Venomous Snake Room Maintenance!

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Will Nace: What is going on you awesome people? Welcome back to another episode. We are here again in the snake room. I got to do some maintenance in here today. I'm also going to be moving some snakes around. I've decided what I'm going to do with some of the eastern diamondback rattlesnakes. In this episode, we're going to talk a little bit about some of the maintenance that does come with these deadly animals, but also some of the upkeep as well. Hopefully, you guys do enjoy it.

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Now as most of you guys know, I do have quite a bit of eastern diamondback rattlesnakes. The reason why is because, one, they're my favorite rattlesnake but, two, because I do plan on trying to do some conservation work with them here in the future. Now for that conservation work, I want to be able to breed babies and rerelease them into the wild where the populations have dwindled like down here in South Florida. That's the whole reason why I actually have many eastern diamondback rattlesnakes compared to the other rattlesnakes in my collection.

Now, this time next spring next year, they will all be ready to breed. I'm going to start working on the breeding projects for that. As you can see, I'm putting mulch in this cage that I've had empty for quite some time now. We are going to be setting up the two females in here, which one of them is the head albino. She will not stay in here during the breeding season. I will take her out during that time but I'm still going to house them both together for that time.

All right. Now they have freshwater, they have fresh eucalyptus mulch. This is again going to be temporary. I am going to try and get another eastern diamondback rattlesnake here in the future, a male. Just not quite yet. I don't really have the space for another male right now. There's no reason for me to try and get one. Now because, again, the one I have is the head albino, come that breeding season right before spring, I will be pulling her out of the cage. She will be going back in a 3-foot vision or in one of the drawers for the breeding season while I put the male in there with the female.

The three easterns I have, there's one here, one down here and one down there which this one now has a name, the other normal female, it is Savannah. She was named by Mark, who's one of our patrons. Decided to name her Savannah. We have Credos which is the male and the head albino female is Venom. We're going to start by taking Savannah out of here first and setting her up in the cage.

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Now, another huge reason I really haven't worked with this particular snake as much as I have with some of my other rattlesnakes is for the simple fact that she is going to be a breeder. I don't want to risk her freaking out or anything like that. Another big reason if I am going to try and mass-produce a certain snake, I will not handle that snake all that much. I will still handle them so they're still very easily and workable for things like this where I have to take her out and either move her or grab her or something like that, but when it comes to the free handling and picking the snake up with my bare hands, it's not something I'm going to work on too passionately about.

[snake rattling]

There you go. Nice big cage. Again, these snakes are about two years old right now. In the next year or so, they will definitely be ready for breeding. This particular season, I'm going to load these guys up with rats to get them ready between her and the male. Come on. Now, one of the other reasons I'm also doing this is because I have the big female, Miss Tex, the western diamondback rattlesnake in one of the drawers. I want to put her back into one of these cages. That's actually her rattling right now. I don't know if you can hear it or not, but I want to take her out so she gets used to me being in the room again. I changed her bedding and that's the whole reason why I put her in that rack system.

Where are you? You're right there. Now, this snake I will start to work with eventually, but it is probably the nastiest of the three and the biggest two because this snake I'm not going to mass-produce babies with it. I don't want to. I might breed this snake in the future to try and get albinos but I need to breed it to an albino male in order to get albino babies from it possibly because it is head albino. She is always grumpy, this snake. This snake was given to me as a gift from Mario Tabraue, who's the guy that owns Zoological Wildlife Foundation. Same as the albino western. Come on. There you go, baby. Nice big cage.

There you go, they're both in here now. I still need to put the label on here for them. I just decided to do this today so you guys can come on over here and check them out. Again, I don't have a hide in here with the snakes. The reason why is because these cages alone are hides. I want them to get used to seeing me so they're not so terrified and scared this way every time I do walk in the room, they don't even rattle their tails. It's a very good thing, that means the snakes are comfortable with me.

Now, the mulch that they were on or bedding were they on is a different smell so they're going to move around the cage a little bit. They're going to smell this new cage out, see if they like it, but it is a different smell for them than the cypress mulch that I was keeping them on. This is eucalyptus mulch. It's a big difference. Oh, you're out. You want to say hi? Would you like to tell the awesome fans of the channel how you have not eaten from me yet because you're just such a picky eater? Such a picky eater, look at him. Even with the tiniest little crack, this boy decides or this girl whatever it is, decides to stick his head out and watch us always.

The little baby king cobra over here. He also has shed his skin. That is a very good sign, that means he is growing. Fully eating rat pinkies only, he is in the hide there a little bit. He is starting to lighten up, which is a very good sign. That means I don't need to feed him every three days now. I can go to possibly feeding him, I'd say, roughly about every four to five days now. That's a good sign. He started eating two rat pinkies for me. The coral Cobra is actually deep in shed right now. She looks funny, I'm not going to lie.

If you come on over here. Yes. There she is. Very, very blue, almost white color. She'll be shedding here any day now. She's the next one to get a cage upgrade when I do get a cage for her. I want to do her in a setup like the baby king cobra so she has stuff to move around in, some logs to hide in, all that fun stuff. Not really a snake that likes to be out, she's always buried in the dirt. I have to get these cages cleaned out before I do actually take the western diamondback out of there. I will catch up with you guys here in a little bit.

I skipped the boring part. Set up the cages, all that fun stuff. I'm going to move some stuff around. I actually took the Gaboon out and deep cleaned her cage too. Now something I always do and every snake keeper or animal keeper should do this. When you put a new animal in a new cage, you should always disinfect the crap out of that cage. I use two different disinfectants. I use Simple Green for one as a cleaner mostly, and then as a disinfectant, I use Chlorhexidine, which is great. Both of these are animal-safe. You can actually spray your snake hooks down in between uses or when you're done with the snake room, just to make sure they're clean as well with this stuff.

It's really nice to have so I'm going to go ahead. Sorry, I'm going to try to hurry up and do this, I've been out of breath. Grab the Gaboon.

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Oh, look at this girl. This is Laurie as most of you know. She's in a much better mood than she was last time I had her out. Last time I had her out, she just was not a happy camper but that's because she, unfortunately, smashed her face up against the glass. You're okay. Unfortunately, she smashed her face up a little bit when Coral was in here bothering her but she's doing much better now. Much better attitude. That's always a good thing. I'm going to go ahead and put her back in her cage. Now, the reason why I'm moving her into this one, the light is a little bit brighter. You guys will be able to see her colors better when we do film with her. I always just changed her bedding from Eco Earth to the eucalyptus mulch. That's some nice new smells for her.

Something I've seriously been debating on doing is actually putting her on my bioactive mix with the bugs but again, seriously debating on if I want to do that or not. Which that's something too I can do because I use many different beddings. If you guys maybe want me to do a video on the different beddings I use, that is a possibility. I can do that for you guys. Just let me know in the comments section below. Come on, baby. There you go. Watch your tail. [unintelligible 00:11:07]. Perfect. All right.

In this cage, we're going to be putting the western diamondback big Miss Tex in here. I got to move some stuff because when I do-- This is why I normally don't film in here when I'm cleaning and doing this stuff because I'm very messy when it comes to this point. I got [inaudible 00:11:26] everywhere. She's been living in this drawer now for-- I want to say a good couple of months. That's why you guys probably haven't seen her too much on the channel.

I had a slight problem with her cloaca. It had gotten a little inflamed. I had put some medicine on it. I put her on this aspen bedding. She's doing phenomenal now. Now, it's time to put her back into a cage. I also want to get her used to me again because in this process of her healing, I haven't really handled her too much. There she is. As you can tell, she also lost a little bit of weight because I was feeding her less as well. You're okay, baby. But beautiful western diamondback rattlesnake. Miss Tex named by Nick, one of my patreons. Boom.

Now that she's in there, all 12 beads on her tail but "Oh my God, Will. There's no water bowl in there with her." No. I don't have a water bowl in with her. I didn't have one in there with her. I will soak her every couple of months. That is all the water she needs. On top of that, I don't want to make the humidity too high in here. Right now, the mulch I just put in there, because it's been raining so much here in Florida, is very wet. I'm going to keep the water bowl out of there until this mulch dries up a little bit, and then I will be putting a little water bowl in there for her just like I have for all the other desert species of rattlesnakes I have.

Really? You're still sitting here watching me? You just love me, oh so much, don't you? Can you see him? You can't see him? He's literally right here. [chuckles] Yes, this is some of the maintenance that goes into this stuff, guys. I'm sweating my ass off literally. I still need to clean out that cage. I need to adjust the timers a little bit. I got to pull all those guys out.

Yes, this is just a normal Sunday for me. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Subscribe if you're not already. Let me know future videos you guys want to see here on the channel. I'm always up for suggestions on that. Yes, subscribe if you're not already. Smash that "like" button if you haven't already and thank you for watching. You guys are awesome. I will see you guys in the next video like always. Bye.

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