INSIDE America s Largest Wildlife Airbnb Giraffes Lemurs Sloths More

Let me take you somewhere most people only dream of. Look at the size of that tongue. Where the wild isn't behind glass. It's right in front of you. Whoa, it's freezing cold. We're talking 40 degrees, so we've got to stay warm. Raw, personal, and real. They got Diddy. Welcome to Oak Meadow Ranch. This is incredible, guys. This is a giraffe in our Airbnb. I've never experienced something like this in my life. We have Puzzles here and Jigsaw right behind him. It's breakfast time, so we're going to go ahead and feed him some lettuce. Puzzles, here he is. Wow, look at the size of that tongue. That is incredible. If I don't feed him, he knocks. He just flicks it with his tongue. This is amazing. I've never even touched a giraffe. And for the first time ever, I'm interacting with this gentle giant. I mean, I've been to the Bronx Zoo, but this is Oak Meadow Ranch. It's a totally different level. Just to wake up, open the curtains, and have a giraffe staring at you. It's like no other. And he lets me pet him on the nose a little bit there. How lucky am I? Guys, I'm no expert in these types of animals, but we're going to lean on the team to learn as much as we can today. I'm going to take you on a journey like never seen before. We're going to get a private tour of the entire ranch, meeting all of their ambassador animals. Instead of talking, we're learning. It's 40 degrees. I'm going to jump in some water with some otters. May even jump in the water with a water buffalo. I'm going to freeze my butt off. Lemurs are going to burst through that door in T-minus 30 minutes. We're getting the full Texas experience. See you there. Wow. Louie. Amazing. Wow. Do they have a favorite fruit? Is it primarily... Depends on the day. Yeah, depends on the day. Wow. There you go, buddy. Whoa. All wild lemurs live in one place on earth. Madagascar. Nowhere else. These are the most agile and athletic creatures I've ever come across. Look at them. They're absolutely beautiful. They feel like a very thick sheep. And many species are endangered because Madagascar's forests are disappearing at an alarming rate. But let's do all we can to protect them. Now, the lemurs came to us. But now we're heading into their territory. Let's go for a ride. Is this called the wild zone? The wild side. We're on the wild side. This is the lemur tower. So they have this entire area to roam and play. Then they can actually climb upwards and play on that hammock and the other enrichment activities out there. Wow, it's wild in there. I'm dressed like a ring-tailed lemur today. I've got my black and white. Whoa. This is so cool. Yeah, we're covered in lemurs in here. This is amazing. I'm feeling warmer already. Wow, we've got a lemur party here. This is Louie that was in your room. Right. He's actually a black and white rough lemur. So when you take a black and white rough lemur and a red and black rough lemur, you get William here, who is a tricolor lemur. See the little patches of red? Interesting. If you take two of him as parents, you get a second generation tricolor rough, which is Lady Guinevere. And Lady Guinevere is actually the only female in this habitat, which means once she reaches sexual maturity, she will actually grow this one. So how do they communicate? Is it mostly just like loud sounds and body language? So see right now how she's kind of getting onto them? She's letting them know she's the boss. I'm first, I'm in charge. Yeah, wow. She stands her ground really well. William goes first. Hey guys. This is Luna Love. She's my favorite girl. Luna Love. Wow. Fella tricks. Next is Ginny. She's her sister. And this is the Harry Potter clan, right? Amazing. All right, guys, the otters jumped in the water. So we're going to jump in with them. It's freezing cold. We're talking 40 degrees. So we've got to stay warm. We're going to get 30 push-ups in, get the body warm, get things rolling before we jump in the water. They feel like fish. Wow, they really do try to get everywhere. Oh, he's actually in my pants, I think. These are sensations that I'm not comfortable with. Well, we did it. We swam with the otter. A lot of sensations. Paws going places I never thought I'd feel. And we're off to the next adventure, guys. Hey, buddy. Now, this is my favorite animal here on the ranch. I connected with these camels so deeply. I don't think there's another animal that I connected with more. These are the one-humped dromedaries here. They're only found in captivity, naturally. Wow. So if we didn't have them in captivity, we most likely wouldn't have them at all. And they're from, like, the deserts of Africa? Yeah, and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia. And the Middle East. In the wild, the camels would typically use their hump. Like, through a drought, they would use those fat resources. But in captivity, does it create, like, a stagnation? Not necessarily. OK. Once their hump is fully nourished, they start getting overweight. And are they pretty fast? They're not as fast as a horse. But they're relatively fast. And these are two boys? Two boys. They're a couple of weeks apart. Hey, Sal. Whoa. Al, why are you doing that? Leave him alone. You see his floppy lips? And it's just, they do that out of, like... He's, like, trying to play with him right now. Oh, I see. Wow. He's getting irritated with him. Yeah. Al, the white one, is, like, obsessed with Sal and being near him. Yeah. And if we take him and walk separately, then Al, like, screams. I guess to ride a camel, it needs to have, like, a harness of some kind. They have a saddle. They are hopefully going to start doing rides with me next year. Wow. OK. So we're working on that with our kangaroo stuff. Nice. That is awesome. I like camels now. I've never met one up close. But they're very interesting, weird animals, right? Wow, look at this guy. We have a highland cow here. Wow. She's huge. We're going to check out the water buffalo. It sounds like she weighs half a ton. We're going in, guys. Thank you. Just hop right on? OK. Wow. I think I'm good. Wow, that was cool. Nice. Thank you so much. Now we're going to check out the big cats, guys. Wow. Feels like a typical house cat. Looks like a statue at some points. He's just, uh... So here's some two amazing cats here. We have a serval and an African caracal, two incredibly athletic wild cats from Africa. There are some really majestic cats here. Servals are built for speed and precision. They can sprint as fast as 50 miles per hour in short bursts. They also have extremely large ears designed to detect even the smallest of movements in grass. Caracals are extremely powerful, agile, and surprisingly very vocal. Their long black ear tufts are believed to help with communication and also camouflage. Now in captivity, enrichment is everything. Here you can see in the enclosure they have scented hay in a box. And as simple as it looks, the cats loved it. It allowed them to forage and really tear and dig and do things that they would naturally do in the wild. New ones in a cup. I used to feed these to my reptiles. These are for the monkeys. Diddy Kong. Here comes Diddy. Wow. Hey Diddy. Look. Wow. He is phenomenal. And he's essentially full size. Wow. Almost the size of my hand here. He has a beautiful hairdo. I don't know if that's a mullet or what. Nice. Okay, that's good. Wow. Such an amazing place just getting to interact with these different animals. Animals that I've only seen on National Geographic. You get to put a face to a name. Know what you're saving. Know what you're fighting for. We want these animals to survive and thrive in the wild. And these examples give us a little bit more encouragement to fight for them. Now it's time to say goodbye to Diddy Kong. But he has other plans. He's calculating. Wow, he's so smart. Wow. Imagine I had that athletics in me. Like no one could catch me. What does he truly want in this case? Oh, okay. What if we all go in that room? Would he follow us? Oh, wow. Since I heard Diddy, I knew something was up with this guy. There we go. Nice Diddy. They got Diddy. Common marmosets. Whoa. They're like twice as fast. I'm feeling the claws a little prickly. I guess they use that for climbing. They're really light. Much lighter than I anticipated. I'm getting a quick cut here. Wow. They do have some cute faces. Interesting thing about these animals is they live up to 15 years old. Interesting enough, they share 93% of the same DNA as humans. I bet. They do have an interesting smell as well, right? Yeah. Yeah, he was so cool. Don't try this at home. We've got monkeys jumping all around the place. Great to experience, but not to take to the house. So what exactly is this one? This is a red kangaroo. Red kangaroo. Wow. When you pet them, it's like you can kind of see a glimpse of that red fur. Wow, this is so cool. Do they kick? Do the males can lean back out? What is their normal diet like? Are they mainly just eating vegetation? Yeah, so in the wild, they're grazers. They'll eat a lot of sand too and dirt because it helps level out their pH levels in their stomachs. Wow, okay. So they're just hanging out, nice and toasty. I love how they grab things with their claws. Oh, he's leaving. Wow. Hey, Puzzles. Happy birthday, buddy. We've seen Puzzles in our room. Now we're inside of his indoor enclosure because it's a little bit too cold for him to be in the outdoor enclosure. Let's go check him out. Wow. Hey, Puzzles. There you go, buddy. Got another cracker for you. That tongue is so powerful. Why don't you give him a kiss too? You can put it in your mouth and he'll take it from your mouth. Drury likes to do that. Okay. I did it, right? That counts. And he's 20. That's crazy. So with Jigsaw, I know he's not too familiar with eating through the doors. So he can't reach the top ones, but he eats consistently. Oh, he does. Okay. I was trying to hang my arm out there for him, but I guess it's just too short. Three inches a month. That's crazy. Does anyone ever try to ride a giraffe? I'm sure someone's tried. It's just a sloped back, right? He is so cool. One thing to note, this is just their indoor enclosure. They actually have a large outdoor enclosure, but they can't get out there right now because it's below 40 degrees. And believe it or not, giraffes can get hypothermia. It's the muscle. Dude feels like all muscle. At eye level with a giraffe. I never thought I'd be able to do that. This is Jigsaw. One year old giraffe. Such a sweet little guy. Well, he's not little. He's much larger than me. But this is such an experience. Let's check the whole thing. African gray journal. You know, I feel like a king here. Phenic fox in my hand. I heard him howling a little bit this morning. Yeah, I'm screaming. Yeah. What is that about? So the song, what's the fox say? It's pretty accurate. And I'm guessing the large ears are like, so they can hear like insects in the ground or something. You can hear about a mile and a half away. Wow. Okay. He seems to be really enjoying this right now. I'm sure if I let him go, he'll show us all that he can do. If we did let him go, he'll just try to jump on everything. Okay. Got it. He's playing calm. I like this guy. So many different experiences. Just when you think you've seen it all here, it's just, it never ends. I call it the greatest place on earth. These are experiences that you can't, you just can't find everywhere. Guys, I'm here with Sir Winston. He's a two-toed Linnaeus sloth. He's teaching me so much. He's just about as old as I am. He's 21 years old, if I'm not mistaken there. I'm 31. So we're fairly close in age. He's done 38,000 hugs. I never thought I'd do something like this in my entire life. But here we go, guys. Is it true that they poop once a week? That's insane. Wow. Check out those claws. Wolverine has nothing on him. The fur feels pretty rough, almost like wool. These guys have entire ecosystems within their fur. Algae actually grows on their fur, giving them the ability to camouflage even better with the forest. In the wild, they eat leaves, fruits, veggies, and even have been seen eating lizards. I don't even know how they catch them being that slow. They're naturally very still creatures. But if they have to get away, they have a defense mechanism where they just allow themselves to fall from the treetops down to the floor. They're able to withstand the impact because of the way that God has designed their bodies. How much does he weigh, like 30 pounds? So he's about 22 pounds on average. Wow. It feels like a toddler almost. They can stay underwater for almost 40 minutes by resting their heart rate and metabolism. A three-toed sloth will float on top of water and rotate its head 180 degrees. Wow. So they have quite a few tricks up their sleeve just to get by if things go south. Remarkable creatures here. This is an amazing experience, guys. This is a blast. We're having such an amazing time. We're interacting with so many different animals. We're learning about their care, their behavior, and why they should be saved in the wild. Because what Oak Meadow Ranch is doing is purely conservation, and they're educating the public on what we need to know to save these beautiful animals. Whoa. And it's pronounced coat-a-mundi, right? It's a coat-a-mundi, coat-a-wadi, or coat-a-mundi. We call them our baby coaties. Here we go. This is Marilyn. This is Monroe. That nose is like a little finger. Like made to dig through things, right? Helps them kind of sift through everything. They're so careful not to bite your fingers. They just, yeah. They are streaky in here. But maybe you've seen her scale that wall before. Yeah. Whoa, look at the tongue. Minnie and Mickey. So we've got two capybaras here. Are they primarily vegetarians? Yeah. Nice. Okay. Oh, they're much rougher. It's like a harder wire reefer. That's pretty cool. They love the kale, it seems. Guys, as you can see, Oak Meadow Ranch is one of the most amazing wildlife facilities in the country with a goal of conservation. Saving these amazing animals that are threatened in the wild by making ambassador animals in captivity and allowing people to get to know these animals, get hands-on experience, and really know what they're saving to ignite passion, curiosity, and determination to make sure that these animals have a place in the wild for as long as they can. Now, if you'd like to check out Oak Meadow Ranch, they're in Lakeview, Texas, one hour outside of Dallas. And guys, it is an experience like you've never seen before. Take the time, book the trip, and let me know what you think. This is a time where you can click the subscribe button and follow the African Grey Journal so we can continue supporting wildlife and educating people around the world about what it will take to make sure these animals always have a place in the wild. Signing off here. This is the African Grey Journal. I'll see you all later.