How I Take Care of 50+ Exotic Animals

How I take care of 50 exotic animals is incredibly time-consuming, disgusting, uncomfortable, and sometimes even life-threatening. But it's something I wouldn't trade for the world, and today I want to share it with you. So throw in some old tennis shoes and a shirt you don't like, and let's take care of some animals. So very first step in order to taking care of all these exotics is I go through and I clean out everyone's enclosure, I refill all their waters, and once I do all that then I can put all my focus and attention into food prep for each and every single one of the residents here. So let's go ahead and get So this whole area around me right here is dedicated to our quote-unquote small birds. I say small birds, but this is inclusive of everything from cockatiels to amazons to african greys, and essentially everything that isn't are macaws. We have a whole aviary dedicated to just the macaws, but this whole area around me right now is for everyone else. So let's go ahead and get started and you guys are going to meet everyone. So we've got penny and boo in here, there are two cockatiels, and then ewa or senegal up top, and then this aviary also has a bunch of diamond doves and parakeets, which are kind of harder to see. We'll get a better look at them whenever we actually go inside the aviary to feed them. But first step is refilling all their water, so let's do that. So the small birds are all pretty easy to take care of, but now we are moving on to one of the biggest troublemakers, but also one of the birds with the best personality we have here. Let me show you a better view of him. So this is Scooby and he's one of our three different african greys. He's an absolute troublemaker. I only say that for two different reasons. One, he makes a break for the door every time I go to change his water and his food, and number two, he perfectly mimics the sound of a fire alarm noise. So it sounds like there's a fire alarm here at the sanctuary, and I'll be stressing out trying to figure out where the fire is coming from, and he's just looking at me like, ha ha ha ha ha, I got you to come over here for no reason at all, because there's not actually a fire. Anyway, let's go ahead and take care of him. I just keep this hose running down on my feet, that way I don't have to worry about him actually making a break for the door, and I'm also going to pull out everyone's old food as I'm going through here and cleaning out all the enclosures. So this is old rowdy bush pellet, this is all his fresh food, and obviously his water. African greys are classified as one of the smartest birds in the world, and I swear that is both a blessing and a curse sometimes. What is up, Scooby? So inside this aviary, we have some of the sweetest birds. These are three little call ducks. We've got Owalla on the left, Stanley in the middle, and then Yeti is the white one. And there's some of the sweetest birds around, but we also have some of our meanest. This is Baby up here, and Baby is not a big fan of most people, but he has a personal vendetta against me for whatever reason. Luckily, he tolerates me just enough so I'm able to come in here and actually clean out his enclosure, change his food and water without him attacking me, usually. You guys made an absolute mess of your water this morning. So this is our last aviary to take care of in this section. We have one of our bobwhite quail in here, Owalla the sapphire, one of the amazons up top, and this guy is Malachite, another one of the amazons. We're doing slow introductions right now, so you can see there's a wire divider between Malachite, Sapphire, and Baby. And over time, as they get more used to each other, we'll actually end up taking down that divider so they'll be able to share the same space. Malachite, buddy, why you gotta be so rude? Why you gotta be so rude, buddy? You know I'm just trying to take care of you, man. Now we're moving on to taking care of one of my most favorite enclosures to take care of just because of how fun the animals are in here. We have Piper the cootamundi up top, and down here, where did she go? Pippin! Pippin, where are you hiding at, baby? Let's find Pippin. There she is! Pippin, what is up, sweet girl? These guys are absolutely adorable, so fun to interact with, so fun to take care of. Their enclosure is super, super nice and kind of easy to take care of. We just drag the entirety of the hose in there, and we can hose out all the poop at once, and it all either falls through the cracks on the ground, or it goes through the slats that are on the side of the building. But these guys are absolute cuddle bugs and want nothing more than to get as close to you as humanly possible, and hang out with you for as long as humanly possible. But they're absolute sweethearts. Now I do have to put these guys in what I call a raccoon gel whenever I'm taking care of them, because they try to just chew on the hose the whole time I have it in there, so they'll poke holes in it, and water's going every which direction, and it doesn't work anymore. So they gotta go in gel for a few minutes. Pippin, Piper. So I just put a couple milky biscuits in there. Ah, you guys are tired? Let's take a nap. Now they're locked up in there for a few minutes while I hose everything out, and now it's a super easy process. I swear these are some of the cutest animals to watch eat. Is that good food, Pippin? And I'll take this hose, stick it through the bars, that way I can take everything in there and hose it all out at once. Step number one for the sinkhose is just going around and picking up all the poop that they left over from the day before. Now, two water tosses in here. This one is filled with nothing but poop, because that is exclusively where Pippin the raccoon uses the bathroom at. And our other one over here is where they actually drink out of. Now we just gotta throw all these rocks back in. Now we're good to release our baby angels from raccoon gel. Babies, are you ready to come out? Alrighty, girly girls, come on, let's go. Pippin, Pippin, you're taking the hard way out, but that's alright, that works. What are you doing, baby girl? You just hanging out there? Is that your comfy spot for now? Piper is already loving the fresh water. These two are best of friends. It is absolutely adorable seeing them play and interact with each other. Pippin absolutely loves the water, and especially with this hotter weather, she will take her entire body and submerge it inside the water like she's taking a bath. Girly girl, you can't have the camera. Also, oh my gosh, you got some sharp claws, baby. What are you trying to do? Getting my shorts right now? Okay, thank you. I don't have any food for you yet. Not yet, Piper. You too, you crazy baby. So if you don't know, Coatamundis and raccoons are actually part of the same family. They're both members of the Procyonada family, and they're not the only members of the Procyonada family we have here at the sanctuary. We actually have three kinkajous, which are also related to the raccoon and the Coatamundi. Ringtails are the other member of that family, which we don't have any of those, but we've got our hands full with all of these guys. The demonization of raccoons to me is absolutely bizarre, because how could you see this and think bad, evil? These guys are so cute and absolutely adorable. I hate there's this huge misconception that wildlife is, quote unquote, less than, not nearly as valuable or worthwhile as a lot of our domesticated animals, but they each play such a huge role in the ecosystem and how it's able to operate. This girl loves playing with the rocks, and we'll actually release a small crawfish and minnows inside here as a form enrichment for them. Piper, you can't have my tripod, okay? And it's a great form of enrichment because it kind of mimics what they would do in their wild. And like I said, she exclusively uses the bathroom inside this water trough over here. This is her clean water, but raccoons will use the bathroom in a moving body of water in the wild because it takes their scent downstream so that predators can't pinpoint exactly where they're at. Piper, you are just obsessed with me. And these guys actually have a nose that can move independently, and they'll use that for foraging for different grubs and worms and insects in the wild. What she does to me, though, is she will take her entire nose and put it up my entire nose, or she will put it inside my ear, or right now, like she's doing with my shoes, all just in hopes that she might find something tasty inside there. Baby girl, I can promise you there are no treats inside these old, old tennis shoes. But now that these guys are taken care of for the time being, it is time to move on to our other members of the procyonade family. So let's go take care of the kinkajous. Ta-da! This is our kinkajou closure, and then over there on the left, we have our fox-sprung closure. But let's go check these guys out and see how they're doing this morning. Now, these guys are nocturnal, so they are passed out asleep right now, and you can see the absolute mess they've made of their cage overnight. First thing I always do is pick up all the leftover fruits, hose out their poop, and obviously do checks on these amazing, amazing creatures. So inside here, we have Mr. Zabu. He's actually the very first kinkajou that we ever got, and he was also one of the very first quote-unquote exotic animals that we took in at the sanctuary, outside of the birch. So he definitely has a special, special place inside our hearts. Isn't that right, Zabu? He's also by far the chunkiest one that we have, and you can see that little tongue flicker that he just did. They actually have a six-inch long tongue. They will stick inside beehives to harvest all the honey from. Oh my gosh, Zabu, you're showing off for us! And they have a super, super thick coat that keeps them protected from any potential bee stings. You might be wondering what this mat is inside here. This is actually a heating mat. It's designed for tortoises, but we use it for these guys so we can actually house them outside year-round. And up top, this is just like an ambient air heater, and it just ensures they have a nice, really warm spot to go to, even when it gets semi-cold outside. All right, but let's check on the other two. These two are absolutely adorable. These are two girls. So we've got Belize up front, and that girl in the back is Cleo. Cleo was really, really aggressive whenever we first got her, but she's getting much more social and kind of easygoing. So I'm at the point now where I can actually hold all these guys for vet work, and we don't have to sedate them in any form or fashion. That's a really calm, peaceful experience for everyone. If you had told me five years ago that I would be spending my Friday morning eating freak snacks with a kinkajou, I would have called you absolutely crazy. But here I am doing just that. Now I've got to go through and pick up all the leftover fruit that these guys spilled from the night before. You can hose out all their poop, but some of the bigger fruit peels stay stuck in between the wire, and they're really hard to hose out. So I just go through and pick all those up. So now I've got my hose here, and I can just walk up to the wire and hose out all their nasty poop from the night before. All right, kinkajous are officially done, and it's getting a little toasty out here. But we're almost done with cleaning, and then we just got to go through and do all the feeding. So yeah, we're actually nowhere close to even being totally done. So yeah, let's get to it. This is our enclosure for Rocky the fox squirrel, and what we do for her is we obviously hose out her water, and I just do that through the wire because she is incredibly aggressive. And then I put my hose on the misting function, and just goes through and mists the entirety of the enclosure. It's a good way to kind of cool everything down on these really hot summer days. Look at that gorgeous, gorgeous girl. Oh, she's trying to kill me. Next up, we have our macaw aviary, where we have six different macaws. Four blue and golds, one military, and then one scarlet. So let's go ahead and take care of them, because they're screaming really, really loud, and they're one of the loudest animals we have, and they're not very patient animals. So those two on the ground over there in the corner are absolute troublemakers. That was Nico and Rico. They're absolutely psycho, and I actually have to keep the hose turned on while I'm in here, because those two will try to run for my shoes and bite through my shoes. They're an absolute handful. We've got Sage, Fuego, Celeste, Joplin, and like I said, that's Nico and Rico. Unfortunately, my camera stopped recording halfway through, so I didn't get cleaning the macaws enclosure on video. I essentially just picked up any old food they threw out on the ground, changed their waters, hosed their pond, and took their food bowls out. And we made it out without these guys attacking us, so that's a W. Now we just got to take out the food bowls for our cockatoos over here, and then we're done for the whole cleanup part of the video. All right, it's time for food prep. I'm not going to go over the complexity of each and every single one of these animals and their diets, because that's a whole other video. We'd be here for like an hour, and that's a lot of talking that I'm not trying to do today. But we're going to go to make all the animals food, take all the food out there, feed everyone, do health checks, and make sure everyone is good to go for the day. So let's get started. I normally prep everyone's food at once and take it all out at once, but we just bring the six macaws in together. So I'm trying to minimize the amount of time that they're without food, because less than in one is any competition or squabbles over, oh my gosh, I don't have any food left in my enclosure. Do you have my food? Do you have my food? And then they try to fight. That just wouldn't be good. So we want to make sure they have food essentially 24-7. So I'm going to prep theirs first, take theirs out first, and then we'll go to do everyone else. Let's go feed the macaws. I wasn't able to get a shot of me putting the bowls in because my hands were full, and I couldn't record in the other hand without dropping everyone's food. But this right here is one of my most favorite parts of the day. Six macaws eating all at the exact same time. We've got Sage, Celeste, Fuego, Miss Joplin way over there. Rika's over there eating, and Mika's not eating right now. He's being stank because I'm in here, and he really doesn't like me. So he won't eat until I leave. And now Rika's coming down. She's like, we'll tag team. We can bully him out of here. Guys, I take care of you. That is my job, okay? Rika, I know you're mean too. I need you guys to keep to yourself, okay? Yep, I know. That's what I said. That's what I said. Yep. Absolutely love seeing all these guys eating together and getting along absolutely wonderfully. What's up, Miss Joplin? How are we doing, baby? What's up, girly girl? You enjoying a nice... What is that? Is that an almond? Does that taste good, baby? I know it. I'm absolutely in love with the look of military macaws. And finally, we've got Fuego and Celeste over here. This is the girlfriend-boyfriend duo. They've bonded to each other extremely well, which is great because I have a companion with them 24-7 just like they would in the wild. Apologies for interrupting your cute animal content, but I hope you'll forgive me once you hear that you can actually meet and stay with the very same cute animals that you're watching right now. That's right. You can stay at our Airbnb on the farm in Animal Sanctuary. Not only will you be provided with luxury amenities like a hot tub, fancy schmancy coffee, a bidet if you're feeling brave, and remote control everything, but you'll also get a hangout with the 150-plus animals that call Goat Daddy's home, including Abu the Camel, Norris the Cow, Piper the Quattamundi, the crazy macaws, obviously the goats, and every single animal in between. Check the description to book your stay today. Now back to the video. I started out feeding Yondu, Lotus, and Furi, our umbrella, Milwaukeen, and Goffin's cockatoo. Whenever I'm feeding, I always give the food, then wait a few seconds to watch and make sure each animal is eating before I walk away. Often, an early sign of something being wrong with an animal is a lack of excitement for their food. Next, I fed Paco and Jasmine, two of our other African greys who have really bad plucking issues from where they didn't have proper housing or enrichment early on in life. Next, I made a pit stop at a redfoot tortoise enclosure and gave them some bananas, one of their favorite treats of summer. Then I fed Scooby, then Baby, then Malachite and Sapphire. One of my favorites to feed is our small bird aviary because Penny and Boo, our two cockatiels, are the sweetest birds on the face of the planet. Good girl, you did so amazing. Yes you did, pretty girl. What you doing, baby? You want to come over here too? This girl is an absolute sweetheart. Why don't you give me a little kisses? You want a little kisses? All right, you buy my love a little bit whenever you do that. I'm not going to do this much. All right, I appreciate it, sweet girl. All right, you want to go eat some food? All right, let me set you down. In no animal shows as much excitement for feeding time as Pippin and Piper, who both devour their food as soon as I give it to them. Rocky the fox girl is a bit tricky because I have to distract her first and feed her an acorn or an almond through the wire to keep her entertained while I quickly open and close the door, replacing her food. Finally, I put the kinkajous food inside their enclosure and gave them their favorite treat, which also helps socialize them whenever we first got them, Welch's fruit snacks. Kinkajous primarily eat fresh fruit in the wild so they can process sugar a whole lot better than most other animals. So in moderation, small amounts of sweet treats like this are a fantastic way to enrich the diet of your kinkajous. Thanks so much for watching, and we'll- Jonas, you didn't even take care of all the animals inside. What? I did all the small animals and the reptiles. Did you record? Duh. Well, with that being said, keep an eye out for our next video where Jason will show you how he takes care of 20 more exotic animals. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a comment if you enjoyed this video. We'll see you in the next one.