Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey Human podcast. This is episode 422, and my guest is Bob Bledsoe. Bob breeds and raises ball pythons and is the founder of Green Room Pythons, educating us on all things python while helping to dispel fears and myths around these gentle and interesting tube socks.
He's a musician, comic, and actor, and you've likely seen him in film or on one of your favorite shows, like Parks and Rec, Lie to Me, Hannah Montana, Jay Leno. He's been on a ton of stuff. He's a dear friend. I've known him forever, and I'm excited for him to be on the show. As some of you may know, I am a huge fan of snakes. I've always loved them, and I very much enjoy going over to Bob's place and getting to pet and love on these really intriguing, interesting,
beautiful creatures. So, hopefully, even if you're a little afraid or very afraid of snakes, this episode will, I don't know, make you a little bit more open minded toward them. Alright. General stuff. Hey, Human Podcast is now on YouTube under official Susan Ruth. If you're getting the show there, please hit that subscribe button. It's really helpful, and I appreciate it. I'm on Patreon at susanruthism, TikTok at susanruthism.
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please hit that subscribe button. It's really helpful. If you have a couple minutes, write a review. Let me know what you think, especially if you think good things, and thank you for listening. Be well, be kind, be love, and here we go. Bob, let's go. Welcome to Hey Human. Hi, Susan. I'm so happy to be here. Hello, love. It's so good to see you. It's it's always good to see you. Anytime I can hang out with you is a great day. Aw. Thanks, honey. We have known each other a long time.
Yeah. I can't even count how many fingers that is, but it's a lot of them. It's gotta be 60 to 70 years, something like that. Yeah. We might have to involve toes, for sure. And you have had many lifetimes within a lifetime, which I love that because I'm the same way. We're gonna start with the beginning of you. Tell me about your upbringing. Where'd you grow up? What shaped you as a person?
I grew up in Spokane, Washington with a loving mother and father, supportive, and a sister who was and still is my best friend, favorite person on earth. So that that family, that lovely family upbringing, shaped me as a person, you know, began to shape me as a person. Did you have aspirations as a young kid to go into the arts? Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to be a comedian or I I wanted to be an entertainer of some sort, you know, when I was a kid. I mean, I also had dreams of, like, being a zoologist.
I remember that as one of my earliest things. I found out what what the word zoologist meant when I was maybe in 1st grade or something. I was like, yeah. I wanna do that. But then it was all like I would see Saturday Night Live and I'd be like, oh, no. I kinda wanna do that. And how old are you when you started doing stand up? I was in my early twenties. Did that come secondary to acting or was that first? No. That was first. That was first. I start I started doing open mics in Seattle.
They they were going pretty well and I I actually, the same week, now I'm I'm remembering, the same week that I did my first open mic, I signed up for an acting class. I kinda started them both at the same time. What was it like as a stand up comedian? That's a pretty brutal existence from what I understand. What was that like for you and how did that shape your personality? It it is kind of a brutal existence and in in a couple of ways, but
it's also great in some others. Looking back on it, starting stand up in Seattle at that time in the early nineties, it was it it was just a great place to start because when I compare it to people that are trying to start stand up now in in Los Angeles, they if they can find a place to get up on stage, they're not going to find a real audience. Their audience is just going to be other comics waiting to hit the stage, you know.
And it's it's really tough to do. And I think that's kind of the case in Seattle right now, maybe. But back then, you could you could do an open mic and and we had good audiences, you know. People would come and and pay and sit down and buy drinks and watch open mics. So it was really great in that respect. There were, you know, I was young and as much as I actively tried not to be competitive with other
comics or whatever, I think I was. I think I I didn't like comedians that I thought were maybe funnier than I was or maybe they did a thing that I felt like I couldn't do and so I just didn't like that person, you know. So there were some traits in my personality that came out that I didn't like when I or that I don't like when I look back on that. How did you make an adjustment for that or have you not? No. No. No. I have for sure. I have for
sure. It's just giving. I know you. I think it just comes with growing up, you know, and and maturing. And when you're in your early twenties, you're not an adult yet. You know, I had to go through that and and, you know, get some a little bit of perspective and and understand that we're not in a there's no competition here, you know, with with artists. With stand up comics, there's no competition. There's nobody that's me, and I'm not gonna be them. Did you know you were funny from a
young age too? Or was it just that you saw these other actor comedians and you thought, oh, I want to do that without really understanding what it meant to do that? I was I was funny as a kid. I could make my sister and my mom cry laughing, and I was pretty good at being a class clown. I I think I thought that that that was that that was my thing, you know, that I could probably do that. Did you audition for SNL? I I did in that I I didn't do a live audition, but I sent in
a tape of characters. My my manager pitched me to them and they wanted to see a tape. So, I put a tape together. And, I did audition for Mad TV and I went through the entire process of the audition. And at the very last one, the screen test, I tested I did a great it felt like I had a great audition and had a great rapport. My manager called me about an hour after that audition and he was like, yeah, they decided not to not to cast a fat funny guy.
So they had, you know, they have these categories and and I was in the category of the fat funny guy and you know, I can't remember who they had at that time. But that but that was the thing. They were like, yeah. I mean, they liked you, but they decided not to go with your type, basically, for this and that and that was the final season of Mad TV. We didn't know at the time, obviously, but it got cancelled
mid season. So it was crushing to go through that that process and think that I was probably gonna be cast and then not get it. But I think it would have been worse to get it and think, oh my gosh. I'm on Mad TV now. I've made it. And then get 6 episodes in and be canceled. Were you at this time also starting your family? Not at that time. That was after. I started my family at right I started my family before I did my first open mic. I had I had kids at at that time. So I had I had young kids.
I was working as a mortgage banker, basically, which, which is what I did right, you know, right away. I I started working in the mortgage industry because my dad had done it. And, I kinda hated it, but I can make money at it. That's what I was doing. And then I started doing open mics. We were in Seattle, and I was like, I think I wanna try this.
So that was that. That's great, though, that you had the support to try it because that's a huge leap of faith to go from such a well, an industry that's not going away certainly to an industry where it's feast or famine. Yeah. Well, I also I mean, I didn't quit my day job for a while. You know? I guess I was in the mortgage industry for for a number of years while I was developing my act and I still
would I, you know, I started touring. I started going on the road for for road gigs when I was still working as a as a mortgage guy, you know. Yeah. I just, this morning, I texted you about this earlier, but just this morning was scrolling TikTok and came upon a little blip from Parks and Rec. And there you were on Parks and Rec. Yeah. And I okay. Because I watch I watch different shows and just randomly, and all of a sudden, there's Bob. So funny. It's so funny that that clip
is on TikTok. That that was one of my favorite things. You know, I was that I probably was on set for a total of 2 hours that it was so fast, and I was really disappointed because I'm a fan of that show and and was at the time that,
that I shot the thing. The what I what I really liked about that, it's one little scene with Rashida Jones and the, you know, the idea is that it's it's that I'm I'm trying to complain about something about the city, and she is supposed to be a surrogate for the city on on that particular day to answer my complaint. And and so after I say whatever, she goes, you know, I'm I'm just a nurse, actually. I don't really
work for the city. And then I'm supposed to show her my arm, pull up my sleeve and show her my arm and say, oh, can you take a look at this? And so we did a couple takes of that and then I asked the director. I said, do you mind if I just instead of pulling up my sleeve, do you mind if I just whip off my shirt? Because that might be really funny. And he goes, no. Let's try it. So we did one take of that of me taking the shirt all the way off, which is so stupid and ridiculous.
And that's what they used, which made me really happy. At that time, I was doing a lot of Jay Leno appearances. I was I was one of the regular sketch guys on Leno, and it seemed like every time they brought me in is when they needed a fat guy to take off his shirt. So, like, that was kind of my go to thing at the time was was take off your shirt. I've seen you let's see. I've seen you as in giving a hot dog, hot dog vendor person. I don't remember which show that was. That was on.
That was on that, lie to me. Lie to me. That's right. And it's always so random when I see you. My the same goes with my friend Grant. He just shows up and thinks, and I'm like, what the hell? Yeah. Yeah. Funny. Isn't that fun though, like, to see you're just watching a show and you see your friend pop up? I I love that. It's the best. Mhmm. It really is. It's the best. You have been in a few movies
and and and had that experience. But the thing that really intrigues me about you is a while back, you started to get into snakes. And maybe you've been in snakes your whole life. Yeah. But you really, you went for it. So let's talk about that. Yeah. I went deep. What started that adventure? I've always had reptiles as a kid and have been fascinated in them, in in keeping them, but also just learning anything I can about them because they're so different from us. Like, what is
going on with those things? Right? So let so let me say this. I've been, there's one part of the story, which is that I went from touring comedy clubs to touring renaissance festivals. Right? So I have this show that I do for renaissance fairs and that's pretty much what I do. That's my touring now, as I do these festival gigs. When COVID hit, the all those gigs were canceled, obviously. And that gave me time to start my YouTube channel, which I've been wanting to do
for a long time. And separately, I've also always wanted to breed reptiles. And I had one I had a snake. I had a ball python. And I thought, okay. I paid too much for this ball python anyway. Maybe I just get another one and breed him and and then I can produce babies and sell a couple babies and that'll recoup my cost. Plus it'll get me it'll get me, doing something that I've always wanted to do. And I have time at home now to
learn how to do that. And then I went, oh, I can make my YouTube channel about that as well because I know a lot about snakes. I can teach people about snakes, and I can make it funny. So we'll start this channel and we'll just see how it goes. I'll put up a video every week. And, the channel has done well. It's done really well. And you have 30 snakes now? I have around 30 right now, but that goes up and down based on, snakes that hatch and and the cell and
whatever. I usually keep 1 or 2 snakes out of each clutch that I have, clutch of eggs, and then I and then I sell the others. For many people listening, they are crawling out of their skin with the idea. I personally love snakes, and I always You love snakes. Yeah. Love them. And I have so much fun when I come over to your place and get to cuddle snakes. Yeah. And they really have a lot of personality. They're so beautiful.
And I think people think, oh, they're slimy and gross, but they they're not at all slimy. They have a really cool texture or feel. They're cool to the touch. It's sublime, really. Yeah. And their their patterning is so gorgeous. Talk a little bit about how you manipulate pattern as a breeder. Yeah. So so these are all, I I breed pythons, and, these are ball pythons. I'm raising up some other species to breed as well, but but right now it's ball pythons.
And this the species of ball python, we have 100 of morphs that we have identified. These are genes that, change the color and pattern of these snakes. So, you can have everything from crazy pattern orange and black with some I mean, all kinds of colors, not green. We we haven't found green yet, but tons of colors and patterns all the way to just a plain white snake, like all all
white. When you learn a little bit about the genetics, you can you can understand how mixing 1 male with 1 female will get the potential for certain gene combinations that do some really cool things. Yeah. Because some of your snakes have smiley faces on them, so have triangles and squares. Well, I don't think I've seen a square, but just really interesting. And I think it's so funny that in everyone's mind, if you say think of a snake, for the most part, people think green,
and that's it. Yeah. A snake is green. And maybe that comes from our childhood when we're chasing garter snakes and Well, it's also when you see a picture I think when you see a picture of a emerald tree boa or a green tree python, that bright bright green is so stunning that it sticks in our mind Yeah. As the color of snakes, you know. What's a fallacy that you like to dispel for people who are that you don't know a lot about snakes?
Well, the one that I hear almost once a week and and this this comes to me because people are either telling me this as a really interesting story or they're warning me that I should be careful and not have pythons. They always make it personal. The story is this. My cousin has a friend who had a python and the python stopped eating and she would sleep with it every night. And then she took the snake to the vet to see why it wasn't eating and the vet
told her that it's sizing her up. It stopped eating to empty its belly and it's sizing her up to eat her. What, you know, and so they go, so be careful with those pythons that you have. And that is something that no snake would ever do. Snakes don't plan out their meals for for one thing. They're opportunistic feeders. They don't they don't they they would never, you know, snuggle up next to a deer to decide if that's gonna work or not. That's why you never ever see a snake at Weight
Watchers ever. Right. That's right. That's the thing. And then also there's only one species of snake that is ever in recorded history eaten a person. And it's not an anaconda as as people might guess. It's a reticulated python. Reticulated means that their jaws open up? No. Or what No. Pretty much all snakes have jaws that are unhinged already and, and open up. Reticulated
refers to it's a I don't know. I don't understand why this is a thing, but, reticulated is a word that means netting, and I've never heard it in any other context other than talking about this snake. And the pattern on them looks like a net. They have a really cool pattern. And you've you have played with 2 reticulated pythons. They're dwarf though. Though so they'll never get as big as the ones who actually can eat
a small human in in Southeast Asia. It's hard to pick a favorite of your snakes, but I was partial to that cutie patootie baby tiny one that curled around my wrist. Oh oh, was that, was that little Pip? Was that the pygmy python? Pip. Yeah. Yeah. Pip is so cute. Small smallest python in the world. They smell through their tongues? They do have noses, and they can smell. But Oh, okay. They say that they I
don't know anything. Yeah. No. That's okay. I mean, that's that's another thing that a lot of people believe because we always say that that tongue flicking is them smelling with with their tongue. But really what it is is they are they can smell normally. Probably not great. They probably don't have a great sense of of nose smell, but I don't know. I'm just guessing. But that tongue, what it does is it picks up scent particles in the air. That's why
we call it smelling. But what it does is they pull it back in and there's a hole in the roof of their mouth called the Jacobson's organ that goes directly to their brain. And they hit their tongue with that Jacobson or hit their tongue to the Jacobson's organ, and it tells them everything that's going on in the room. It's their main sense. They they that's a that's a better sense for them than vision and anything else. So they can tell directionally.
A snake could be, like, on the side of a trail and they could tongue flick and they can tell directionally where a rodent is. Not just that there's a rodent in the area somewhere, but they've got those 2 forks on their tongue and they can tell they've picked up more scents on one of the forks than the other. So it's the rodent is off to the right or something. That's like a water witcher. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. It's like a water witcher. Yeah.
That's really cool. I just noticed that as I was snuggling with your bebez that they they would stick their tongue out along my face. You know? And I thought, oh, are they sniffing me? They're giving me. Yeah. They're yeah. And they'll they'll they'll touch your face with it. Like, they wanna they wanna figure out what that is. You know? Yeah. They and I know I know you say that they
are they very bright? I mean, it seems like they are an instinct driven, but they I like to anthropomorphize pretty much everything. They seem to have so much personality individually. They do. They they do have a lot of personality individually. They are instinct driven. However, this this fallacy of, you know, we we
talk about the reptile brain. And when we when we say the reptile brain, we're talking about the part of the brain in humans that just goes off instinct, because the idea used to be that reptiles and amphibians only act on instinct. They don't have any feelings. They don't have anything, you know, and it's just not true. They are trainable. I I train I target train a lot of my snakes. So target training for just for those who don't know is, I present a target to them, a colored disc, and
that means that food is available. So for, like, the reticulated pythons and my my black headed pythons and my boa, I do this with. When they see that target, they know food is available. The only time they get fed is when they see that target. So if they don't see the target, they know they're not getting fed. But the idea is that they follow the target, touch it with their nose or tongue, and then they get
their meal. So they're trained that way. I have other snakes that that I'll let out to roam around the room if they want, and I have them trained I have one specifically trained not to go in a certain area that she likes to go in and I don't want her to go there. So I trained her, to not go there and she doesn't. And you did that all with food? No.
I didn't do that with food. What I did is I I opened her enclosure and kept it open and I let her come out on her own like I always do and she would she would always go behind it was it was in and behind other enclosures and she would always try to go there. So as soon as she would start going there, I would pick her up and put her back in her enclosure and leave it open. So I'm not, you know, I'm not shutting it and saying you can't get
out. But then I would just let her come back out and try it again and I'd pick her up and put her back in her enclosure. We did that for I probably did that for a week and I would do it maybe, I don't know, 5 or 6, 8 times a day until she would decide to go somewhere else. And after that week of doing that, it just, it just enforced in her brain that when she goes back there, it leads to back in her cage. And she's trying to explore. She doesn't wanna
go back in her cage. So every time she goes back there, she she ends up in her cage again. So it wasn't a negative reinforcement. It was just that's that's where you end up if you, you know, if you go back there. So that was I trained her 2 years ago, two and a half years ago, and she still doesn't go behind that rack. She'll poke her head in there and then and then come back out and go somewhere else.
It's pretty interesting. So interesting. That's what I like to call the Groundhog Day training. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. But, yeah, they they are super smart. They're they they're aware of me. They know who I am. They know that that I'm different than you, and you and you've experienced this. If I hand you a snake, they tongue flick on you and they go, oh, I'm probably safe, but I'm not super comfortable with this new person. Let me find the guy
that I know. Let me find the big monkey that feeds me, You know? Yes. Yeah. Although they do they're still pretty interested. Yes. I don't know what the right word is. Yeah. For sure. Especially the ones that I hand you. They're they're more The the ones that I've handed you for the most part are more interested in hanging out with
other people. I have some others that will if I hand them to you, they'll they're not gonna try to run away, but they'll sort of be like, let me find this other guy like a kid does to their mom. You know? Sure. Their mom hands the kid off to some stranger and the kid reaches for their mom really quick. You know? Well, and you have the benefit of having them from babyhood so that you can Yeah. Really show them that physical touch is okay.
Yeah. And they trust me. You know, snakes are never snakes don't bond, so they're they never want to hang out with me necessarily. They'd rather just do their own thing. But if given the option, if I'm holding them and then I hand them off to a stranger, they'll go, oh, actually, I'd rather be with that guy that I know. And then once I'm holding them, they're gonna be like, okay. Now I'd rather go off on my own. You know? It's like they're
never in their cage going, wow. I hope that big monkey comes and pulls me out. You know? I'm realizing right now I might be part snake. I know that when we brought out one of your babies, they, actually, she was quite large. She I think it was a girl, the the white one. And she I was wearing my overalls, and she crawled around me and then went and hung out underneath my oh, inside my overalls,
like, underneath my butt. Yeah. Yeah. And that and you had and I it surprised me, and and I thought, oh, I thought that they would be more in the mood to be out and about and seeing what's what. And you said that they're really not aggressive or predatory or anything like that. They really just want to find the least amount of space to get into and hide and and chill out. That they're They they wanna be secure. Well, yeah, I think you called them a meat tube.
They are meat tubes. Yeah. And that's how that's how all the other animals in the in, you know, these these are ball pythons. They come from Africa. And every other animal whether it's on the ground or flying see them as meat tubes. And so they just want to get in a nice safe spot that's kind of their natural behavior. And so you you're talking about Keita, and Keita is one that is not super comfortable being held. So what she did is she was like, let me
find this dark space. It was in your overalls, basically. And she's like, let me just crawl down into this dark space before I feel more comfortable. Yeah. She's so cute. And then she went on to behind the the mirror. Mhmm. Yeah. Yep. You train kids how to be okay with them too or people in general. You that's part of your work is to help them not be afraid? Yeah. Yeah. Peep more it's it's usually adults because kids don't unless the parent has worked on making their kid afraid of snakes,
generally, I find that kids aren't afraid. I have run into children who are afraid of animals in general and snakes would fall under that category. But for the most part, kids are are totally fine with snakes. But adults, I have a series on the channel that I call introducing people to snakes who are afraid of snakes, where I bring someone on who is an actor or a comic or someone who I know is gonna be good on camera. Like, I don't wanna bring some dud
on. But they're but they're also genuinely afraid of snakes, and I help them get over their fear. You know? And it's fun. That's great. Talk about the channel a little bit and also the adventures, where it's taken you. You go now Yeah. Into the jungle and talk about all that. Yeah. Yeah. It's really taken me places that I never thought I would be. Yeah. So the channel, you know, started as, like I said, as the COVID project. We're in the 3rd year right now. It'll be 4 years in in December.
It grew steadily and kind of became my full time job. And it started off as me talking about behavior and care and training and and socialization of snakes in my room, as well as the, you know, teaching people how to not fear snakes, which is a sort of separate category in, you know, in my little studio here.
And then I started traveling, doing doing little, you know, going out into the desert to find snakes or whatever, or going to somebody else's facility to talk about their animals, or going to a reptile show to talk about that. But then, I ended up last year, in the Amazon jungle, I went to Suriname to find boas and anacondas in the wild and specifically emerald tree boas to move basically, there's an area on the Quarantine River, which which you've got Suriname on one side and Guyana
on the other. And in this one little area of the Quarantine River, it's highly trafficked. There are a lot of hunters and trappers that will if they see a green snake in a tree, they're gonna grab it because they know they can make $35 selling it to someone who will put it in the in the export system and either send it to the US or the UK to become pets. And, those snakes often don't survive that trip.
And if they do, they're sickly by the time they get there, and they won't survive long oftentimes, in somebody's cage. What we did, I've been twice now. And on both those trips, we find as many of these snakes as we can in that area. We pull them out of trees and take them deeper into the jungle and re release them in an area that is not
that people don't go as much. I I ended up becoming friends with a middle man who buys these snakes from the people who who trap them, and then he sells them to the exporters. And so I'll go to him. I've done this twice now where when I get to Suriname, I go to him and I go, what do you got? And we end up buying all of his snakes that he that he currently has and we take them back. So those are snakes that have been wild caught within the last week or 2, maybe. We just you know,
it's cheap. It's like between $5.35 per snake, and we might end up with, you know, maybe he has, between 5.10. It's not like a huge amount, you know. We bring those back and and re release them. Do they have a homing sense where if you get them and put them further into the jungle, will they try and go back to where they were before? That's a great question, and we don't know. Here's the trick with this.
When I relocated a rattlesnake in Southern California, which I do sometimes, there is sort of a general rule that if you take that rattlesnake more than a mile from where it from where you found it, its chances of survival is about 50%. And it's because they know within a mile of that of that air that territory,
they know where to get their resources. They're living in the desert, you know, so they know where water is, they know where they can get food, they know where they can hide from predators, stuff like that. There was studies done on rattlesnakes. There's never been a study done on snakes in the Amazon jungle or or emerald tree boas. But the thought is that that first of all, there's food, water, shelter everywhere in the
John Cole no matter where you're at. So they're they're never gonna have to look for any resources. If I find them and or my guy it's usually one one of the guides that that finds these snakes. If those guides find the snakes in the tree in that area, a hunter or a trapper is definitely gonna find them that same night or the next night or whatever. So getting them out of there is is the most important thing. I my guess is that they kind of stay in the range that that we put
them in. I doubt that they have a homing sense that that brings them back, but we don't know because the the study has never been done. They don't have ears to put a tag on. Right. Well, you can't so here's the thing. I've talked I've talked to some people
about this. You actually can tag them. So you can put a little tracker in them that's or it's a it's a little scanning device that that you just, implant with a with a syringe and it when you scan it, you can pull up all the information on that snake where it was found before or whatever. But you have to catch it again in order to scan it and in the jungle it's really tough to do that. You can also put a GPS tracker on a snake and that's what I would love to do with some snakes. Like a little
collar? It's it's actually a it's a thing that's surgically implanted, but then you have to take it out again before it goes dead. So you gotta find that snake a year later and and take it out. And if the GPS tracking is working, you you can find it, you know. But it's pretty invasive, but it would tell us what that behavior is and I'd love to learn, you know. Yeah. I I know that tracking is important with creatures, but I would think that just to stop poachers, throw a little
neon spray paint on them or something. Well, also, by the way, the I should be clear because I I was saying that it's a highly trafficked area. These aren't poachers, and it is legal, and it is a way of life for people in Suriname. And these hunt so these hunters are legally they can just go out and catch whatever they want. The majority of the money they make is on birds. So they're going and and taking baby parrots and and macaws out of trees and putting those on the market. They get the
most money for those. But on their trip, they go out for, like, a week at a time, 2 weeks at a time. If they see a green snake, they're gonna snag it too. But also people that are going to work that are that work in the mines, they'll they'll go down river and on their on their trip in, they're looking for snakes
too. And they'll grab whatever snakes they can, put them in a bag and then they go work in the mines for 2 weeks and that snake sits in a bag for 2 weeks and then they take it back and and sell it and they make extra cash. So it's legal to do and they're not depleting the Amazon of these emerald tree boas, there there's a lot of them.
It's not like I'm saving the world. What I'm doing is saving a handful of snakes, individual snakes that would have otherwise maybe died in the in the process of being captured and These snakes get quite large. How in the world do you get one of I've seen videos of they're huge. How do you get them out of the tree? Well, the the emeralds are not that big. I mean, you could get you could get an emerald that's 6 feet long, but really the thickness That seems big. Yeah. It seems big. It seems
big, but it's really not. Like, when you stretch it out, it's 6 feet, but you're never gonna see it stretched out and it doesn't seem like that. Like, I can easily hold it in one hand. They're not that big, but the way we get them out of the trees is we have a a long we actually have a series of 3 or 4 of these long wooden poles with a fork at
the end. And when we see, an emerald up in a tree, we just put put the fork, you know, put get the snake in the fork basically, and then twist it like like spaghetti and and bring the snake down. Works really well. So we can do that with with emerald tree boas, and we do it with Amazon tree boas, which are a different species and they're much smaller, but those also get get, caught sometimes. Now are you working at all toward getting a show, like, on National Geographic or anything
to to do this? You know, I'm not right now. I would love to. It would be fun. But, you know, there are a lot of people that that are you know, when you when you get into, like, the reptile YouTube world, there's a number of people that are really good that could have their own TV show. I could potentially, but, like, my channel the way my channel is set up right now, it's it's definitely a YouTube channel. You know, I do some silly funny things on it and and it's but it's for
sure a YouTube channel. I think if I were to pitch a TV show, I would have to come up with a completely different concept. You know? Yeah. And still would be teaching people about snakes and maybe finding them in the wild or reptiles in general could be, you know, we could do anything. But, I haven't I don't have anything that I'm pitching right now. And they all eat different things, mice or rats or I think you said crickets sometimes? No. They eat bugs too or
just Not not bugs. Uh-huh. That must just be the lizards I'm thinking of. Yeah. Lizards eat eat bugs oftentimes depending on the species. The snakes right now with the snakes that I have, I feed frozen thawed. I don't feed live, but I have a dedicated freezer that has mice, rats, chicks and quail. And reptilinx which are basically sausages that are made for reptiles And they I have a couple of species that naturally in the wild eat other snakes and lizards.
So I have reptilinx that are made of iguana meat or whole prey iguana. So it's like the whole thing, guts and bones and everything mixed up in a little sausage. Jimmy Dean, eat your heart out. Yeah. Yeah. The snake that the snake that you like, Pip, the little tiny one Yeah. Gets little micro links, which are 1 gram each, and she gets those. She's so freaking cute. Yeah. She's pretty cute. Yeah. How do you get them to get amorous with each other? Turn the lights down, put on a little
berry white. What are you gonna what are you doing? Yeah. You don't have to do much with the with the species that I breed. They're every species is different. And some some of them, you have to cycle their food, you've gotta cycle their temperatures, all kinds of crazy stuff. With ball pythons, you take a male out of his cage and you put it in the female's cage for about 3 days.
And in within 3 days, they will eventually lock up, sometimes they do it right away, and they basically lock tails and then they stay perfectly still for up to 3 days. I mean, it's usually not that long, but sometimes it is. Sometimes it's 12 hours, you know, whatever. And sometimes within 3 days, they'll lock and unlock a couple times, you know. But I so I do that during breeding season. I do that once every
every month. Every 4 to 6 weeks, I'll put the male in with the female for 3 days and eventually, she'll lay some eggs for us. And they they some versions of snakes, some breeds live breed or do they all egg only? No. No. There are there are a lot of species that do that do live birth. I have one boa in my group, and boas are are live bearing snake. Yeah. Pythons are pythons lay eggs. Boas are alive. And then and then there are other different snakes. Garter snakes are alive.
Most others lay eggs. Are they protective of those eggs once they've laid them to let you get in there and snack them away? Or They're very protective of their eggs. And if you let so I've I have so normally what what happens is the female lays eggs and then I go in and take the eggs and put them into an incubator because that's, first of all, it's a good way to keep the humidity and temperature correct for for those babies.
But also I can as soon as the mother's not on eggs anymore, she can get back to eating. Otherwise, she'll sit on those eggs for 2 months and she already hasn't eaten for 2 to 3 months while she's building those eggs, and now she won't eat for another 2 months if I if I have her sit on them. And I have done that before. I've had, female maternally incubate before, and it's really interesting and cool. It just is she's she's not gonna eat for a while. You know? How do they go so long without food?
Oh, they can go they can go a year without food. They can go a very long time. A a big snake can go a really long time without eating. And and sometimes they just decide that they're gonna take a break from food for a couple months, You know? I wish I could do that. Yeah. You still have me at the their tails intertwined, and then they don't move for 3 days. Yeah. I would break up with that steak. I know. It's crazy. It's crazy. And and here's the other thing. Males have 2 penises. Say what? Yep.
It's crazy. They're called hemipenes, and there's 2 of them. During coitus, they, choose to use 1 or the other. So Well, I wonder what makes the choice for them. I think my my guess is that it has to do with which one with which side is going to produce more sperm. And it probably makes it so that in the wild, they can breed with multiple females back to back.
If you got 2, if you got 2 sets, you know, you use one up and then you're done for a while on that one, but you got another one ready to go. Sounds like an insult, but I guess that's a compliment. You hemmy penis. Yeah. Right. Actually, there have been humans born with 2 penis. I've seen that. Now I've don't Google it unless you're really ready for it. But you've spent some time Googling it. So you I did because I was curious. You know me. I'll look anything up. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
not anything, but most things. Yeah. Well, let's, when we're done with this, let's make a list of things that we can look up. Okay. Good. Good idea. You still haven't mentioned the name of your YouTube by the way. Green Room Pythons is the YouTube channel. With the coolest logo because you're also a musician and you teach music. You're also a member of Men's Eye. You're like a well rounded Thanks. Yeah. I don't really teach music anymore, but but I
do I do play music. And I've got a good friend, Mark Jackson, who who does has done, like, campaigns for movies and things like that. Creates the the campaign for a movie. And I just asked him when I started this, I was like, hey. What's the best website where I can just put together a logo myself? And he goes, oh, I'll do it for you. So he's the one that created my logo and That's beautiful. He made it. I didn't even ask him to do this, but he made the snake head in the shape of
a guitar also. And some people notice it and and I think most people don't, but, I think it's interesting. It's cool. Oh, yeah. I love it. It's so well done. This is very, very cool. Well, what happens next with what's on the agenda coming up? So on the agenda coming up, I have well, I have a festival that I'm that I'm performing at, that has nothing to do with snakes in a couple weeks. But then I do I go and do a fan meet and greet event in Salt Lake City, Utah.
And then I'm doing Animal Con, which is like Comic Con, but it's for people who who, wanna meet animal content creators. So I'm going You need an assistant? Can I go? Yeah. You can come. You can come. It's in Orlando, Florida. You wanna come to Orlando? I don't like humidity, but yeah. Yeah. It's it's gonna be super fun. That's a 4 day event. I'm I'm doing these back to back. I'm I'm doing Salt Lake City and then
Animal Con. Yeah. So end of September is Salt Lake City, the 1st weekend of October is Animal Con, and then I'm supposed to be in Chicago for a reptile show, but I don't think I'm going to that. So I think it's just those things. And then I'm planning another trip to Suriname just for some of my Patreon supporters. I've got a small handful of Patreon supporters that wanna come with me to Suriname to do that trip. And so we're kind of in the beginning stages of planning that for 2025.
I love it. How many vaccines did you have to get to go over there? I bet there was a lot. I think I got 6, if I remember right. Yeah. Yeah. And they're not cheap. They're like, one of them was, like, $500 to get Holy moly. The jab. Yeah. And I'm I'm planning a trip, to Malaysia, and I'm gonna have to get more vaccines from Malaysia. They just you know, there's different vaccines for every place you go and For sure. For sure. So exciting. Alright. Where can people find you
besides your YouTube channel? I mean, the YouTube channel, the greener pythons on, Instagram, TikTok TikTok? YouTube. YouTube is the main, you know, is the main content, but I've got short stuff on the others. Yeah. I love it. You're the best. Love you so much. You're the best. I'm so excited. You're doing so much fun things. Aw, thanks. Yeah. I really dig it. Thank you for listening everybody, and if you have any questions about snakes, you gotta reach out to Bob. He's the
best. Thanks for having me, Susan. This is fun. Absolutely. Bye, everybody. Bye. Bye, honey. I'll see you. Bye. Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast on iTunes, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts, and definitely hit that subscribe button. Super helpful. Thanks. Bye.