ahead get these guys home,
get 'em all set up, I'm definitely pretty excited about it.
(upbeat music)
Okay, back at the shop.
I'm gonna go ahead and get these guys set up down here.
I cannot wait 'til they kinda go
through our quarantine process
and eventually get over to the Reptarium
'cause they are absolutely gorgeous.
I hope that you enjoyed the adventure to go pick 'em up.
And with that said, I'm gonna go ahead end the vlog.
Wish you guys an amazing day, tell you how much I love you.
Be kind to someone, and I promise I'll see you tomorrow.
(upbeat music)