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The tortoises are getting a treat today. Beautiful fresh watermelon. I've been eating it, too, to be honest. All right. Oh, I love watching them do their thing. It's just very satisfying. Hey, what's going on everybody? Uh, today we're going to check in with Phantom and we are also going to check in with our other large aquatic turtle to see just how they've been doing. Well, I'm happy to say that Phantom is looking much better. Uh, he's getting his third dose of Septazzine today, but he's definitely perked up. Today is the first day I notice him moving
around. He's sticking his head out a lot. Uh he's been eating the entire time, but of course he was a bit undue weather and that happens from time to time. So we've got to just be very vigilant and we've got to make sure we pay attention to our animals here at the camp so that we can make sure they're healthy and happy. There's Nostradamus trying to get over here. And of course there's Socrates trying to get over here. But right now what we're going to do is we're going to aspirate a little bit. Okay. And then unfortunately we got to give him a poke. Uh, I hate doing it, but it is
unnecessary evil today. Um, and of course, aside from that fact, let's see if I can get you guys. Unfortunately, my microphone or my camera stand is a little wonky at the moment. Let's see. It's a wide angle. Should get it. Okay. So, what I want to do is I want to just get a quick injection of the septage right in here. Oh, I know. We'll go with this one. Oh, I know. It's a bit of a pain in the butt. I know. Daddy, he's been poking you lately. I hate poking you, buddy. But I got to get this done. And of course, doing it with just I'm going to get him in the flesh here. All right. There we go. Really quick. Okay. All done.
Hey, what are you trying to do? Socks is trying to eat. Well, we've definitely upset him a little, but the good news is that he's doing better. The medication's really helping. So, it's important that we do these things. But I've got them a treat. The tortoises are getting a treat today. Beautiful fresh watermelon. I've been eating it, too, to be honest. Let's see if we can make him feel better with some watermelon. And I'll hold it for him. Look at this. Oh, come on. Look at this. Yeah. Smell it. You got to let them smell it. Oh, phantom. Yes,
sir. That's a boy. This will get him some water. Oo, look at that. That's not so bad. You get a little poke and some watermelon. There you go. Come on. His attitude is getting back to normal. Uh, he's feeding more aggressively. Oh yeah, look at that good stuff. All that water getting in him. We're getting him some nice pre-formed water in this stuff. And he's going to just love it. So, very uh important thing to do. And while we have dry snap like this, it's important that we make sure they're hydrated. Oh, don't make a mess now. Come on. Don't make a mess. There you go. That's a
boy. So, watermelon can be a good way to make sure your tortoises are hydrated. I do use it from time to time. You don't want to rely on it all the time, but as a way to kind of Oh, look at all that good water going in there. As a way to kind of get him all hydrated, it's a good option. Let's see who else needs some. This is good stuff. Look at everybody. Everybody's around town here. Hey, socks, you want some? Come here. You want some? Come on. Oh, yeah. Look at her go. Woo. That is a heck of a feed response, I'd say. All right. Socks. Go ahead. Uh you can let them gnaw on the
uh actual rind. It's not going to hurt them at all. Oh, yeah. That's a good girl. That's my lady. Let's keep feeding them, man. This is kind of fun. I love it. I love my turtles. I love my tortoises. My children. So, yeah. He's doing better. And that's because we got right to work. You know what I mean? We uh we identified an issue. We did a pre vet visit assessment, right? You know, uh we did a soak. We did what we can do on the premises before we talk to the vet. Just turtle basically turtle uh first aid 101. And then we get him to the vet. We are still waiting for our test results. That'll
be a few weeks. But I'm happy to say that he's just doing so much better. Now, this must be Hank. Hank, what you doing? I'm holding this out. Hank's waiting for a neck scratch. I, on the other hand, am waiting for a tortoise to come get some food. Come on, bub. There's my Nostradamus, one of our giants here. Now, the biggest tortoise at the camp. Yes, sir. Come on. Oh, come on. There he goes. There's something incredibly satisfying about seeing the tortoises eat some watermelon. It's sweet. It's hydrating. Oh, they love it. And it's a nice treat. There you go.
And little Tim, Tiny Tim's going to get some. Let's give Tiny Tim some. Come on, Timmy. Oh, yeah. Is your mouth even big enough? Is your mouth big enough, Timmy? There you go. No problem. Get up here. Bring it up here. This looks like Buddy. Come on, buddy. Buddy was a very shy tortoise for many months. Almost a year to be perfectly honest. And now, buddy. Well, he's living up to his namesake. He's much, much more friendly. You going to run me over? What are you doing, buddy? You got to stop and smell the watermelon. Look. Oh, he just wants to go over there. We'll just let
them just keep eating. Buddy, that was strange. You came over here and kind of charged me, but he didn't do anything. Meanwhile, how's that? How's that for a happy critter? Oh my god, Hank. And I can tell it's Hank because of that scoot. That odd panshaped scoot with a little pan handle. And then of course there's the bud. The buddy. Oh, there's a big yawn from phantom. Yes. Nice. You see he's recovered from his little poking. He's already back to normal. Let's get a couple more. You know what? Let's use our bowls so we don't get any anything any kind of foreign
objects in their mouths. Put this over there. Then I'll grab another one. I love it. I'm happy when my animals are healthy. It's incredibly important. It's just one of those things where when someone's not well, it's on my mind, you know? It's like a nagging um just a very nagging feeling when somebody's not right. Got some of this. Let's just load them up. We shall load them up. But again, awesome. Hey, Phantom. Look, Phantom. Oh, well, there's socks and Phantom. Good. I like to see that. Oh, that's a dirty mouth you got there. Come on. Come on, Phantom. All right. Come on, we'll put it in there. You guys dig it. I'll
get Phantom his own bowl with his own watermelon. Look at everyone. So cool. Do you guys love seeing tortoises eat? Let me know. I am so happy at the moment. Look. And this is good enrichment. Look, they pushed that tray all over the place. Where you going? Bandom. Bam. Look. Bam. Look at this. Come on. It's down in here. Get down on it. You're like Trent Resnner. Down in it. Come on. Get down in it, buddy. No, you stay there and eat that. Eat as much as you can, buddy. She's coming. She's trouble. Oh, yeah. That's a big mouthful. Oh, they don't even chew. They just swallow it a hole. Oh, the satisfaction of seeing Phantom
feeling great. That's a boy. He's 117 lbs. And um I had to lift him and soak him every day in one of our vision tubs. Was quite a project, but I'm glad we did it. Do this, then we'll spread the wealth, and then we'll move along and check out everyone else on the camp. There you go. Keep at it. Let me give her some more. Only got one hand free at the moment. Okay, just hook them up. Really want those galops to be fat and happy. Why don't we just bring all this over? Bring it all over. All this nonsense. Dump it in and they can kind of get it done. They can share.
There you go. All right, that'll be gone. grind and everything and that's no big deal. Woo! Oh, I love sitting. I love watching them do their thing. It's just very satisfying. I love how they use their front legs and feet to break off pieces that they can manage to swallow. And those wet faces are really testament to how much moisture is in watermelon. Watermelon actually originated in Africa and uh it was used by Bedawins as a way to stay hydrated in the desert. It didn't of course look like watermelon today. It's been kind of, you know,
successively bred to be even juicier and of course seedless. Oo, seedless watermelon was a great invention, don't you think, guys? Yes, it was. So, I think they're just going to have at it and we're going to let these guys do their thing. Um, you know, it's an odd It's just so interesting with the Aldabers. The Aldabers tend to be a tortoise that is just, knock on wood, but they're so lowmaintenance. They uh tend to not get as sick quicker, you know, as some of the other species, and they're just kind of bulletproof. So, as long as your husbandry
is good, these guys tend to do just excellent. So, there's Cersei. That's uh Hank. Where'd Buddy go? I don't know. Well, Pennmy's around. Buddy was here a moment ago. Is that Bud? Yeah, that. Yeah, that's Buddy right there. Okay. Cersei's nowhere to be seen. It was Cersei that wasn't around. I did see one of our friends over here was Puck. Oh, there's Is that you, Boba? There's the Bob. Bob hanging. All right, so these guys are out and about. Beautiful day. Everybody's doing their thing. Look at our great buddy's doing. He's just up and at him. He's all over
the place cruising. All right, Aphina. Lovely lady Aphina. Okay, we're getting a move on, friends. Let's do it. All righty, have fun. It's just a huge relief. You know, the Phantom's doing good. Um, we'll see what those tests say. Hopefully, it comes back negative for tink uh testine interuclear coxidia. Um, which you know, a lot of collections have it and, uh, it's one of those things you just have to be prepared for. There are medications that can help, but fortunately, I think I don't believe that was Phantom's issue. And again, we caught it real
early. I mean, he was moving one day and the next day he wasn't. And I was all over it. So, pretty stoked. And yeah, so now I want to go up and show you guys our next little buddy who is not really a little buddy. Uh, but he is doing much better. And I guess we'll do something unique and fun that I haven't done in a while. Go swimming with these guys. Yeah, check it out. Here are our giant river turtles. And they are, of course, all submerged. Is that not wonderful? We really worked hard with our female Bobby. I get it cuz she bobbing. Uh, and basically
there she is at the bottom right here. That's our girl. We're going to go underwater. It's a nice hot day. Let's go see some fish. Let's go see the pacu. Let's see the river turtles and uh just see how everyone's doing. All right, so let me uh go change and we'll get in the water. All right, so these guys are all looking for food, which is not what they're going to be getting today, but um we are going to be getting wet, which we haven't done in a while. I haven't been in here in a while, man. So, this is kind of cool. Let's get in and let's go under. Woo! and see just what's going to happen with our friendly turtles.
All the fish are just incredibly inquisitive, even the African cichlids. But how about our giant Amazon river turtles? These three are just incredible. And they even got little free toike hair growing. And there's Chunk. She's got a chunk missing out of her shell because she climbed into the big pond and one of the gator snappers got her. But she's doing just fine. There's our girl Bobby. That's the turtle that had the respiratory problem. Really excited to see that she's now able to stay under and she's swimming normally and eating as well. This is a
huge win for us. Say, get out of the way there, Fly River. This is a major win because so many people thought that she'd never recover. But with a lot of help from Dr. Mike at PGA Animal Clinic, a lot of antibiotics, and some good old-fashioned sunlight and warm weather, she is definitely on the mend, and I expect her to have a full 100% recovery. We'll leave her be for a while. So cool. But how about those pacu? They're never far from me. They want to know what's going on in this pond at all times. But Bobby, no problem. Just crawling around on the bottom of the pond. Perfect.
Now, let's see what other trouble I can get into here. I've noticed these pacu are just incredible. There's one of our fly rivers resting. That's another great thing is they've been able to get along so well. God, that's a big pacu. Hello. Look at them. And they really do have a piranhaike shape, although their teeth are much different. And thankfully, they're herbivores. Oh, I love my African cichlids. Let's see what we can find over in this corner of the pond. I think it's time to look under the basking platforms. Anybody home? Uh, I see somebody. Might be a
little borens. Oh, yeah. It's one of our little badger borens. Let's Let's try and grab it. Nope. Not going to happen. No one else in here. Just some gambia or mosquito fish. They're a native species. They're good to have around. But look at all the colors of these cichlids. Oh, it's so good to have more cichlids back in the pond, huh, folks? Hey, get over here. Sorry. Get a little excited when I see Badger. Here are all the girls just hanging out at the bottom. You got to be careful with these. There's Biggie Smalls. Actually, that's our male covered in algae. Now,
as I was saying, you got to be careful when swimming around those arrow river turtles. They can really swim into you at high speed and high velocity. And believe me, it does not feel good. But Biggie Smalls, I'm not worried about him. It's these behemoths. All right, bud. See you later. There's another painted river tapin. They are so shy. Hey, the badger. Oh, I love these red emperors. You know, I never get jaded. How about some baby fish? Hello. We got all kinds of life happening as we peek into the cave. There's Biggie Smalls again. Never far. But
it is so amazing to have this aquacape ecosystem pond. We got it in 2019 and the older it gets, the better it gets. The life just adheres to these rocks because they use all these natural rocks. Don't mind that PVC. Actually, talking about natural, that PVC is actually the output for the well. That's how I keep everyone warm. And there's the other Crafts turtle female, fully intact. beautifully swimming and lazily cruising on by. So fun to see Australian turtles in my backyard. Ah, the Nile soft shell. This turtle's beautiful. I haven't seen this guy in a little while. Let's see if I can get him out. Hey, coochie coo. Nope, not going to happen.
Oh, he's wedged in there pretty good. My gosh. I've actually seen turtles drown because they've wedged themselves under things so tightly. Let's get this guy out. I'm going to have to grab a leg. Nice and easy. There we go. Look at that face. Incredible. Let's follow her down. These guys range all throughout Africa through the Nile Basin and up into the Mediterranean, believe it or not. And in some of their range, they're actually endangered because fishermen believe they're eating all their fish. So, they try and get rid of the soft shells. But not here at the camp. We've actually got four. But
that is a really cool looking face. One we rarely see. So, hey, pretty cool. All right, let's go. All right. What an amazing uh what an amazing experience to have this in my backyard. This aquacape ecosystem recreation pond. Uh it is so cool. It has changed the lives of these animals. You know, the cichlids. It's just so cool to see the cichlids, you know, interacting with the rocks and eating algae off the rocks. And the fish are just so accustomed to me in the
water. They don't even freak out anymore. They're just kind of allowing me to get close. The pacu are very curious. They come up to you. Um, I love seeing that. Uh, of course, the river turtles are doing well. All submerged. No buoyancy issues. A lot of hard work went into that. Um, very excited that everyone is kind of settling back in from our really cold snap uh that happened a couple months ago. Can really disrupt things here. But happily, these cichlids did very, very well. I was running well water in here. We were keeping it very as warm as we could and the cichlids seemed
to be smart enough to go over towards where the well output was. You can see that PVC pio sticking out of the papyrus over there. Um, so just a really, really cool environment we've got set up. And you can see around me, I've just got fish all around me. Uh, and even the little gamboo, the native mosquito fish that are just on the surface here. They're actually attacking some of the moles on my back. They go after them. And if you stay in here a while, they will make you bleed. Um, the Nile soft shell. Gorgeous Nile soft shell. Uh, really stoked on uh that animal,
how it's doing here. Um, so just a really cool ecosystem pond from Aquacape. Uh, and absolutely thrilled about everything uh that I've been able to accomplish here uh with the help of those uh friends. Most importantly, you guys watching and also the fact that you guys um you know see the trials and tribulations of keeping animals uh happy and healthy here. It's not a perfect situation. Uh but neither is nature because there's no one to help them if they get sick in nature. And animals do get sick and die every day in the wild uh without any human
intervention. So it's important that we're good stewards of the planet. And when you take on these animals to care for them, why not give them the best possible situation you can and uh bust your butt to make sure they're happy and healthy. All right, everyone. That's it for me. Hope you guys enjoyed today's video. More videos to come. Don't go anywhere. And I'll be talking to you again real soon. Don't forget to go to patreon.com/camkenon for more behindthescenes footage and a live chat with me every Thursday at 400 p.m. Eastern. I'll see you guys later. The pu are circling.
Do it. Just do it. Do it right.
