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Storms are coming people and we got some crocchows. So, let's feed Slinky and the gators today. Well, that's nice. I could do with some more uh radiated tortoises. Hey, look at who it is. Come here, Slinky. Now, Slinky still has these mobility issues. So, let's give him some food inside the pond where he can move around nicer. Look at that. Look at the slinks. There you go. Come on. Oo. Don't bite the head of that big head turtle. There you go. As you guys know, Slinky's an old man these days and uh we're just trying to make his golden years more comfortable.
Um we've got this big beautiful enclosure we built for him some years ago and uh you know, he's still eating well, but I'm just preparing. Hey, Slinky boy. We know that you're hungry. We know. Here, take this. Oh, he's so gentle when it comes to taking things out of my hand, which is really, really cool. I appreciate that, Slinkx. I really do. Look at this. He's going to taste it right there. Oh, look how good you are. You're so good to me, buddy. Come on. Go get it over there. Go over there and get it. Uh this place has certainly uh become such an awesome part of the camp with
Slinky. We've got the Madagascar big head turtle right there. We've got the radiated tortoises also from Madagascar. If he were a Nile monitor, then this would be a full Madagascar habitat, but he's an Asian water monitor. But who cares, right? We also have African mud turtles in this enclosure, which is really cool. So Slinkiey's got some buddies. And luckily for us, he's not eating any of them. That's nice. You know that he does like snakes and he loves to try and eat baby turtles, so we've got to be careful. Look at him go. Come on, buddy. Figure it out. Oh,
that's a slinky. Good boy. Yes. Come on. Yeah. I don't know. I mean we did a blood test on them and there was nothing in the blood test that would give us cause for uh concern but we did seem to think Dr. Gillan that is seemed to think that there's some arthritis happening here and that's absolutely normal for a lizard of his age. Um here we have a nice little baby female. Not really a baby but a female radiated tortoise. And when the humidity is up like this, you can really feel it. The temperature is a little bit cooler. The humidity I thought I heard the electric. The
humidity is up. That means the tortoises and reptiles are going to be Look at them standing up there. Look at them just staring. He's so cute. And then of course we have the croc monitors over here. They're getting active. Everyone gets active right before a thunderstorm and then right after and even during because they love that humidity. They love when it really just takes off like that. Let's see if Slinky He's eating the smaller pieces that the big head turtle chomps up there. That's awesome. While we're at it, let's get some fluker food for the turtles in the pond. I love coming
into Slinky's enclosure. It's so interesting this enclosure. There's a lot happening here. Let's see if we can find one of these African muds. I like to throw the food into the little nooks and crannies so it doesn't just immediately get sucked downstream and into the um and into the actual filtration. So, we want to make sure that everybody gets some food. I like walking around. We got these beautiful ferns. We got the monstera. We've got croins and thahhatche grass. And then of course large elephant ears. beautiful, beautiful upers that just grow up. Mexican papyrus and then
more ferns. This is a very cool habitat and I just can't imagine Slinky not being in it. Um, of course, one day he won't be. And we're going to keep the name Slinky's house. And uh, look at this. Look at Slinky. Good boy. We're going to, of course, keep the name uh for whomever takes um residency in this. I love this, by the way. Look at this monstera. Look at this. This is just growing beautifully. And look, it's kind of leaning over. Oh my gosh, guys. Look at this. I've got to pull this out. I got to start taking some of this and just scooping it out. That makes Look
at all this. Oh my gosh. Maintainance, people. must maintain the rain. That's the only thing. I should probably not have put the bark in here because the animals dragging into the pond and then it could potentially clog up the system here. So, I like to get in here, do my maintenance while I'm filming with you friends. But the good news is we have this mat from Aquacape that really, really helps out. So, I'll just toss this debris over here. Oh, hello. Hello, young lad. Slinky boy. He's always curious. But look at this. I'm in this like cool cave from this monstera plant. But
look at how easy it is for me to scoop up this. That's really, really good. These mats are key. Look at this. There's some food in there. His tongue's going to find it. That lizard tongue's still working. You may be slow, but you'll find it. Look at this. Back and forth. He's on to something. Come on, Slinky. Oh, you're going to miss it. You're going to miss it, Bubba. Come on. It's right over there. See, he's smart. He knows that things wind up coming downstream. Oh, let's see. Let's help him out cuz dad's here to help. Slinky. There it is.
Where'd it go? And there it is. Yummy, yummy, yummy. That's a good boy. Oh, I'm slipping. Can't get caught slipping, people. So, it's good to come in the enclosures, do a little spot cleaning, little quick maintenance, throw all this stuff out, and now look at that. We've got a better flow so we can keep the water nice and clean. All right. And then, you know what's funny is tortoises and turtles are nature's cleanup crews and seed dispersers. I'll probably get in here and trim some of this out. But it's looking really, really good. Let's just move over here. There's another one of our radiated tortoises wandering around. That's why
we don't have the weeds in here. They've cleaned it all up. So, all that's left are our ornamental grasses. All right, let's head over see what the gators are doing. We haven't seen them in Uh-oh. Almost got locked in here. I got to have a better system for getting out when this door shuts. We're still waiting for things to grow back after the cold snap. But we're going to wander around the other side of the gator enclosure. My weed whackers broke, friends. So, I haven't mowed this week. Got to get that K Cabota mower out here. In the summer, you got to mow once a week because it
rains so much and the heat's on and boy, things grow quickly here. Uh, by the way, let's just stop and marvel at this beautiful bamboo. I trimmed it up yesterday to give it that Look at that. It is looking at these new shoots coming out the top. This is going to be a magnificent species of bamboo. Look at the beautiful um kind of film like powdery look on here. It's got this nice powdery stem and then it just beautiful green. And I kind of trimmed the branches down so you can see this. That's what you want to see with that species of bamboo. And then look at us. We're in this
incredible canopy. And that's the hope. We got the black bamboo starting to take off. We have some more guadada bamboo, which I'll use for lumber. Um and then here's our scikad throwing out some new It's really starting to throw out some new uh leaves here. Coming uh coming back from that cold. We still want to get some tortoises in this area to eat all these weeds. Uh here's another species of bamboo. I forgot the names. Uh actually, it's the same species as that, but this one's starting to go too now. So, I'm going to trim it up. Uh things are really starting
to heat up here in Florida. I'm going to be doing a lot of transplanting, a lot of uh reconfiguring of some of the plants because we're going to use all this area in a different way. Large a large elephant ear. That's just I mean this elephant ear here is near and dear to my heart. It's cool. It just popped up and look at the size of it. Look at the size of these really cool fronds, I suppose. But look, that's the ear. You can see that's the elephant ear. Here's a new one coming out right now. Alicacia. Okay, it's an alicacia. And uh some of the tortoises do enjoy eating that.
Okay, let's see how our arcosaurus are doing. our gators. We need this rain cuz you're about to see why things are a little dry. We need the consistency of the summer rains to start really taking off. Hey, anybody here? Where is everybody? Where are my alligator buddies? Where are my two favorite alligators? I think somebody's in this hole. Is there somebody in that hole? Come on. I got you some food. Come on. Let's see if somebody wakes up. These guys are pretty darn hungry. I think someone's coming from over there. Of course. Let's see. I saw a little nose. Who
knows? Come on. There is that big boy. That's my big shy guy. But I hear something happening over here. Look at how deep it is there. So when the rains come, let's stamp. Come on, snaggletoothoth. Come on, Dale. Somebody's coming. Oh, there's a dinosaur. Come on, girl. Hey, come on, girl. Get over here. Look at how they flattened this papyrus out. And she'll, you know, when she decides to make a nest. I don't know when that'll be. She's done one before. She'll grab all this, pile it all up, and it'll be a really nice nest. Come on, Dale. Hey, mama. Look at you. You gorgeous girl. See, these guys are so funny. They are so
darn funny. Look at how beautiful and chunky she is. They haven't eaten in a month. We haven't had uh any raccoons dropped off. So, I actually have to talk to some of my friends who are hunters. Bring us a hog so we can get these guys a nice hog. Come on. Oh, there it is. Come on. Now, where and why is our guy? We want to do a video with alligators. I have two alligators, but they're extremely shy. How funny is that? Maybe if I can. Come on, Snaggy. There's See the nose? I don't want to get too close because I'm not stupid. Come on, get on up. They have a his and hers pond. And this whole thing, guys, you know, floods and it's
so magnificent. Look at these beautiful cypress. These are native cypress trees here. Creates this really cool canopied effect. Oh, she got her food. Come on, girl. Come over this way. I got more of that. I got more. If you come in the water over here. Come on, girl. Dale. Come on, Dale. If she comes over in the water, then he'll wake up and he'll be a little less shy. It's so funny how they are. They're really interesting creatures, the way they behave and their different personalities. Um, you know, some are really, really gregarious and others are quite shy. And he
is just right here. He's right here. I just scared away. Can you believe that there is a monster alligator in this little puddle? I mean, for real, this is why one should not ever trust a water or puddle, any body of water in Florida, because my goodness, you can just see his nostrils coming up. And once he figures out we got some food in here, he is going to be a little bit more motivated. There's a whole bunch of little fish stuck in there, too. That's the other thing to consider. It's possible that he's been feasting on the fish cuz we do have some tilapia in here
that I've I've stocked it. It's very possible that as the water concentrates lower and lower, uh the fish get stuck in here. And this is what alligators do in the wild. They create gator holes. All the animals congregate, the fish congregate, and if they don't wind up getting eaten by the alligators, they survive until the wet season comes back. Uh, here she is. Come on, girl. There's a girl. Come on. You got to work for it. Come on. Hey, over here. It's over here. Look, now she's going to search the ground for it. What a beauty, though. Getting these guys here was such
a cool thing for the camp. Just having Fred's animals with us. Kind of taking care of them and stewarding them along into uh the future is really a big deal. But look at that guy. Hey, you know what? I'll go to you. Let me go. She'll open her mouth. We have more papyrus here. I don't mind the papyrus here, but I've actually torn it out of the wetland filter of our large, beautiful aquacape ecosystem. Here she is. Hey, girl. Come on. Oh yeah. Oh, baby. Come on, baby girl. Up. There you go. Good girl. Up. Open. You're not opening. If you open it, if you open this now, you got to watch those feet. But come on. There you go. Good girl. See,
I'm here to help. I'm here to help the big girl. Oh, she's so pretty. I love you. It's, you know, it's a dream come true having these guys here. Ever since I was a young lad loving reptiles, you know, we want them. Nope. That went too far. But she's just gorgeous. And that's as big as she's going to get. She's not going to be a huge female. She's just about 8 foot. That wind's picking up. That wind is picking up. But I really want to get a few of these nuggets into our buddy Snaggletoothoth. Snaggy. There's a big See his nose? He's so sneaky. Snaggy. Sneaky snaggy.
It's It's really crazy. Are you going to come out or not, dude? Once that rain starts, it's going to be pretty exciting in here. And this place can fill up very, very quickly with one of our Florida rainstorms. If it rains for like a good hour, this will it'll make a serious dent. There he is. It'll make a serious dent in this. You know, it only takes maybe two days of heavy rain and this thing's pretty full. This is the lowest spot in my property. So, between this pond and the large pond, that's where water collects. And obviously, like when you dig down deep enough, you
hit the water table. So, that's what the gators have done. We don't really see it dry up unless it's an extreme drought. Um, so that is actually the water table level at the moment. So obviously the more rain we have, the higher the water table here in Florida. We're in South Florida, so all of our water um you know, we're basically the bottom of an ancient sea. Uh we've been underwater many times in this peninsula's history and millions of well a few hundred thousand years ago, as we learned with Rudolph Piscuchi over there at the Palm Beach Museum. Um you know, Florida was a
savannah. It had mastadons and uh it had giant sloths. It had some really cool uh megapa here. There you go. Look at her twist to get that food. Look at her just twisting. She is so athletic. Oh, look at that mud. Feels good to be in the mud. Oh yes. Soon it'll be nice water for you. Oh my gosh. Well, I don't know what's going on, but um I am going to Oh, there she goes. She'll eat it. Mud and all. Yuck. If you come over here. Come on. She ain't Oh, look. Look at this. Do you see his nose, guys? Oh, there's his eyes. If he gets his eyes up. Oh, look at that food. Look at the food. It's like bowling. Oh, it's bowling for alligators, people. Here we go.
Come on, Snaggy. Look at all that food I'm giving. Oh, there he goes. Now you know what I'm trying to do, you knucklehead. Now maybe he'll stay out. There you go. See, I'm trying to feed you. Trying to fe Yes, you big goon. Come on. Look at the size of that monster. Holy smokes. I love you, boy. You are something else, man. What an animal. What a gorgeous, beautiful creature living in this puddle in my backyard happily. And I've said it many, many, many, many, many times. These are the easiest animals for me to care for. They're super easy. They're from Florida. They don't need to eat every day. They just are built to last. That's
what's so impressive about crocodilians. And these crocodilians, the American alligator, are some of the toughest uh because they have to deal with different environmental conditions, heat, cold, drought, rain. Uh they are found the furthest north of any crocodilian. These guys can take the coldest temperatures. So, it's really cool that we have them here at the camp because they just do so well. And Fred entrusted them to me. Uh, and I'm just the fact that I get to say Fred's name every single time I'm in here. His memory is not gone. He's alive and still
part of my life. And that's just the best thing you can do uh as a person is to leave a legacy. And his legacy is right here. And we're continuing it here at the camp. So, I'm very happy to have these animals. It's it's just awesome. Come on, Saggy. Get that one. You see it right there. There you go. I'm here to help. I'm here to fatten you up because as you can see, he just needs more more girth. That's being sarcastic. He's actually quite a healthy animal. And you can see that little snaggle tooth right there. There it is. Oh yeah. Now she's going to hear him eating.
If she hears him eating, she's going to come over here. She likes his food. Good boy. Snag a tooth. Look at that. Come on. Good boy. Look at that monster. I wish he understood. Open. God, it's beautiful. This is very slippy, too, friends. You got to be careful. These vans ain't cutting it. Oh, she's walking back over there. She's going the long way. Oh, that is that the freaking head on him. The head on this guy. Come on. There it is. Okay. Up. I missed. And you're a big fella. There you go. Right in. Right in there, big fella. Oh, go back in the water. This is cool. Come on,
girl. I'm getting We're running kind of low. Come on, Dale. Yeah, it's it's so awesome. Look at the big slide. That big slide he gave us. I mean, that's that's awesome. Ah, yeah. Kate doesn't like when I do this because I'm all alone. There's no one here at the house. If something happened, they wouldn't find me for a little while. But we'd have the footage. Come on, Dale. Come on, Snaggy. Oh. Uh oh. Here she comes. There's trouble. You're in trouble now, Snaggletoothoth. Here she comes. Dump. I love that walk. Oh, you're too tired.
Come on. Push yourself in, lady. Oh, this big monster. Look at that big monster. Here she's coming. Oh, she gathered her strength. Is this just the coolest thing ever? If you guys are here watching this video, you love reptiles. And the fact that we have two beautiful American alligators coexisting is probably got you guys just as excited as me. There we go. I'm happy. You're happy. They're eating. Yeah. Good job. All right, everybody. Another successful safari around the camp to see our beautiful American alligators. We got to catch
up with Slinky and the radiated tortoises and some of the other animals around town. around our town. And uh here we are just enjoying these beautiful creatures. And I thank you guys for watching. Don't forget to go to patreon.com/camken and you will see more behindthe-scenes footage of possibly the alligators and myself, plus a live every Thursday, 400 p.m. Eastern time. It's right here. There's one right there. You see it? It's right here. It's right here. Woo! That's not it. That's my hand. You missed. Oh, baby. All right. Well, there you go. I say thanks for watching. I'll see you again real soon. More importantly,
we'll see these guys again real soon. Oh, now don't get annoyed. I'm here for this later.
