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What's going on everybody? We are going to go redfoot crazy today. We're going to open up this gate. We're going to let these guys back out into the wider yard here at the camp. But I've also got something incredible to show you. You won't believe what these guys hatched out. Holy smokes. All right, you guys know I absolutely love redfoot tortoises. They're one of my favorite tortoises. They're one of the most popular tortoises. Also, there's Lego hanging out here. And they've got this really beautiful enclosure. Okay, this enclosure is perfect for them. They are all over
it. There's so many. We have 40 redoot tortoises that live here at the camp. Some were gifted to me. Some I actually bought a very long time ago. Uh like this one for example. This one came from a friend of mine. And uh they're beautiful. A lot of different females. And what's amazing is they're so easy to care for here in Florida and in most places in the United States because they're easily you could pick them up. You can bring them indoors. They're one of my favorites. As I mentioned, they're just a great tortoise. They eat a wide variety of leaves and veggies and uh
different chows and stuff like our fluker buffet blend tortoise diet. This is just some vine that I walk over here. We have this vine. What I do is simply I grab it and I rip it down and uh it's great food. These guys love it. So I just kind of bring it all over, spread it around. But the important thing is that these guys, where they from, where they're from in South America, these guys are found in savas that are drier or humid savas. Thank you to all our loyal Patreon members out there who have helped to create an amazing reptile community online with us.
This week's shout out goes to Brandon Garling. They're found in um forested areas. They're very adaptable and they are incredibly easy to care for as you can see. But what I love to do and I started it last year and I'm going to do it again this year because let me show you what I'm going to do. Uh last year I open up this enclosure and allow them to wander the entire area. Uh, I like doing that because I love giving these guys space. But the other thing I love to do with these tortoises, uh, is they do such a good job of weeding. They're going to eat all
these weeds that pop up through my pavers and on the gravel. They're going to go to town. Now, they may actually get some of my alicasia, which I may have to try and barricade a little bit, uh, which isn't that big a deal. But, um, yeah, they're just going to wander around, do this thing. We had uh only one tortoise kind of bobbing around in the pond. They seem to be pretty smart, but we'll keep an eye on them. Uh here is the pond. Beautiful pond. Look at this. Super clean, super clear. We've got the pacu. We've got South American turtles in here. And now we're going to
have the South American tortoises wandering around. But I like this. They're going to be able to wander throughout this entire area. The other cool thing is their egg laying season is over. The warm weather is back. I don't have to worry about, you know, wrangling them all up. So, it's going to be easier to do. But, they've got plenty of places to go. Uh, I just want to make sure they don't eat this plant because I'm pretty happy about this plant. So, I have to, again, I may have to just do some kind of um barrier around some of the plants. But otherwise,
they're going to just wander around. They're going to trim all this. They can go out here. It's actually going to be really, really cool. So, I want to do that right now because we love these redfoots. All this vine that's creeping out. They're going to get it. They're going to get all of that stuff. So, uh they're they're my yard crew, man. And it is time for them to get to work this season. So, let's go ahead open this up and then let the day unfold, shall we?
It is a windy day, but as promised, I wanted to show you what hatched. What did these red foots bring to me this season? Holy smokes. All right, first I want to show you here's a regular hatchling redfoot. Okay, normal coloration. Really beautiful little animal. They have those beautiful red feet. That's where they get their names. You can see uh its little yolk sack being absorbed right there. So, this is a fresh baby. Couple of irregular scoots uh on his vertebles. That's fine. A healthy animal. No big deal. But you can see that coloration. Really, really cool.
You know what I mean? Uh okay. Now, I'm going to show you what we hatched out. Look at this. It is a hypo redfoot tortoise. High yellow, almost no black, hypomelanistic. Now, if the animal was melanistic, it would be completely black, but this is a beautiful hypomelanistic redfoot tortoise. And it is gorgeous. Look at the coloration. We know that it's not an albino because of the eyes. The eyes are normal colored, okay? But this guy just hatched out yesterday. And if it's a boy, I'm gonna call him Mr. Blonde. Um because just after Reservoir Dogs, Michael Madson's character,
Mr. Blonde. Uh if it's a female, I think I'll call it Goldilocks. But this is just incredible. I've hatched some pretty good looking uh you know, really high yellow uh redfoots. We call them the crazy legs, but I've never seen an actual hypomelanistic redfoot tortoise baby hatch out. And unfortunately, I don't know who laid the eggs, so I don't know who the mother is uh at all or who the father is because we have, of course, 40 of them in there. Many females, many males. And I just dug up the eggs kind of randomly. So, I have no idea who actually laid this little baby.
uh who's responsible for siring it, but it is absolutely gorgeous. Now, I'm not sure, do I sell this little guy? Do I raise it up for a while? This is just so amazing. And you can see, oh, it's just brand new on Earth. And he's just starting to move around. This is just one of the coolest things I've ever been able to do or ever witness. I didn't do it. They did it. But I'm just glad that I give them a really cool place to live. Now, with this baby, you treat it just like any other baby tortoise. You're going to want to soak it. You're going to want to keep an eye on it,
make sure it's safe. You want to provide the proper habitat. Uh, they are more hearty than albinos. Albinos, you have to be a little bit more careful with sunshine, things like that. This one is going to be just a normal care. But, I mean, is that just incredible, friends? Look at this yellow on this guy. And here's his little umbilicus, his little yolk sack being absorbed. And you can still see uh I literally got him out of the incubator yesterday. He still has his plron uh stretching out and unfolding from when he was in the egg. He's got a little tail. I don't
know if it's a male or a female. He got a little vermiculite on his chin. Um and he still has that egg tooth right at the front. So he is just brand new to Earth. And again, just the contrast. You can see the darkness in this red foot and then how hypomelanistic this one is. It is just the coolest thing I've ever hatched out from them. And it's kind of funny, you know, it's a uh a popular pet tortoise, a very common pet tortoise, but then every now and again, you'll get them throwing out these really cool colors. So, it's pretty cool to raise this guy up. It would take probably 10 years
to raise this animal up to have it be an animal that I could actually reproduce and uh and actually reproduce the bloodline, the genetic trait. But I just think that's incredible. Um, I'm so excited. You can imagine opening the incubator and seeing just, you know, even though I'm colorb blind, I can tell that this tortoise is definitely special. Uh, and it's always just fun when you see something like that hatch out. You know, I love seeing the little babies hatch out no matter what they are. But when you get something that's aberrant like that, it's just incredible,
don't you think? Um, really beautiful little animal. So, I think we're going to name it Mr. Blonde. And uh it's really special. I'm super excited about this situation. And uh you know, I'm going to hold on to it, make sure it's doing well, make sure it's eating. Uh and then, you know, maybe I would offer it. I don't know. Uh but it is just incredible. And uh this is going to be uh you know, just a moment for me here at the camp. Just an incredible moment um that I'll never forget opening this up and seeing this gorgeous little guy in here. But look at that. Just
uh it's incredible the muted colors on his face, on his legs, that really pale yellow. Um I'm just in awe of this little guy. So, welcome to Earth there, Mr. Blonde or Blond Goldilocks, whomever you may be. But uh I thought I'd share that with you. I figured you guys would dig that. Um really, really cool. while I was giving it a little soak and I wanted to just kind of uh show you guys what was going on. Uh really cool. So just an amazing uh thing. It's so fun when you work with reptiles to kind of see all the different variations that even in one species can have, you know, with different colors and things of that nature.
So, I'm pretty thrilled uh that's actually happened and uh I just can't wait to see how this animal develops and we'll take good care of it and raise it up. Uh right now, simply I have it in here in the reptile room in one of our vision cages. We've got some malberry leaves for all the little sculcatas and the uh we'll put him right there. Sculcatas and the cherry heads. Uh so everyone's kind of living together right now uh in the nursery and it's just really cool. So we've got some Darth Mauls right here. We've got the hypo. We've got some sulcatas. So it's
a really good time uh around the camp as far as animals hatching. And while we're here, let's just have a peek in the incubator. Always important. Let me turn on the light for you guys. Okay, these fluorescent lights, they take a while to warm up. But this is the uh this is the incubator. This is the container I got him out of. He was in here. And there's still quite a bit more eggs to go. So, we'll just keep an eye on that. And here's where the sculcatas have been hatching out of. Okay, we got some eggs here still. And I got to say, I've been enjoying doing the covered incubation
method. It's been much better because I don't get as many flies. We just keep the flies down. Uh, and then of course, look at this. Of course, here's another little cherry head. Lots of cherry heads this year. Look at that. Isn't that great? Little baby. Little baby right there doing its thing. How awesome, friends? We got all kinds of eggs. We got some pink belly sidenecks in here right in this container. And then again, just stinky baby. We got some mud turtles in there. All right, so we had one more hatchling. So again, just super cool to see things uh popping out like
that. I love it. And here's our spider tortoise. Is that peanut, cashew, or hazelnut? I don't know. They had some carrots yesterday. Pull those out. But there they are. They're looking good in this day and buried. We're going to increase the humidity here in a moment. Put this down here. And then of course we got Dune. Dune's chilling. But yeah, so much going on. I mean, it's uh it's awesome just how much activity and, you know, animals are hatching around and it's always fun here. I just love it. But there's our um our beautiful Arral River turtles. And you'll notice
everybody is submerged. There's the female that was having a hard time. That's Bobby. That's her new name. We named her Bobby. You can just make her out right there. So, she's doing well. Um so, that's success. You know, animals doing well. But I do also want to do one more thing while I have you friends. Uh, I'm going to go get it ready and I'll see you in a moment. Okay, we have another South American critter that needs to eat and that is Bella, the beautiful boa. Um, we're going to go ahead and feed her. And, uh, this whole area is mostly animals. Oh, now this is
interesting. This might be the female because I just see her as with those beautiful eyes. I often wonder if this is the female that's producing these hypomelanistic babies. Um anyway, that's my thought. But I've had her for many years, and if there were a guess, I'm thinking it's her. Um who knows? But let's go see what's up with Bella. Bella, the beautiful boa. Here's her enclosure. And she was out early. Yeah. Look at this. Look at Bella right here. Bella is very hidden. Can you see this? Can you guys see Bella right there? How that coloration really
just blends in? And there's her tongue flicking. Look at this. Whoa, she's hungry. There you go, Bella. That's my beautiful Bella. See her just coming out of there. She is getting big. I love my boa Bella. And uh she's just doing a fantastic job growing, living nicely. Here you can see this enclosure. Very conducive for her. We get some afternoon sun in this area. Got water on a timer that fills it up. Always running uh fresh water through it. So there she is. That's the bell. She's the bell of the ball and she's uh the apple of my eye when it comes to constrictors.
I love her. She's really beautiful. So, um, pretty stoked that she's doing her thing. And I can't wait for the, uh, enclosure, the greater yard to be alive with, I guess, you know, rummaging tortoises. They wander all throughout here. They're going to trim, eat, eat some of the hibiscus that's close to the ground. Um, it's it's just really cool. And the best part is I won't have to feed them nearly all summer long. Is that sick? Like they'll just be tortoises. They'll come over here. They'll eat all these ferns. They'll eat all these all of this stuff. And to me, um that's one of the more exciting things to kind of see. I just enjoy
when I'm sitting at my dinner table and then I can just look out and I can see these tortoises wandering all over the place. Uh it just it's the coolest thing uh that we've got going. So anyhow, uh that's what's going on. We've got a lot happening and I think you guys are now up to speed. So, uh, hey, I'll tell you what. We'll just keep an eye on these tortoises. Uh, and I'll be talking to you guys again real soon. Don't forget to go to patreon.com/campkennon where you can see more behindthescenes footage and live chats with me every single Thursday,
400 p.m. Eastern time, right from the camp. All right. Well, there you go. Uh, we're going to let these guys take their sweet old time to get on out here. That's the doorway to a whole new world. A yes, the world of summer and weeds. See you guys. So long.
