Feeding a Giant Caiman and Monitor Lizards at a Wildlife Sanctuary

What's going on everybody? We got to get some Cayman fed here today and some of the monitors. So, that's what we're going to be doing. Let's get it done. Louie. Now, the Cayman are pretty funny because they come when their names are called or they come when they hear me pop my jaws or my lips rather. Uh, and even when I just call their name. Louie. Ew, ew. I heard something plop over there. Where is he? Oh, that was a turtle. Well, originally or I thought they'd go Oh, that's that's Marge. I don't want to get involved with her at the moment. Let's see. Where the heck is Lou?

Usually this guy comes a running. Maybe because it's overcast he's feeling a little sluggish, but who's not? That female right there. Let's give her something. Let's go ahead and get her situated. Oh, look who it is. There he is. Come on, Lou. Get over here. Get some chicken. Oh, brother. And that's what I didn't want. I didn't want Marge to come over here, but she's coming anyway. Oh my gosh. The bolt that came in are out. Oh, look at this. He's getting annoyed at her. There you go. Oh, of course. Let's Let's get her fed. We got to keep her dialed in. We got a

nice fresh jar of tortoise buffet. Turtle buffet. Oh yeah. There you go. She's really grabbing it. Now she'll go back in the water and finish swallowing it. See you later. All right. Now that we got rid of her for a moment, let's get our tongs and keep feeding Lou. Come on, Lou. Lou, come on. There you go. That's a boy. And she's already done. Are you kidding me? She's still wear You're still wearing it on your face, Marge. You guys think she's nuts? Let me know in the comments below. Look at this girl. She is something. We're really focusing on our Cayman and some of the monitors. We don't really want you around here,

lady. You've already been fed. Oh my gosh. Let's go ahead and just chuck some food out for everybody. We got those box turtles, the Chinese box turtles in here. Are you going to climb actually into it yourself? You're something, lady. Throw some over there for those guys. Thankfully, we got our friends at Fluker hooking us up with these great high quality pellets with shri look at this with shrimp, meal worms, and of course, the pellet. Cayman Creek is looking excellent. Everything's growing up nicely. We had a nice rainstorm. We got our fishtail palms right here, and they're going to provide that canopy that

I've been waiting for the last few years. We're really trying to get these plants to kind of grow quickly so that we can create the proper jungle canopy for our Cayman. All right, that's it. That should be adequate for you, my friend. Hey, what's up, kid? All right, let's move on over. Let's go see Sunny and Share the Smooth Front Cayman. Got a couple of rodents for them. It's time for them to get a little something. We're already Fred fed Bella. So, now we just got to give a couple just give a couple of uh just a rat a piece to Sunny and Sher. Okay. It's a lot of fun. I love this part. I like uh getting in here, seeing how these animals are doing. Feeding is one of the best ways

to assess health of your animals. Look at that. We got the Fly River in here. Come on. Come on, guys. They are looking. Come on. Come on, lady. Get over here. Come on, lady. Look what I got. Look what I got. There you go. That's a nice one for you. O. Yes. Very good. And that's it. That rat is going to really keep them fed and happy. Let's get this male. Sunny, come on, Sunny. Come on, Sunny. Woo! Fast, Sunny. Good boy. Look at how he's standing up all tall. These guys are amazing. Really loving these smooth fronts. He's going to go back in the water. Both of them.

Look at these guys go. Oh, wow. I think she broke a tooth on him. That's something. She gave him a little nick. Get out of here. I'm hungry. What a mean lady you are. Don't mess with the girls. They're still looking for food. That's the thing. We don't overfeed the animals here. We just give them what they need once or twice a week. He sees the uh he sees the bucket. We need to spread the wealth. So, we need to feed our black throats. We need to feed Inky and we need to feed Slinky and the croc monitors. But uh very good. That is a cool animal, man. And coming through the winter

like they did without any issues is just I'm incredibly lucky because um you know I was worried, man. These guys I can't get in and just rrestle them out and put them anywhere else. They're a little too big for me to handle on my own. So, it's important that we keep them warm. And that's what we did. And then also 400 bucks on Facebook Marketplace. We have this solar water heater. So, that's going to be very cool once I get the proper pump to circulate the water through it during the day. It'll heat the water up and then the temperature of the water will slowly

uh cool off at night. At least that's the plan. So, I don't know. All right, moving along. We are rolling on over to the Inks and we're going to see if Ink is out. She usually doesn't come out. Oh, there she is. Hey, Inky. She's getting more acclimated to me, more habituated rather, to where she knows that I bring the food. Yep, you can hear her. But what I like to do is have the food ready so in case she decides to cruise out of here, we can get her. There you go. That's it. See that? That's not what we want. So, I want to get another one here and get her attention.

But you can see how important their food response is. That's all they care about is the food. So, I don't have to worry about her running away. She's getting bigger. She's a cute girl. Amazing that a few years ago she was actually stolen from me and we got her back, which is amazing. That normally never happens. Come on, use those claws. I want her to get up here. Come on. Use those really good, strong claws. You're an allpurpose reptile. Get up here. That's good girl. Yes. Enrichment is such an important part of captive husbandry. Making them chase food, making them work for their food. Very,

very important. She's looking good. And of course, we got her for my friend Kevin McCurley at Nerd New England Reptile Distributors. And I think he'd be happy with how she's growing and looking so good. very healthy animal. And as she gets larger, she's going to calm down even more. So that's going to be the final chick for her. Four chicks at a feeding. Yeah. I love how she just kind of wipes her face, tries to help get it down. Awesome. There you have it. Very good. That's a fed black dragon. Let's shut this door. All right.

Loving it. Oh my goodness. Got some flies starting to must be ripe in there. I don't know. Now we see the man, the myth, the legend. Hey, Slinky, you paying attention to me out here? Let's see. Slinky. Hey, buddy. There's our radiated. Where's Slinks? Want to give him this rat. Radat Slinky. I'm always worried, you know, lately when I come in here because he's getting older. I wonder if one day I come in, is he not going to come out and that's always a concern. There he is, though. Today is not that day. And again, he can't move as good as he used to, but he still gives it the old

Come on, Slicky. Oh, those poor little hips. There you go. He's still got a heck of a feed response. You got it, buddy. Come on. Oh my gosh. Hey, man. I hear you. Getting old is no fun. I'm not moving as fast as I used to be either in the morning. Looks like he was trying to eat the turtle food. I always leave it up here so it's easily accessible. Uh, let's see. Slinky, come here. I got more. Give him some chicks. Come on, Slinks. Slinky. I just shake it. Here he comes. But this is just so crazy. It's just weird. I just don't understand, you know? His hips are that messed up.

It's almost like It looks neurological, but it's the It seems like it's the um arthritis. I really wish I knew for certain. We did look at it and we saw arthritis in his hips. There was nothing wrong with his blood. No infections, nothing like that. So, I just don't know. But whatever the reason, we're doing our best. You can see he's got good weight and he doesn't want for anything. There he is. Hi, buddy. That should be good enough for you, Slings. I think that's enough food, dude. Oh, boy. Got to shut this quick because he sees this bucket. He knows what's up. All right,

man. It is a worry, you know, when I have these animals. It's it's something that you have to always consider is when they depart, you know, and um I feel now is a good time to inform you guys. Who there's Lulu. We did lose Colin. Colin um was not recovering from his respiratory even with medication and he wouldn't eat and so he finally uh he finally passed. So that is the the news on Colin and um I have his body uh still but it was sad but he was very old snake. He was an adult when I got that snake around 200 and how old? I think it was 2014 I got him. So just

crazy. He lived a long time with us. Uh anyway, here's Lulu. I want to get in there with her. So, what I need to do first is get a chick, get you guys on that hand so you can see all the action. Then we're going to get her over here. Come on, Lulu. She's got that blind one eye. There you go. There we go. Good. Now I can get in. Let's get in with these guys. This is my foot now. They've been behaving very nicely with me. Where is the male? So far so good. Let's not get bit while I'm telling you how good they've been. They can smell the food. Come on. Come up here. Oh, she got it. She's so fast. She's

so fast. That's an awesome animal. Love my croc monitors. Chase, come here. There he is. Chase, come on. Come on, Chase. Come on, buddy. Come on. You got to get moving. Got to get moving. She's going to come get it. Got to move faster than that. Oh, boy. Oh, look at those teeth. There they are. The teeth. Good grief. Look at those teeth. All right. She had two. He dropped one. What a pain in the neck. He's He's a very um clumsy eater, it turns out. There you go. Now you got it. Will you keep it in your mouth now?

Keep it in your mouth. Let's go. Make it happen. I got more for you, bub. He's concerned with what she's doing. Oh, what a pain in the neck. Come on, man. Get it in there. What's wrong with you? I wonder about him. Wonder why he's so clumsy. He definitely has the teeth. That's it. That's hers now. Well, maybe not. She can't quite see it. Up top. Go high. Very strange. Is she going to be able to jump? Come on, bub. There you go. That's what you need to do. Yeah. Now you're Oh my god. Are you serious? This can't be real.

This is interesting. I've uh I got to be careful here. There's a lot going on with these croc monitors, but you see how cool she is with me now. Are you going to do it one more time? All right, let's try a new one. Let's try freshy. Come here. There you go. Let's go. But what's cool is remember they would be so nervous about me and uh now she just walks around my feet like no big deal. I just have to always keep an eye on it. The other interesting thing that's recently been happening is I've been able to pick them up. I've been able to pick them up, which is kind of amazing. Look at this. Look at that. That is huge,

huge trust that's developed. So, I'm like blown away by that. That's the man. That's so awesome. Yeah. You're a beauty. And I can do the same with this guy. I can pick him up as well. But look at the just Oh god, I absolutely adore her. She got a little bit of a curl. She's a little nervous. Stop being nervous. Come on. Let me get her away from him. Now, what can sometimes happen is when the females are ready to breed, they really chase the males and they bully the males. So, we have to keep an eye out for that. She definitely is walking all over him at the moment. She's definitely the boss, which is not unheard of.

Oh, I think she sees the rodents or chicks rather. He sees Slinky. These two, it's so funny. Slinky and him are not. I think if they got into the same enclosure, we'd have a serious problem. Cuz look at how intently he looks at slinks. Hey, you need more food. You got to eat more. Look at this one. What kind of trouble is she looking to get into? That's the trouble I did not want to have happen. We got to get this quick because we got to feed the black throats also. But I really want to get some more food in the mouth of this dude. Hey, I just don't want her jumping on me with those

claws. Oh, I got to be careful here. Here she comes. Look at how easily she can climb up this pole. Whereas you saw the black dragon have a little bit more of a difficult time. She can climb up that sheer vertical pole no problem. He's more interested in dealing with Go ahead. He's more interested in dealing with Slinky than eating. So, I think what I'll do is I'll just finish up here. He's got one already. I'll have to come back later and make sure he's got enough to eat cuz he's not interested and I don't want to waste any more time. So, let's go check out the black throats and make sure they're fed, which is kind of

cool. There they are. He wants to fight Slinky, unfortunately. Uh, I think I have some bamboo. I think I can put a bamboo barrier up and make sure that maybe they can't see each other. It might be good overall just to keep the peace, if you know what I'm saying. Um there's a lot, you know, you're always kind of tweaking things and learning about the animals to make sure that they're in fact, you know, healthy and happy. So, it's kind of crazy, but oh, look at this. Let's go outside. One of them is actually outside the black throat in our beautiful suncatcher here.

We got to give these guys a good meal. Here we go. There's a black throat. Hey, it turns out they're each going to get four. Perfect. Look at that. Two in one. One mouthful. Come on. Such a cool lizard living in Africa on the savanas. They'll eat tortoises. They'll eat bird eggs, birds, small reptiles, small mammals. Really a formidable animal. Very robust. And you could see it in the design. you know, terrestrial. Still have those sharp claws for digging and they can climb, but they

do spend a lot of time foraging and looking for either prey items or carrying kind of out there in the wilds of Africa, in the bush, as it were. Come on. Nice. I like the uh just steady eating. It's such a cool. Of course, it wouldn't be a black throat without a little slub slap. Thank you for that. Never slap the hand that feeds you or slap the shoulder of the person who feeds you. That's messed up. You're going to hang on there or you're going to fall in front of everyone. Yeah. See you later. Want to make sure he sees this.

Woo! That was close. Just almost got it right in the face. Good grief. That tail is something. What about this one now? All right, there you go. Now I know that he has eaten everything. I believe that's the he. Could be wrong. We'll know. Usually the bigger one is the male for me. All right. Make sure that's locked. Okay, it is. Now we go to the inside habitat. Looks like we're going to get a pretty good rain here in a second. Got to hustle. Don't want to get caught in

the rain. There's a New York accent for you. Get caught in the rain. Love it. Love that as much as my animals. Uh, let's do it. Let's go. Yeah, we got drizzle starting. But that's not all. We got a big girl up there. Hey, lady. Is that you? Yeah, that's the girl. These are your British little baby. She's my little lady. All right, this is it, everybody. Finishing up the feed. Come down here and see everyone. Come down here. There you go. All right. Crap. Is this guy coming in now? Oh boy. See this? Now he's coming in. Hurry up. Eat.

Let me block this so he doesn't see. We don't want this guy. She's shedding. Look at all that shed. Lizards shed in patches, not in one whole shed like a snake. But that means she's growing. Come on. Let's get the rest of Oh, you going to get both of them or one? Nah, you got one. Sometimes it takes forever for them to swallow the food. I don't think today it'll be like that. One of the concerns when you have multiple monitors in one habitat is the fact that I should probably close this too is the fact that, you know, one could potentially bully the other out of

its prey. And uh, you know, you want to make sure everyone's getting fed the same. Now, these guys generally have four chicks per sitting. And uh you can see the growth has been nice. And there it is, Phenito. Huh. Good girl. Good man. Love it. They actually enjoy being inside this habitat. It must remind them of a cave or something because they do cruise in here. They spend a lot of time in here. Um they do go outside, but I do notice them in here a lot more. Oh, stop it. Please stop being such a grumpy guy, will you? Stop being a grump. Don't bite my elbow.

Look at that posturing. Now, you got to admit that's pretty ominous. And these are animals that live where there are leopards and lions and all manner of apex predators. So, they've got to be tough. You just got to hold your own when you're in the African bush. It is of course not a place to be caught with your guard down. So there's a lot of posturing with these animals. I don't blame them. They're hardwired that way, which is impressive. All right, there you have it, everybody. We have fed the monitors yet again. It's always fun to do that

with your friends. I like keeping when you guys keep me company whilst I'm doing my chores. It's a lot of fun. You guys are great. Don't forget, head on over to patreon.com/campcannon for more behindthescenes footage with me and my animals and uh live chats every Thursday, 400 p. p.m. Eastern. Okay, well, there you have it. I'll be seeing you soon. I'm going to beat this weather. So long.