Reptile Fight Club - Reptile hydration discussion

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of Reptile hydration.Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

And welcome to another episode of Reptile Fight Club. It's me, Justin Julander, your host. And here with me is old Chuck. Boom shakalaka, back again. Right on. It's just us today. Just us today. No guests this time, so we'll see.

I love guests, and don't get me wrong, but I was kind of glad to see it was just going to be me and the old doctor today. Yep. It's been too long since we've hung out. The pressure's off, you know. Since we've hung out, yep. One of us has to perform on a guest day, one of us. So now we can share the equally miserable load of performance. So, you know.

Yeah. Well, I got my ultrasound, so that's been kind of fun. Um, I, uh, I got it off of eBay, so it was used, you know, it's a little bit older, but it's one of the nicer, like it was one that was recommended by the hurt, one of the hurt professors over at Utah state. And so, um, I went over her lab, and she showed me how to use it. You know, this brand, Sonosite, is the brand of ultrasound. And so she showed me how to use it, and I brought a few snakes over, and we found their follicles.

And a couple that I was hoping would have some more developed follicles do not. So I had ordered it and it was supposed to arrive friday and i was having the training on monday at the university and then it didn't arrive and it didn't arrive so i just brought the snakes to the work you know and had her show me on on my snakes and then uh i got a tour of the new lab. It's pretty sweet. They renovated the herp building, and they put in all this nice stuff. But, man, we went into one of the rooms, and it was pretty warm in there. I'm like, oh, is this like a set temperature, or is this just for daytime? No, this is the temperature we keep them at.

I'm like, wow. Wow. So they must be going by the heat the room approach rather than each cage. But, I mean, the room was like mid-80s? It was mostly warm. Like it was probably, yeah, mid-80s. It was hot in there. That's pretty warm.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think they're, I know, well, they brought back a bunch of snakes from Dale DiNardo who did all that cool research with the children's pythons and eggs and stuff. So, I mean, they know what they're doing, of course. Yeah. I was just like, whoa, I don't. And if you're going to breed children's pythons, I don't think I'd be keeping them that hot right now.

Yeah. Right. Right. But then again, they live up in far north, you know, the northern territory. And so they're probably not getting that cold during the winter. Yeah. I don't know. It depends on where they're from.

But anyway, it was cool to see and, you know, pretty state-of-the-art and nice in there. They could control humidity and temperature and stuff in the room, so that was pretty cool. And, you know, it was nice to get to see it again. I haven't really been down in the herp room since Ben left. You know, he was kind of my key into the biology department, into the herp. So how is that like?

I mean, as a professor there, you can't just kind of walk into any. No, no, no. They're like, hey, what are you doing here? That sounds like my work. Yeah. Well, especially with the new facilities, like everything's key carded. what are you doing here? That sounds like my work. Jesus. Well, especially with the new facilities, like everything's key carded.

Even the rooms inside the facility. Yeah. And in our rodent facilities and stuff, you have to have, like your key card has to be approved to get into a certain room. And you may only have access to one or two rooms in a suite of you know 10 rooms so probably similar to the that is like that's exactly like my work exactly so yeah yeah if you don't belong there you're not getting in yeah so it's kind of you

know i used to have some people i knew over there some grad students and stuff when i was a grad student so i'd go hanging out and you know chat herps and stuff so you got to like you got to constantly keep the schmooze on for that huh like keep getting yeah keep keep keep meeting grad students so that they don't uh they don't graduate and and then you're left with no in and then you're stuck then you're stuck doing the secret knock yeah there you go i did meet one one of her grad students and and he's working on children's Python reproduction and immunology. So it should be pretty interesting to see what he finds. So I'm curious to see that. Yeah, so that was fun.

So I finally got it. I found out that the ultrasound was being sent to my old address because my eBay had my old address. I'm like, oh, crap. And so I had it rerouted to be held at one of the FedEx facilities. And so I went and picked it up yesterday. Good save. So did it get delivered or how did that? Well, I think the attempted delivery.

And I'm like, because my daughter was home and she's like, yeah, nobody came. And I'm like, and they said, we attempted delivery. And usually they leave the little card that says we weren't here or whatever. And so I'm like, so I got looking closer and I saw that it was trying to be delivered to my old address. I'm like, oh, crap. So I had changed all my addresses in eBay, and then I had them reroute it, and they said, show up with your ID showing that that's your address.

And I'm like, oh, no. So I looked on my ID, and luckily I hadn't changed my driver's license with my new address, which I think is probably technically illegal or something. Yeah, I was going to say, I think you're supposed to do that within, like, yeah. Well, you're the one who may have to renew your license in the next couple of years.

There you go. Do you have the real ID yet? Have you gone real ID? I don't know. What's that? Real ID is like a- Trust me. It's me.

Look at me. It is me. No. So you have to bring much more documentation. So you need like a birth certificate, passport. Oh, wow. Yeah. Like you have to really, it's like, it's like proving you're a citizen basically. And they'll give you a real ID.

So it's like a driver's license, but it's the real ID. So I think it's, they keep pushing it back. Do you use it as a driver's license? Well, yeah, it is your driver's keep pushing it as a driver's license well yeah it is your driver's license but but but it's it's it's linked into the federal system and your id is verified and if you want to travel on airlines you have to have and it's like it used it was going to be like may of 2022 and now i think they pushed it back to like maybe May of 23 or 24 because of COVID. They keep pushing it back.

But, yeah, eventually everyone will have to have this real ID to travel. Uh-oh. You're not – the Utes are not hip to this game, apparently. Hasn't hit here yet, I guess. Or I just don't pay attention. I don't know. Maybe it has. You're a driving man, attention. I don't know. Maybe it has. You're a driving man, mostly.

I will say you do fly, though. You definitely do fly, and for work. So you probably don't want to sleep on old Chuck's advice here. That's true. I was looking into this. Yeah, I probably will space it off as soon as we're done. How is the DMV in Utah? The DMVs in California are horrible, like horrible. And not that I think anywhere's DMV is good. as soon as we're done and then how is the dmv in utah i have to imagine the dmvs in california are

horrible like horrible and not that i think anywhere's dmv is good and i know this is really squirrel random but i was just thinking like you know maybe the maybe in utah or maybe like montana or like you know some of the more sparsely pop maybe they're maybe their dmvs are a little less uh well i went into the dmv the other, but I wasn't actually supposed to be there. We were registering a car. I wasn't thinking, so I went to the DMV. I'm like, hey, where do I register my car? They're like, you're in the wrong building, you idiot.

But they were nice and friendly. Oh, I'd love to help you, but you need to go to this place. So I had to go down to the courthouse, of course. All right. Already finding ways that California DMV differs. So they were friendly. It hasn't been too bad. But, yeah, there weren't very many people there either,

but it was kind of in the morning. I think the DMV may be the only place that has more jaded of workers, state workers, than the federal government does but that that's just my experience i mean it seems like a pretty sweet gig you just have to whiz people and tell them they get their license or not i don't know maybe it's maybe it's miserable in some way that yeah i was gonna say i don't know if sweet gig would be the i don't know if that's the the the words i would use use, but it's not overly difficult. Yeah, I would agree there.

So I did finally pick it up. So back to brass tacks. I took it for a spin, and I identified a few females that look gravid, look like they've got some either huge follicles or eggs. I think one of the Womas had eggs. Like they were pretty. Did you ultrasound the blackhead? No.

I mean, she's obvious. She's about to pop. She's not eating. She's giant. Yeah. She hasn't eaten for several months. And so, yeah, she's definitely got eggs. So I'm trying to.

In fact, I think she's in her pre-laid shed right now so nice yeah um a few others like i i think i've got a gravid female uh prothensis pygmy python so that's exciting and then i didn't do any like lizards or anything just the snakes so and then a couple others like i'm pretty sure my jungle uh zebra jungle's about ready to go again too yeah she's gonna zebra to zebra uh no zebra the normal like kind of nice striped lineage male he was he was produced from i think it was flower one of ben's stripe projects but i got a striped animal from Ben and bred that male, and then he doesn't have any striping,

but some of his babies in this last year's clutch are striped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a really crazy stripe. It's cool looking. Yeah, it's that recessive stripe, right? Yeah, and I was kind of surprised how quick i made it through all the all the females that i'm you know looking to breed or get eggs from so went pretty quick so i think i'm going to be able to you know hopefully make a little project of it and track them you know maybe

through the season and do like so now you're the you're the ultrasound master i don't know if i'm a master i had a hard time i i was trying to use the tub of water method instead of the gel, you know, but I think I'm going to go with the gel. It was too hard, and they freak out when they hit the water, and they start trying to swim and move. And so that was a little, even though it was nice warm water, it was a little difficult to get them to hold still to be able to ultrasound them. And then, the like the connection

where the cord comes into the old you know the probe it kind of came loose and i'm like is this going to get water in it and electrocute me if i'm sticking it in a tub of water so i'm like yeah maybe i just want to use the gel so i ordered some gel we'll see if that works any better but that's what i they showed me you know in the lab. They trained me using the gel, and it seemed to work a little better because if they come out of the water, then you lose the signal. Yeah. The instrument's kind of nice. Like when you see something, even if you lose it,

you can hit the stop button or whatever, and then you can backtrack a little ways and go back to where you had the good. So it kind of has a play, a play, like a, a law, your feature. Yeah. That's cool. You have a certain amount of time that you could go back and look. And so now I feel like, I feel like, I feel like now that you have spent the money for an ultrasound, you really are,

you've kind of put the ball in your court to start really using that thing and making, making a lot of animals. I mean, maybe not a lot of animals, but, but, but consistently making animals. Right. I mean, I think I'm a few years off of that because I kind of need to get a feel for it and like kind of learn how to use it and track and figure out what sizes. I need to go back and read some of those papers because I'm pretty sure DiNardo's work kind of goes over that and talks about some of the papers or at least follicle sizes along the course. I don't know.

I need to look into that more. I've got some in the Green Tree Python book, but it's not ingrained in my brain. so i need to go back and look that up and kind of figure out for the different species you know what a pre-ovulation post-ovulation size or you know ovulation size follicle is and and then just kind of record maybe i'll pick like okay i'm this year i'm going to do asperities and i track asidites throughout the whole year and look at the ones who go on to reproduce and stuff and we'll see. But it's, you know, I, I think like after having messed with it, it's like, okay, this isn't that bad. I'll be able to, I should be able to use this. It's not, it doesn't, it's not a long setup.

It's not heavy. It's not hard to move around. I got a nice bite right on my index finger from a Stimson's python. I thought she was good to go, but she turned around and grabbed me. She was like, food? Feed? So, yeah, it was my own dumb fault. What do you do? That's what you get for having finger sausages.

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, they do taste pretty good. But I guess I've got a nice little nice circular row of teeth marks there on my finger. I got bit the other day, too, getting some out for something. Yeah. The fun of working in a snake room, right? I was going to say, it is part of the fare of admission. Yeah, yeah.

Man, got to be rough. Yeah, so anything new with you? No, not really, man. Just doing, it's been kind of cold here, so I just checked on the diamond pythons. I hadn't seen them in, you know, good couple of days. So get a little worried. You're fine. They're fine. And just, I don't know. I couldn't find the male, the, the females, uh, hunkered down, but I'm sure. What are your lows? Um, I mean, we're, we're, you know, probably, Oh,

hold on. I might have to – I haven't logged on to the Govee app in a while, and so you've got to let it update. I've had some frustration with that. Yeah, it does kind of suck in the sense that it doesn't you know, if you just take a minute, let everything download, and then it's all up to date. But, yeah, like the last – let's see. Yeah, January 14th was the last time I updated, so it's been like –

Oh, okay. It's been a while. But it gets pretty cold. What were you down to in January? Oh, 40s. We were down in the 40s. So, I mean, it gets down. You know, it's there.

And so, you know, like what I was seeing was, you know, from the peak in the valley, from the high to the low, it's getting, you know, it's getting tighter where the extreme spread is way less. Let's see here so yeah so my min for for yes for yeah for well it doesn't make sense just on the wrong day anyway so my minimum for yesterday was 34 and a half degrees so that's below and then the high was up to 72.9 degrees fahrenheit so you know pretty you know and that's it that that's at the basking spot so it's cold it's cold they're out there freezing their ass off i could i could take some 40s or 30s right

now it's yeah i i bet you could i woke up to single digits man it was not comfortable yeah well that's why i don't live where you live yeah that's true yeah why not as many people live here i guess yeah um well cool oh oh hey hi ruby Oh, right on. Say hi, Ruby. I thought today we could talk about. Yeah, go ahead. We could talk about P. col. We could talk about hydration and kind of like some of the ideas and maybe, you know, debate or behind some of these topics of hydration. So I'm trying to think of a way to kind of have two sides on this, because, of course, who doesn't want to hydrate their reptiles?

I like meat jerky reptiles. Yeah, I don't know. That's weird, right? Right, right. So I guess, like, you know, maybe whether or not we should try to adapt more. I don't know if I'd call them experimental, but like different ideas have been floated in the hobby. So we can discuss some of those and kind of whether or not, you know, they have merit in trying or following or doing that. You know what I mean?

So maybe we'll have it be that way where one of us takes the side of, ah, that's kind of nonsense. And the other side says, no, there's merit. We're going to play this one fast and loose. Is that what you're saying? I think so. Hey, that's our style, right? Yes, we can do that. It wouldn't be a Chuck and Justin episode without that.

Come on, man. Fast and loose. We just decided on the topic a little while ago. Sometimes you got to throw it against the wall, see what sticks. Exactly. That's what we're doing today. Okay. Well, let's flip a coin.

We'll see what sticks. Yeah. Actually, let's do an ad. We have a new sponsor on the show, Mutton's Choice Powerlifting Gloves. We appreciate the old Mutton's Choice brand sponsoring the show. If you want to lift like a pro, get Mutton's Choice Powerlifting Gloves.

All right, so back to the coin toss. And if one wanted to get Muttons lifting power gloves, where would they go? I think you have to steal them from Nick Muttons' car. I see. Yeah. Okay. All right. Here we go.

Go ahead and call it. I don't know. I don't know anymore. That's sales. Call it sales. I think I just lost the heads you lost it oh man i was just thinking i knew i'd throw you with the fake ad i was just thinking of all the reptile people trying to break into a teal blue or a baby blue corvette to steal uh nick mutton power lifting gloves it's a good thing he doesn't listen to this show or yeah i'd be in trouble anytime somebody breaks into his car he's gonna blame it on me i'm gonna pay for it all right well um maybe i'll go i'll go with the the you

know some of these ideas have some merit so all. And you can take the grumpy old man. So do you think like, you remember back in the day, cause I'm, you know, it's an older Corvette, right? So I'm like thinking like,

you remember, you remember back in the day, the Viper alarm, this car is protected by Viper. You know, like, do you think it's like, this car is protected by mutton.

Like, could you see, like, wouldn't that be hilarious? Hey, hey, you know. Step away from the car. This car is protected by mutton like could you see like wouldn't that be hilarious you go to break the still a glass step away from the car this car is protected by mutton i don't know maybe i'm out there okay

well anyway what am i doing now okay you're you've got the get off my lawn get off my easy yeah oh yeah what a stupid idea no Yeah. Who does that? Yeah. Who does that? Okay, so I guess one of the things that kind of brought this topic to my attention was the debate around putting the pennies in the water bowl. Have you seen that one? Ah, the old cation exchange. There you go. Maybe I should have taken the negative side, because there's a few things on these that I have some.

But anyway, I think I first saw that or heard about that from Harlan Wall. I don't know if he came up with that. Somebody told him that, right? Yeah. Pennies of a certain year before 1950 or something. I think it has to do with the amount of copper that, yeah, the amount of copper that they actually put into the penny. Yeah.

I think so. I think, I think this topic kind of was a hodgepodge of different things and I didn't, I mean, I thought it was like, so we'll talk about some of the other ideas, but we'll start out with the penny in the water bowl so um i'll let you lead out with your thoughts on the penny in the water bowl from the perspective of the what a stupid idea that no so so so refresh me the penny in the water bowl let's let's let's establish this for for yeah so so i will say our guess but really for me because i don't remember the whole fucking thing. The idea was that it reduces bacterial growth because of the copper ions in the water.

And so you have to use those older coins because the newer coins don't have enough copper or something. So I imagine you could use copper wire or something else that's coppery. I think that's kind of the idea behind using copper pipes why we have copper pipes in our home so um yeah does that sound familiar so you know they yeah i think somebody actually did a study where they took a bunch of water bowls and put pennies in some and no pennies in the other. And then they, I don't know, streak some agar plates or something, agar plates, to see if they get bacterial growth. And there was a clear, and scientifically there was a clear winner here? I don't think they ran statistics or did anything like that, so I don't know.

You know, it's hard to make conclusions from some of those, you know, at-home experiments. But they thought, it seems like, I'm probably misquoting this, but it seemed like they thought they saw some difference or effect of the copper. So, I mean, I guess this is me kind of riffing a little bit. And so, you know, my industry that I work in primarily is aerospace. And so we work with a lot of alloyed metals for the aerospace industry. So I'm pretty familiar with alloys.

And a lot of the problem we have working on a naval aircraft is salt water so so you have a lot of uh corrosion to alloyed metals um due to salt water and some type of a wet you know uh in a in an aqueous form so you you get a cation exchange in an aqueous form. It's called a galvanic corrosion cell. And generally it happens between an anode and a cathode. So the anode, oh, I don't remember how this works. It generally goes by how much an alloy or a metal wants to give up an ion in that cation exchange. And so some metals are on one side of the table. Other metals are on the other side of the table. So I would think the way this works is that the mineral in the water serves as either the anode or the cathode.

And then the penny serves the copper in the penny because copper readily gives up an ion because it tends to be pretty soft. And a lot of this stuff has to go by hardness. So a lot of the softer metals tend to give up ions pretty easily. And so I would say that it really depends. Obviously, you know, the penny in the water, the water is the aqueous solution. You get two metals in an aqueous solution and you're having cation exchange. Now, to me, it depends on how much mineral you have in your water. So there's that. And I think it definitely depends on what the alloying properties of the penny you're using are, which, as you said, you kind of need it before a certain year because the penny is more brass or nickel or whatever they're using in pennies these days.

I don't know. But it's one of those things where those conditions have to be met. And sure, I would agree that there's probably some ion exchange going on there. But I think long term, I don't think you're going to stop bacterial growth in water. I don't think you can sit there and just put a penny in water and fully stop bacterial growth. Um, you know, so, uh, you know, I, I think the, the basis of, you know, the, the ions

from the copper will weaken the bacterial cell wall. I don't know if they necessarily – they just kind of mess with the integrity of the cell wall. That's kind of what leads to different negative consequences for the bacteria. So, yeah, it will slow growth. It will potentially kill off some bacteria. Yeah, and I think if maybe you get bacterial clusters, so weakening the cell wall on that bacterial cluster that is closest to the exterior, the aqueous solution, right, but maybe not necessarily getting all of those bacteria

depending upon how they cluster and form. Right. So so that's my point. Like, yes, it probably is going to help. But if you're saying like, well, I shouldn't regularly change my water because I put a penny in there and it's, you know, it's, and the other thing is if, if you're, if you're changing your water so infrequently that you're using a penny, you know, or, uh, a stop gap method of, of retarding bacteria, maybe you're playing, you know, I mean, would it, would it, wouldn't the thing be to, to just re you know, clean and reintroduce a fresh water source that is – and our water is fluoridated. Fluoridated? Fluoridated?

Fluorinated? Fluoridated? Okay, I like that. We'll go with that. Fluoridated? Yeah, I think fluor we there's our and the other thing is, is, you know, we're seeing water qualities decline across the nation. So, you know, maybe that's a maybe that's an argument for maybe, you know, maybe you have relatively good water quality from your municipal water treatment plants, you know, your water should be fairly clean and bacteria, fairly bacteria free. I don't know about you, but I've seen some of those like going out herping.

You see these pretty nasty water. You know, like, yeah, I don't think and i think we're also coming from the attitude i i think a lot of keepers have the attitude that all bacteria is bad you know that right any bacteria is bad bacteria but most of our body is made up of bacteria there's more bacteria in the human body than there are human cells so we're more bacteria than human in some ways. And, I mean, they perform a huge array of functions. I really got into this with the gut microflora. We were doing some studies, and we were putting in a big program grant

for a bunch of different related studies on how the microflora of the gut influences different things. Like for us, it was, you know, viral infection and treatment and things like that. And we did see some interesting things in the gut by, you know, microflora are very important. And if you kill them, you know, so you take mega doses of antibiotics or something for, you know, like a MRSA infection of antibiotics or something for, you know, like a MRSA infection or something, and then you kill all your gut microflora. It can change your metabolism. It can change all sorts of things, you know.

Skinny people all of a sudden gain a lot of weight or vice versa, you know. It can really change a lot of aspects of your life, even, I mean, so many different aspects of life, mental cognition, you know, teeth, your, your cavities and strength of your teeth and stuff like that. So it's kind of crazy. Um, so I, or maybe that was maybe your teeth cleanliness had to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's what I was just going to say is, is dental hygiene quality related to cardiovascular fitness? Yeah. I think, you know say is dental hygiene quality relating to cardiovascular fitness. Yeah, I think, you know, the idea that we need to have sterile water or ultra clean, ultra pure water is kind of, you know, that's I don't think that necessarily applies. Now, you know, take that with a grain of salt.

You don't also don't want a bunch of biofilms growing in your water either. And, you know, like you're saying, those biofilms, the middle of them are completely protected. And so, yeah, the outer layer kind of gets killed or maybe like the crust, but it also kind of protects the living stuff inside to multiply. And so, you know, yeah, you can get pathogenic bacteria that can flourish in a water system or if your environment's too humid or whatever. And so there needs to be a balance. So I think if you're trying to, you know,

you know that you're not going to necessarily be changing your water out every day or every other day and you want to stretch it to a week or two or something, maybe a penny in the water bowl would be a reasonable way to kind of keep that extreme bacterial growth down until you can go in and change the water bowl. Yeah. I use disposable. I mean, that has its own downsides of, you know, adding plastic to the landfill and stuff. And sometimes I'll clean those out instead of chucking them and just put them back in the cage. But, um, if they get too nasty or if they take a crap in their water bowl, you

know, it's, it's a lot easier just to chuck that and put in a fresh new one, you know? And, uh, so I, I feel bad about putting more plastic in the environment, but at the same time, I keep my snakes a lot more clean that way. But, you know, if you've got water bowls you need to clean out, maybe having a penny in there will reduce the opportunity of those bacteria to form biofilms. You know, maybe it will diminish that capacity to form biofilms. Now, the way to, I guess, test that or to put it to a real scientific investigation would be to have a known quantity of bacteria. So you could add the same amount to each bowl and then put the penny in, you know, half of them at random and then, you know, see kind of what numbers you have down the road and and try

to find some way to quantify you know your reduction of bacteria and show that that's significant compared to um no penny in the water bowl and i imagine you you might see a see an effect you know but like you said but i just yeah i i just feel like though like i understand what you're saying i agree with you i agree with you that you could sit there and you could quantify it and and maybe somebody who had the you know the science wherewithal and the and the drive to do that goes and quantifies and says yes a penny in the water bowl you know keeps the bacterial film away and that's great but what most people are going to hear is well if i just put a penny in my water bowl i don't have to worry about it as much and i'm just not going to change

my water as often so i think you're missing i think you're missing the point like for me it'd be like well in that case then take your water bowl and put it you know put put it in your your pot on the stove and boil it boil all that film off and then put your water back in there because that's a far more effective strategy and less risk. Just have a copper water bowl. Just buy a bunch of copper water bowls. Yeah, exactly. You're good to go. Then you'll have no bacteria.

But what happens – also what happens when you get kind of that – because all metals oxidize, and so they get those oxidative layers on them, and those oxidative layers are a protective layer. So you're not doing the same amount of cation exchange with that oxidative layer there than you are with fresh, bare, open, you know, metal. So, you know, I think. Yeah, I think, yeah, cleaning, yeah, cleaning the penny, how often you need to clean the penny. Right, and so that's the other part is most people see a penny and it's not a bright, shiny, you know, fresh-looking penny. That's because it's got that copper oxidation or it's been oxidized. So it's not going to give up its ion as readily if it's oxidized already.

So, you know, a lot of nuance there in the whole, how well will the penny work for you? So I just, you know, I think where the rubber hits the road with most people, it's probably not, you know, is it scientifically a thing? Yeah, probably. So is it a good idea? Could you know, like, if if you had if you were like, I just I can't get water right now. And the water that's in the dish is what I have. And all I have are these old pennies. Go for it. Go for it until you're you know but yeah i mean will it hurt probably not i mean probably not potentially help a little bit it could you know so i i guess the risk of of trying

this like you said the main risk is that you get complacent with your water changes and so that yeah yeah i mean i think i think that's my my biggest underlying point is you know nothing nothing does the best for your water like taking your bowl throwing the old shit out scrubbing the fucking thing out and filling it up with fresh water that's that's really what's gonna you know keep your water quality the the the best for or treating your water depending you know depending upon how you're how what what type of animal you're using it for and what level of because you know for different i mean i wouldn't take the same level of water quality for amphibians as i do for some reptiles right like so you know i i've seen a lot of swamps that the

frogs come from, too. That's fair as well. It's hard. Yeah, it's really... But those are extremely biotically alive, and I would say that... There's a balance there. There's a balance there. But we've also seen chytrid move through and decimate amphibian populations. Yeah, absolutely.

It's an imbalance. Absolutely. A foreign invader is brought to the waters and it just takes over. So that's, you know, we know the nightmare that's been. We just throw a bunch of pennies in the ponds and we'll be good. We'll kill all that chytrid. Yeah, I've been watching, what is it, One of Us? No, All of Us?

Oh, The Last of Us? Last of Us. And the family yeah no so yeah it's been i've been i've been like thinking kitchard fungus no i haven't really been thinking kitchard fungus but it is a pretty interesting concept that's those other fungus that grow in the brain of the grasshopper and yeah the grasshopper to climb to the top of the branch and hold on. And then it like releases its spores out to infect other grass. What a crazy world we live in, you know, that's a thing, you know?

Yeah. I think fungus are pretty, pretty amazing. They're pretty interesting. You know, they're really a, a, a whole, a whole, you know, kingdom that we don't give enough credence to. Yeah. And I guess maybe this goes to your side as well, but bacteria aren't the only things that can cause disease. Speaking of chytrid, chytrid is a fungus, serpentovirus or nidovirus or viruses, of course. And so, you know, there's other risks that can be potentially transmitted through your water if you're not cleaning it regularly or if you're cohabitating or something. So, you know, penny's not going to cure everything, but, you know, it wouldn't hurt and it may help a little bit.

But as long as you're keeping your cleaning schedule and not thinking a penny is a magic bullet, that's going to solve all your problems. So, um, there is no magic penny. There is no spoon. Um, so, uh, that, that kind of brings up the next topic of hydration is, uh, um, water changes. How, how frequently should you be changing your water? So now the observation is that when I change my water bowls in my green tree python's cage, they usually come down and drink that same day. You know, I hear that a lot, right? And so Keith McPeak kind of was talking about that on one of his posts about, you know, changing water. And maybe we change it every day. He's been McPeaking on those animals, huh? Yeah. about changing water, and maybe we change it every day.

He's been McPeaking on those animals, huh? Yeah. He's been McPeaking in on those animals. He's McPeaking, and he's observing, and so I can— Make and make observations. Exactly. So, yeah, I guess our thoughts on daily water changes or more frequent water changes. Yeah. Do you want to lead us out or do you want me to tell us? Well, I mean, so I think if I am the

nay on this one, I think what you can see is, so obviously most snakes do not, so as a rule of practice Obviously, most snakes do not. So as a rule of practice, we offer water at all times under ideal conditions for our reptiles, right? Is that really a reasonable thing? No, I mean, it is a reasonable thing. But do they need access to water at all times? No, they can go long periods of time without water.

However, when you offer them fresh water, they will generally drink from it. And when you have water that is not as fresh, I think they disregard that water. I think they're able to tell the difference, smell the difference, whatever, between fresh water and water that has a biofilm or something in it. And I think that they definitely show a preference towards fresh, clean water, and they can tell what is fresh, clean water. So I think if you do more frequent changes, then you will always have fresh water available, which will ultimately logically lead to the most opportunity for hydration for them. However, I don't think that daily water changes are, you know,

with a resource that is getting more finite for us, is changing the water for them every single day a necessary thing? I don't. I would say as long as you change it at least, you know, once, maybe twice a week, you're fine. I don't, I don't think that water quality drops off that drastically. Um, yeah, but that's me. I've got some, uh, I mean, I, I love Keith's, I love his posts. I mean, he's, he's, I agree. And yeah. And so I, I think there's definitely something to that idea, you know, like those water changes. I guess it depends on the species, of course.

I mean, you know, comparing apples to oranges to kumquats or whatever. But like some species wouldn't know what to do. They would drown in a water bowl. Yeah, right. They don't know what to do with it and they're not going to be able to really use it and they could damage them and kill them. So, you know, of course you need to know the natural history of the species you're working with. If you're working with, say, a Bolin's python where it rains every day and they're probably, you know, getting most of their water close to where they're hanging out most of the time and drinking from a puddle from the rain or something like that, you know, or collecting it in their coils, you know.

So I guess, you know, in that case, maybe a daily water change or even kind of administering water. And this may be the next topic we can talk about, but spraying your animals or administering water a different way. For example, knobtail geckos. I don't keep water bowls in my knobtail gecko enclosures, but I spray them down a few times a week, spray down the sides of the cage and spray them down if they're out there.

And they'll drink water droplets off their body. A lot of reptiles have kind of that cool channeling system that can wick up the water and it gets to their mouth and they can drink just by standing in a puddle like a, you know, Moloch or Thorny Devil. If you haven't seen that, it's very cool. Check it out. You know, go look at that on YouTube or something.

My day geckos wipe it right off their eyes. Yeah, yeah. Have you ever seen a day gecko drink from uh uh no uh no i've never seen them i really haven't seen them go i keep water in there um next to their food dish but most of the time when i see them drink it's when i miss the cages yeah so we'll we'll talk about that next i think but So as far as changing the water, I think it could definitely have a benefit for some species. Yeah, I agree. It comes from a very wet environment like the highlands of New Guinea or spend a lot of time in their water, they probably could, you know, benefit from either a running water system or a replenishment of their water.

Because a lot of these species may be in rivers or river systems and may be okay with, you know, or benefit from that frequent water replenishing and changing. And so, again, it depends on the species. Like, I remember watching the Hammersliensis monitors, the southern Pilbara rocks, Pilbara, sorry, Aussies, go down, you know, the rock faces and come down to the little stream and drink and things. So I think even in the harsh desert of Western Australia, they still have access or know where to find that water and running water even down in those gorges in the Pilbara.

And there's kind of a concentration of wildlife in those areas where you have that permanent source of running water. So I thought about that. If I ever keep Pilbara rock monitors, how cool would it be to have a big cage with a giant rock wall and a little stream running along the base of it? And I guess the differences of captivity you know we say okay animals in the wild probably don't drink every day but they probably have a place where they go that's

has 100 humidity you know like a burrow or something so they're they don't necessarily they're not losing water like they would in the captive environment where we're not providing them a humid hide because we're like, oh, they're a desert reptile. They come from the desert. So therefore, they don't need any humidity. Whereas they don't need 100% humidity their whole time, but they do need it when they're in their hide area or what. So lots of extenuating factors. The hydraulic gradient of what's going on in their environment makes a big difference to how much water they're giving up or how much they can retain in their body as to how much they need access to at the time. And, you know, I mean, out in nature, sometimes the access to water and the hydraulic gradient are not friends with each other. So they have to be able to go periods of time without water.

Now, in captivity, is that necessary for them to do? No, it's not. But, you know, nonetheless, just like you can go a period of time without water, or, you know, they can as well. Does that mean you should? No, it doesn't. But does that mean that you need to offer them water every single day and it needs to be the freshest water all the time? Probably not. Does that mean that you can go a week without changing very situational, both in nature and probably in captivity. But, you know, if you can give them access to clean water on a regular basis, probably changing more frequently, depending upon the species especially, makes sense.

Yeah. I had a friend that I was helping him clean out some cages. He'd been gone for a couple days, and he went and started cleaning the cages, and there weren't any water bowls in the cages. I'm like, oh, what's going on here? He's like, oh, yeah, I mean, they don't need to drink every day, and I was going to be out of town, and a spilled water bowl in a rack system with all these smaller snakes is much worse than no, the no water for a couple of days and giving them water.

So that's why I'm giving him water now and hydrating him back up and stuff. So, you know, I think again, depending on the way your animals are set up and the, and the natural history of the animal you're working with. Well, and, and like, if you had to go off an AZA checklist, that would be the hugest no-no ever. But, you know, again, you have to know what – it's situationally specific. And, you know, the context and the natural history matter, right?

So by no means am I saying, oh, water's not – don't worry about that. No, yeah. I'd be sorry to say, you know, like, no, that's not what I'm saying. Yeah. Don't worry about that. No, yeah. I'd be sorry to think, you know, like, no, that's not what I'm saying. So. Yep. And yeah, like you said, I mean, I think zookeepers kind of pull their hair out when they're. Yeah, for sure. The boards kind of demand that each cage have fresh water every day in it. And it's like, well, they don't drink from a water bowl.

So. Yeah. I mean, I've heard Steve. I mean, I hear Steve say this on the regular. So, you know, there's a frustration within the zookeeping community over AZA standards as well. So, as there should be in some cases. And I think any time there's a rule that has no, you know, natural history to back it. Just capricious and arbitrary.

Which is, I mean, on one hand, it's easy to regulate. You know, you can go in and say, is there water in the cage? Check. Yes. Check. No. You know, so I imagine it's more to make their job easier than having to know every animal and, you know, their hydration requirements. So that's tricky.

But, you know, you think that tricky but you know you think down upon us so i i guess that's where we maybe have a benefit there as as private keepers is we can make that choice and have a little bit of freedom of movement yeah exactly so i guess you know a lot of this comes back to this is know your animals, know their natural history, know what they need and how to provide that best for them. Yeah. Good, good, good thinking. Well, good topic. Thanks, Keith.

Let's go to, you know, spraying and fogging and, you know. Fogging. Yeah. Not flogging. No flogging, no flogging, no flogging your reptiles. Um, and, and I really, I mean, I gotta, of course, bring, bring up around St. Pierre. I knew it. I knew it. I know, you know, that's coming, right? Yeah, of course. Sorry for the repetition on that. Yes. As justly deserved, but but yes i knew that was coming and i mean i don't know how it didn't hit me you know sooner because i've spent many nights out in the desert sleeping and you wake

up and there's like a layer of water on you sometimes you know not all the time and so and when he's talking about collecting reptiles and there's nothing moving and then all of a sudden the dew point hits and there's a layer of water over and then all of a sudden the dew point hits, and there's a layer of water over everything, and all of a sudden everything comes out and starts licking up the dew. And so, you know, like a lot of times when you spray an animal, they freak out and they don't like it, but I imagine fogging is a little less of a shock to them and probably has the same purpose if the fogger's on long enough it

kind of mimics that dew point setting so i think um definitely especially for you know arboreal animals and and those animals that don't necessarily regularly drink from standing water um having those kind of you know incorporating that, um, misting or fogging or spraying into your, um, you know, maintenance regimen is, is very important. And I would say almost critical, you know, to, to, to have that animal act like it needs to act and be like it needs to be. So, I mean, you hear that a lot about like, oh, you know, green tree python babies don't drink, you know, and they freak out when you spray them. Well, maybe you miss them or maybe, you know, your humidity is 100 percent, so they don't need to drink as much or or they you know collect the dropping water or something if you're spraying with the side it freaks them out but if water's dropping dripping on them from above it's okay you know those kind of things yeah and i think i i definitely think the you know when you just blast a blast a snake with with a spray bottle of water they're

like hey what the hell i mean the same way you would be is if i turned a fire hose on you you know like it that's quite a volume of water and generally when when you know rain starts it i'm not always but you know it doesn't usually just drop as like you know a fire hose it kind of comes down a little bit at a time. And so, you know, I, I, you know, sometimes, yeah, yeah, that's right. So, you know, maybe, maybe, uh, it is not that they dislike the water. It's just the, the, the, the volume of delivery is, is not preferred. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, um, and, and, you know, I think, so as somebody who keeps a lot of plants

and stuff in all of my terrariums with all my geckos, I mean, it's, you know, having plants in there and having a misting system and, you know, you're, you're, you're watering those plants, you know, you're misting those plants as well as the animal. And you're also providing water for, for, for Vapo transpiration for the plants, which is also kind of keeping the humidity up as the, as the plants of Vapo transpire. So it's, you know, and, and you don't have to necessarily spike the, you know, you can spike the humidity by, by the, the misting, but then, you know, the plants as they transpire kind of keep that humidity up. So there's definitely, you know, I think there's

something to be said for misting and incorporating a more natural setup into that. You get some extra benefits, I think, of just kind of a little more regulatory cushion in your in your caging where you're you're still getting some of the benefits but maybe not having to you know you don't have to constantly be misting and you know the plants are kind of helping you as well and um and it you know makes for a more biotic, uh, environment. Um, and so, yeah, I, I definitely think I, you know, I think, gosh, misting can be such a fine line though, as well, because, um, you know, if you over mist, yeah. And especially if you're, especially if you're using a substrate that can mold.

I have to watch it with my aspen shavings. If I over-spray my aspen shavings, they tend to get little mold on them after a while. So I really have to watch how I mist missed and I really have to stay after my substrates so that they just don't. And cause I, cause I do, I do spray the Tracy. I fairly, you know, fairly regularly, especially now, especially this time of year, I've started doing it more regularly just because I've, I've kind of noticed them, um, you know, kind of co cohabitate more, um, in the days after I, I spike their humidity. Um, so, so I think, so one that I think there's, there's, you know, biological benefits in reproduction and signaling and things like that for misting for reptiles, which is definitely

good. But I also think you have to watch very carefully, you know, because not all misting is good misting. And, you know, you can even you can even saturate soils with over misting and actually have fairly low humidity, but fairly, you know, uh, um, messed up fairly abiotic soils. Yeah. So, so it, you know, too much is, is not always good. So, and, and you know, the, the, how you're missing, you know, the, the how you're aerosolizing. So like you talked about a fogger, which is probably the, you're aerosolizing. So like you talked about a fogger, which is probably the, you know,

the finest aerosolization of, of, uh, moisture, uh, versus, you know, what most people do in a spray bottle. Um, those are very, very different things going into an enclosure. Um, and they can have a gross effect on the volume of water in the enclosure and, and, uh, and, and the amount of bacterial growth you'll get in the enclosure depending upon frequency and volume. So, yeah. I mean, waking up in the desert with that, that do, you know, the collected in the night, um, dried up pretty quickly as soon as the sun hit, you know, and we, we just lay out our sleeping bags or, you know, uh, tarps or whatever, and they'd be dry in, you know, a couple minutes, you know and we we just lay out our sleeping bags or you know uh tarps or whatever and they'd be dry in you know a couple minutes you know so yeah as soon as that sun hits so

yeah i mean you got to keep all that stuff you know balanced and and again i mean this is a uh a push to get out in the environment where the reptiles live you know where the species i i uh i listened to alan rapashi on project herpetoculture alan rapashi went on project herpetoculture you gotta step your game up justin i know you gotta step your game up he said they annoyed him enough that he that he came on but here's here's what he did say that he he needs to get on and and kind of battle with ron so if we can get alan and Ron. We're done. That's it. All right.

All right. Then we can just quit and be. The challenge has been laid. And I'm like, man, that sounds like a reptile fight club, not a project herpeticulture. That does. Come on, guys. Don't be stealing our thing. All right, Ron St. Pierre, if you're listening to this, I know it's your off season, but

hopefully you hear this. I was going to message each of them separately and say hey ron just challenged you yeah hey alan just challenged you you want to come on man he told me alan's talking shit about you ron you gotta get too much exactly so yeah get in their ear let's make this happen yeah you're don king right now justin we'll do it and then they'll hear this episode or ron will hear this episode and be like, hey, we've been played. So, yeah, we need to get those guys on. That'd be cool.

What was the point? Oh, yeah, Alan was bashing Phil for never having gone over to see the Uromastyx in the wild. You know, like he keeps all these feces like, hey, weren't you the one that went over and watched him in their environment? Oh, wait, no, that was a better keeper. Something to that extent was pretty good. Yeah, that was a really good show. It was good to hear. You know, Alan's a bright guy for sure. Yeah, Alan is very legit.

Yeah. So, but, you know, that idea of, you know, you need to know where they're living, what kind of environment, what the conditions are. And, you know, if you're sleeping out in the environment, you get to feel what it is all night long or, you know, kind of see that. We got to experience that up looking for the montane rattlesnakes up in the mountains of southern Arizona. And it was pretty cold and there was a dew you know over us when we woke up and it was a little little uncomfortable there yeah it was not it was not yeah it was it was fairly i mean i was it was pretty wet like it was yeah you know if i ever keep a clobberi in the future i know kind of you know what to maybe give them

some nights you know yeah no doubt um but yeah getting into the environment knowing kind of, you know, what to maybe give them some nights, you know. Yeah, no doubt. But, yeah, getting into the environment, knowing kind of where they are and when they come out, when they're active, when they're hiding, you know, where they're hiding. All those kind of things really help. And I think, you know, too, like things like day geckos, very small reptiles kind of have an advantage because you can give them more of a, you know, like a planetarium. If you try to give a python a planetarium, you have to have a very large one, you know, with a lot of plants so they can kill some. You have to do your planting very correctly. There's a lot. There's way more work that goes into something like that.

And in a confined space, I mean, yeah, they're going to curl up here for a little while and then curl up here. And so they're going to smash down all the plants in that area. And then they're going to, you know, after a week, everything's smashed down and ruined and all your work to. So I have the problem where I have to go back and actually trim back all my plants because they're literally i had one of my vining plants pushed through the top of the screen and is now was growing out like yeah no so i i do i do well with my planet and yeah like almost too well where you're like oh my gosh this is you know is that outdoors or indoors oh it's indoors indoors that's indoors yeah so put on a master class or something teach me how to do this oh easy money dude yeah i, dude. Yeah, I make my own soils and plant it out.

And just, man, it's those Jungle Dawn LEDs. Those things are... That's the thing that does it. Yeah, they're solid. They're super solid. Yep. Miss King and... And you're good to go.

It's all Arcadia. I just run Arcadia lights and uh miss king and and oh man i i made the mistake of listening listening to the chameleon uh what's the uh chameleon podcast the and now i'm of course i'm in a space off the thing because i'm trying to think of it um the chameleon keeper podcast the chameleon academy podcast jill strand yeah um he went to madagascar and he comes back talking about you know the stuff he experienced and i'm like oh man it's cool kaufman's uh videos and stuff man that's i saw that they were gonna have uh they were gonna have uh like all those guys strand and and uh um frank pain and yeah there's a bunch of guys are gonna do a big panel where that was a

memory wasn't it was it was like five years ago or something frank was it on a panel i don't know i just out of myself how much i pay attention oh i I listened to somebody else that was a chameleon keeper, too. It was on the Animals at Home Network. It was Dylan. Dylan DeMuth? He interviewed Jonathan Hill of Iperdollis, or the panther chameleon guy. And so I looked at his website, and I'm like, oh, man, chameleons guy. And he was, and so I looked at his website and I'm like, Oh man,

chameleons are so cool. They're cool. Like, so, but I can't think like that cause there's no way I could handle chameleons right now. Um, anyway,

so back to the, so yeah, I guess depending on what you're keeping and how you're keeping them and, and all those kinds of things, those, you know, just be aware of the natural history and try to get out and see what kind of their environment, what it's like. And obviously, if you go during a week or a couple weeks even, you're there at a snapshot.

You're there at the heart of the season. So that doesn't mean you can just kind of say okay now i know everything so you know go back at different times of the year or or look at some temperature data or something you know see if they're and look at the you know the rainfall and things like that well and i think that's the kind of the downside to a miss king is because it's very set and forget and you you, you know, here, I mean, our summers to our winters, although they're not as extreme as your summers to winters, but I mean, it's enough that I probably should change how my, you know, hydrologic regimes are a little bit in those, in those cages to, to, to mimic more of a natural cycle for those animals.

Most tropical environments have that dry and wet season. Absolutely. And, I mean, even, you know, I keep standing eye as well as Grandis, and one is northern ranging and the other is southern ranging, and they have very different environments, you know, as far as how much heat and water they get. So, you know, here's here's pretty much the same the same animal that, you know, inhabits very kind of I wouldn't say very different climates, but but enough that they're, you know, they're distinctly different. Sure, sure. And, you know, and I mean, they probably do fine kind of kept at a single regimen and, you know, like, but would they benefit from a more naturalistic cycle?

Exactly. Maybe so. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I think that if you can, I don't know, I remember watching, I think it was the Viper Keeper that. Viper Keeper. watching i think it was the viper keeper that viper keeper kind of an interesting guy on on youtube but i don't know that i'd necessarily mimic what he does but he would water all of his vipers with like a squeeze bottle yeah so he'd go down and and so that was his way of interacting with the animals was to water them and so he's interacting with them you know daily

or every other day or something i would say some of those tropical vipers, that's maybe how you do it. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, well, this was the desert ones too. Like he was giving them drinks like his sand vipers and stuff, you know? So it was kind of cool because then they see him as the bringer of water. But I mean, you're getting pretty close to yourself there, man. Way to deity yourself. I am the bringer of rain. Well, I mean, you know, like that's kind of how you form a bond with your reptiles is they see you as the one who brings the food or, you know, that kind of thing. I guess the food monkey and the rain god are the same person.

Yeah, you're right. That's true. You're right. You're right. So, I don't know. Do we cover it? Do we do any other? You're right. You're right. So, I don't know. Do we cover it? Any other?

So, are we calling reptile keepers polytheistic keepers? I guess you can choose if you believe in the monkey, the food monkey, or the water deity. You can take your pick. Nice. Any other topics on hydration? Cleanliness. I mean, we talked a little bit about, like, should you use RO water. I feel like we kind of covered it. So I will talk about RO.

I will talk about RO. Okay. I just want to get this little funny anecdote. There was the Fiji water. They had some commercial where they're like because it's not water from detroit or something in the and the city of detroit the city of detroit like kind of got offended of course and they said they did their they tested their water quality next to like next in competition with fiji and they had better

water quality than fiji water did. I think people have an unrealistic expectation of exactly how much they actually filter a lot of this. Well, they have an unrealistic expectation of where this bottled water comes from from the source and then how much filtration the companies actively spend money to do because doing large-scale reverse osmosis is extremely expensive. And if you don't believe me, ask a desalinization plant, right? That's pretty much what you're doing. Obviously, it's way more intensive to desalinate and RO.

Much bigger process. Yes. But it's the same principle, and it's expensive to do. I mean, even if you have our systems in your home, those filters are not cheap. And they you know, they they do. You know, if you're going through a lot of water, you need to stay on top of those filter changes. So we have secondary water and we also have. So I usually, I, well, no, I always use for watering my reptiles. I always use the water from the house and we have like a water softener and things because the water in Utah is terribly hard. Yeah. You're, you're all mineral, you're all rock. So it's like, it's going to be, yeah, it's going to be.

Yeah. But, but there is, I mean, you do need some of those minerals in your water. And that's what I was going to say is You're probably going to suffer to some extent. That's the big issue with RO is that, and that is probably the biggest detractor from people misting with RO. So people like RO because it doesn't stain the glass as much when the water evaporates. It just leaves the mineral in it. It leaves that mineral deposit, and it kind of stains your glass. And so people like to use RO. But RO, if you have a really good RO system, it almost totally demineralizes the water. And so if that's what the animal's primarily

drinking, you can get mineral deficient, you know, animals because they're not getting enough mineral out of the water. And I can tell you in California, you can, so, you know, disclosure, I have a native California yard, right? And so I water those plants, you know, with a hose sometimes when it's really hot or, you know, kind of in between the seasons. And, okay, they do fine. But nothing looks as good as when it rains in California. No California natives look any better than the first rain. And that's because all that mineral, all that micronutrient is coming out of the sky and going to the plant. And they just, you know, it's so important for plants. It's so important

for animals. So I do think while there is some advantage to RO, you really have to be kind of careful to not, I mean, yeah, like and 100 percent, you don't want to use anything like distilled water where all of the mineral 100 percent has been stripped out of that water through distillation. And what's going on there when you're misting or even giving drinking water to an animal is a huge part of keeping your animal healthy. And I think, you know, not knowing what you're doing, you can really kind of screw the pooch in some ways. listening to oh, this is why we need these symposiums. People to come and talk about water systems and reptiles. That would be really a useful thing. And I think we think we've got all the information we need from the internet or those kind of kind of things listening to alan talk about yeah um the process he went through to get different feeder insects and you know like the black soldier fly larva and stuff like that and and hearing about um kind of that jockeying for

position by the different you know bug breeders you know, using black soldier fly larva as a, as a feeder source and all the regulations and complications that come along with that. It was really an interesting thing, you know, so I'm glad he got that to work, you know, and to, and to have that grub pie, man, some of my lizards just love that stuff. And so, you know, having, being able to share that information. And that was kind of the idea behind Herpeton, you know. And that was such a fantastic thing. And both, I guess, Roy was there. I don't think Phil was there, but Roy went to Herpeton.

And I feel bad. I don't remember meeting him. I may have met him, but, you know, but he was there. So, you know, I may have met him, but he was there, so I could have met him. The idea was to get everybody together to talk, and so they were talking about Herpeton 2, and Alan basically turned it over to Roy and Phil, and we're going to have it out on Alan's land in Ocotillo and just sit around the campfire and talk reptiles.

That will be cool. That will be so cool. I still think, I still think we need, you know, PowerPoint presentations with like data and, and yeah, some different ideas there.

But, but, but a windy fire night with Trevor and the boys, like, come on, it's done. I'm there. Sign me the fuck up.

So I agree. I think that needs to happen. So we'll have to keep prodding Phil. I mean, the baton has been passed, boys. If Phil and Roy want to meet Trevor, they better get on this shit. Because we don't bring Trevor out for nobody. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

And even if it's a smaller scale thing or you know we we just get get a bunch of us together and just chat you know ideas and stuff and really that's what the herp trips have been you know you get together and you discuss different ideas and and chat about things but i think i i liked herpeton because all the all the presentations were recorded and put onto youtube that was really pretty cool you know so we have access not not all of them but but a lot of them so i'll go back and re-watch alan's talk on you know a gurney or whatever i really wish he would have more time on that one he kind of got his time stolen and didn't get to see some of the presentations because some

of the talks went over long and they need a you know some kind of electrode or cattle prod to get those people off the stage if they go over you know because i don't want to miss out on you know how justin feels about people hogging time now i i'm on a you know i'm on a committee for the for the one of the virology societies and so i i uh was on the program committee and i know what it means when somebody goes over their time and cuts into somebody else's or cuts into the breaks or the lunch where people get upset so not a cool thing so don't go stay to your time people come on yeah make sure you got to feed your professors or they're gonna get pissed exactly they're not dealing with that late lunch crap yeah so i think they also cut off kind of my riffing at the start because they switched my talk with somebody.

Somebody wasn't there. So they're like, hey, can you go now? I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess so. And then they said, can you talk for longer? Yeah, I'll try. So I was just kind of trying to riff a bit while they got the talk up, but telling some stories about Alan and Jeff. And Jeff and Alan are passionate.aci was pretty fun. But, uh, anyway, um, yeah. Cracking some jokes.

Yep. So I, I, I don't know. I think, uh, this is a, we need more symposia. We need more groups. We need more herp trips, you know, get people together and discuss ideas and get those ideas, test them, get them out there, you know, share them. That's kind of the scene where you get to share ideas and discuss ideas and get those ideas, test them, get them out there, you know, share them. That's kind of the scene where you get to share ideas and discuss different thoughts and how they apply to our captive animals. Nice. Cool.

Well, that's hydration. I think we hit some good topics here. It was fun to chat about that. Any cool stuff you've been listening to or interesting new facts you've heard lately about reptiles that we can discuss? Boy, I feel like I've really let you down in this segment of the show. Is it time for another ad? Yeah, I think we need... it really lets you down in this segment of the show is it time for another ad yeah i think i

think we need cue the mutton sponsor well thank you they're our original sponsor and uh they've just kept this show going fuel chuck's appetite god knows i have welch's fruit juice. All right. Well, I, again, just really enjoyed that, listening to Alan on Project Herb-Tagulture, so I recommend that one. Another one that kind of hit closer to home was on the Herb Highlights podcast, those two English blokes. They do a good show. Their episode titled iguanas with a sweet tooth they talked about. So this professor, Dr. French, Susanna French at Utah state, um, she was the one that taught me how to use the ultrasound. This was one of her papers. She's studying iguanas and, and specifically like the rock iguanas on these

islands where a lot of tourists come through and the tourists will put grapes on sticks and feed it to the iguanas or throw it to them in the sand. So the iguanas are eating a ton of grapes, which are full of sugar and not the natural diet of the iguanas. But of course they love them and they're going to come running for them and they see the tourists as an opportunity to get their sugar fix or whatever. And so she's looking at these iguanas and how this is impacting them and yeah in the lab she's not using rock iguanas unfortunately so i don't get to go see a bunch of rock iguanas over on campus but she has green iguanas as a surrogate model and so they're doing studies looking at you know the high sugar diets and the impact on their systems. And it seems like they're finding very similar things to diabetes.

So they've got these diabetic lizards. Although, interestingly, the reviewers of the papers won't allow them to call it diabetes. There's a lot of pullback on that. And she's like, it's the exact same symptoms. Just be like, it's not diabetes. It's diabetes. Diabetes. Diabetes.

Diabetes. Get old Wilford out there. Oh, my gosh. But, yeah, it was a good listen. You don't want to use the D word. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. You and America both.

You and America both. We need to get Suzanne on here and get her. That'd be cool both uh we need to get suzanne on here and get her i think she'd be willing to come on she'd be a good guest she's pretty energetic and fun she came from dale dinardo's she did her postdoc there or graduate work i think so yeah can't remember what she said either graduate work or postdoc in dinardo's lab so that's kind of cool um what else uh the uh snakes and sound that that paper that was just released that's kind of making the waves through the the reptile world of you know that snakes can maybe hear sounds more than we think um i don't know i i haven't looked at the paper i some i think it was zach uh sack loafman it was uh lucas is never gonna live that

one down never um never oh my god zach said he looked at the paper and he's not quite sure if they proved anything and he's like i don't know that they really showed that but it was in a pretty high profile paper or journal i think so i don't know we'll have to take a look at that so i probably shouldn't bring it up if i haven't read it yet so it didn't impress the sack doesn't impress me i guess not yeah we'll just let sack do all the work that's right uh anyway that's uh i think that's all I had. Anything else? We're calling it an episode? I'm sorry.

I'm not much help today. It's all good. It's all good. I was going to try to give you some clues like snake sound. I think somebody brought that up in the chat. All right. Well, thanks for listening, and we'll be back with you next week to bring you more nonsense from Reptile Fight Club. Now that's some high-quality H2O. Fight Summer. Thank you. Outro Music