Billy Rice: Building a Reptile Powerhouse — Business, Expansion & Real Talk

I got when I get my microphone right before I, uh, kick off the cold open. I got Billy Rice on the show tonight. Stick around. If, uh, things go well, this should be a master class in business. And, uh, all joking aside, I always learn a lot from Billy. I'm looking forward to having him back on the show. It's been about a year and a half. Let's get right back to it.

[music] >> [music] [music] >> Man, check. Check. Hello. I was just laughing because I went to start my cold open and my microphone wasn't in front of me. And then somehow when the show started, it's never muted when I, when I click live. Man, [sighs] do you guys remember your first day at your jobs, too? Yeah. Um, thank you for being here. I got Billy Rice on the show tonight. U, it's only going to get better from here. That's the good news of everything. Thank you all for for being here. Um, we're, uh, I'm still experimenting with this new kind of layout thing. There's actually two streams going, which is kind of fun. Uh, there's the classic portrait, uh, no, classic landscape version on YouTube, uh, going horizontal, which is why I keep doing this. Uh, but also, um, Streamyard now streams to vertical presentation on YouTube as well, and on a sample size of two, a little, uh, little hack has been that viewership and viewership has been way up, probably 50 to 60% increase in viewership with the vertical presentation. Um, and interestingly enough, engagement has stayed pretty high. Not quite as high as the landscape, but pretty, pretty high. So, um, people want to be reached on these things, and if you can reach them vertically, um, seems to go pretty far. So, anyhow, thanks everybody for being here. Uh, got Billy Rice on the show tonight from Rice Family Reptiles. I think that, um, if you're in the world of ball pythons, you probably are aware of Billy. If not, then I'm excited to introduce you to him tonight. Um, from the outside, I don't know. We'll dig in a little bit and and learn. U, maybe there's, there's always something below the surface, you know, but, um, on the surface, uh, Billy certainly seems very successful. Um, he can tell a little bit about his own story, but there is a partnership with Justin Kabiloka from Kenova. And on top of that, there's a cool, cool family business and genuinely good people. Um, I count it as a blessing when I get to hang out with, uh, any of the Rice family in person, and and we've gotten to a few times over the years now, uh, in, in our respective journeys, and and when we get to vend, um, some of the national shows and when we get to hang out here. So, I've been really looking forward to having Billy back. He's going to be on in just, just one moment. I really don't have, um, too much in the way of announcements. I've got, uh, my last show in person, my last expo in person of the year will be December 21st at the, uh, Snake Discovery Show here in Hastings, Minnesota. Uh, well, I say here, Hastings is a suburb of Minneapolis. So, here in Minnesota, in Hastings, I will be at that show in person. If you are, uh, local or regional and you're concerned about, uh, shipping issues coming up with the weather changing, we did get our first, uh, snow, I think this morning from what I saw. I mean, I saw snow this morning, but I think that was the first here in Minnesota. Anyway, uh, I'll be pivoting to sort of a local, uh, regional business focus because shipping does get difficult. This thing keeps, I don't know what's going on with my equipment. Everything was fine, uh, this evening, and then, and then the show started. Look at it. It's just falling down. All right, we're going to fix this. Hang on. Let's do this this way. And then it doesn't have anywhere to fall, and I'll just fix the sound. There we go. Um, anyhow, what I'm saying is, uh, if you are interested in, uh, purchasing anything, check it out. Do it soon. properroyals.com. I actually have quite a lot of hatchlings. That website will get updated this week. And then, of course, with, uh, Thanksgiving, uh, week shipping kind of ship, uh, shuts down. So next week I will be able to ship out. It'll be warm enough. I'll be, uh, able to receive shipping as well. I doubt I'll buy anything, but who knows? Uh, but I will be going to FedEx over the next week. So if there's anything you see, I would be grateful for you to check it out. Otherwise, I'll be looking local. And then if there are things nationwide that you would normally need to ship, uh, rent is free. I don't charge rent for purchased animals, and I'll get it out to you when it's safe. So, I really don't think I'll ship between, uh, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Uh, maybe, I don't know, maybe there'll be a little window. I'll keep an eye on what Red Line says, but, uh, after Christmas, um, in January, usually once a month, we get a little bit of enough of a thaw or warm up in the daytime where I can get animals out safely, and I'll get them out to you. Okay. So, anyhow, that's coming up. That's what comes with, uh, Minnesota Winter. Um, coming to you adree tonight uninterrupted. 40 of you hanging out. How cool was that? Thank you. Uh, adree by the good people at Palm Street. I've been doing this live every Tuesday, just live from the shop, like doing, uh, cleaning, talking about the snakes that I'm cleaning. If I end up pulling a snake that is for sale, showing that snake off a little bit. If somebody sees something in my shop that they're interested in and want to know more about, I can pull it out and show them. And, uh, anyhow, come hang out if you want to see what Palm Street's about. Download the app and, uh, check in on Tuesdays on, uh, Proper Royals at, uh, Palm Street. So, it's been a pretty fun thing. And I know some of the narrative. Uh, I've been selling stuff at retail. Yeah, not too bad. The auctions are cool, but we all like retail as well. So, uh, maybe we'll touch base on that a little bit too. You could catch Billy Rice on, uh, Palm Street with his family as well. So, we'll get into that. Thanks for hanging out tonight. Uh, if you've, um, not been here before, I hope you and you enjoy the show. I hope that you consider liking and subscribing. Do the show every Tuesday night with a focus on, uh, business and the ball python and reptile industries, and try and be as transparent as possible. So, there you go. Hope to see you soon.

Um, I can't remember exactly when I met or first crossed paths with Billy. I know that you did my show, uh, about a year and a half ago. Um, and it, in one way, it seems longer than that, but in other ways, it seems like we've worked together more often, but I think it's just that we've seen each other and hung out a little bit at shows around the country. I've gotten to know his wife Don, uh, at Tinley. Billy and I didn't actually connect, but I saw Don probably three or four times and hung out a little bit, and, uh, his family has a, uh, Channing, I believe is their name, has a great, uh, blossoming business as well. So, lots to get into tonight. Enough of me rambling. Please welcome back to the Proper Royal stage at, at least the second time. I know once on this show, once, uh, in, uh, in Schaumburg at the Redline booth, so maybe the third time or however you count the stages. Anyway, enough of that. Uh, please welcome Billy Rice from Rice Family Reptiles. Billy, good to see you, sir.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> Um, it's always a pleasure. You're always welcome. And, uh, thanks for being here. Sorry to, uh, Is there anything more awkward than talking about the guests while they're listening to you in the green room before they come on? Like, it's [laughter]

>> Well, I was just going to say, I, I know you had a a mute problem there at the start, so you may just want to mute me a little bit.

>> No. No. Well, no, I wouldn't do that. I, I, I'll take the mutes for the evening for all of this. [laughter] I don't know what it is. I, uh, I've been using StreamYard actually from the start of doing this show, to tell you the truth. I have never once had to hit unmute after the intro plays. Like the music stops and then I go, and I was like, I was laughing at myself because I screwed up the, the intro before the intro, and then the mute was on. Anyway, um, I think that, uh, I think we can all empathize that, uh, stuff happens and you got to go on, especially when it's live, right?

>> That's right.

>> Uh, so, um, hey, thanks for being here. I don't, I like to keep, or I'm okay with keeping, uh, certain conversations private. I know you've had a, uh, a bit going on to say the least, and I appreciate you making time tonight. You are, uh, actually extremely generous with your time. You do a lot of podcasts. You do a lot of, uh, YouTube videos as well, and you have a whole lot going on. I don't think you've gotten any less busy than we talked a year and a half ago. I mean, you're

>> way more.

>> Yeah, that, that, that's what I thought. There's been a, um, pretty big, um, recent expansion with the Kittinger acquisitions, but I also catch wind and hear conversations of, uh, you know, there, there's the rodent production behind the scenes, and you seem to go a mile a minute, Billy. Is that, um, is that, is that true? How does that all work together for you?

>> Absolutely. So, so one of the things that we wanted to do here from the start is always have our own rodent, um, rodent supply because we're so rural, we have no choice on that. So, we absolutely, we would drive hours to get rodents here. So, um, we, it's, it's absolutely necessary, uh, for us to have that. And we, we early on in that, we did without rodents a little bit, like ran out of supply as we were growing. And, uh, it was just from hatching so many babies at one time. And, uh, it wasn't much because we didn't have but like four racks of, uh, and I say racks, it wasn't like four tubs per rack. It wasn't like the big Freedom Breeder racks that we have now.

>> So it was, uh, like four, four just regular, uh, homemade racks with seven tubs each. And we ran out of rodents, and, uh, I said from then on, you know, we're not, we're not going to be doing that here where we live. Like, we're going to always have enough. So that just added to way overproduction, and then of course selling. And we ended up becoming a food dealer for our, um, the, the brand of food that we carry for our rodents. And then we also, um, we also, uh, sell our rodents that we ever produce.

>> Um, can you talk a little bit about being a distributor or a, uh, a seller of the, of the rodent food?

>> Yeah, we just did that because one, we wanted to lower our cost,

>> right?

>> And then our local, our local, uh, food company dropped the line that, uh, that we were using. So, um, we ended up being able to, uh, just reach out to them directly and become the dealer in this area for it. And, uh, so we, we decided to do that right off the bat, and it dropped us like $4 per bag. So that was a big deal, you know. So now we're able to save, you know, save people money, like our customers that buy from us and that are close enough that they can pick up and things like that. Um, we, we really, uh, cut their cost on rodent food.

>> Is that, is that a model that you like? Like, I think about it where, like, again, I mean, my, everybody knows my background comes from from restaurants and music. Like, if I have trouble sourcing beef, that's the equivalent of just saying, "Hey, there's a local farmer there. Why don't we either partner with or buy a portion of that business?" Uh, is that a model that you like, or is it just 100% out of necessity? And is it something you would prefer not to do if you didn't have to do it, so to speak? And we haven't named the company, so we're not throwing anybody under the bus either at the moment. We can, we, I mean, what I'm saying is, I feel like you can answer freely if you like. I don't know.

>> No. Uh, yeah, I, it isn't that we, we really, we really, uh, view, uh, the rodent thing as a way to cut cost. So like by selling them, we're able to produce our snakes at a lot lower cost per animal. And, and, uh, we're even expanding on that a little bit to make it even in even less cost than it is now. So, um, we're, uh, I really like the way that, um, the way that we have it structured because I view it kind of like a, kind of like a sawmill. You know, I'm, I'm in the timber industry. So,

>> that's right. Yes, sir.

>> So, I view it like a sawmill. So, your sawmill, uh, sells the bark off the trees. It sells the actual chips where you saw the lumber up, but then it sells the lumber. But the only thing they're known for really by, uh, the public is selling lumber all the time. So, but the chips and the, and the bark that they sell, that covers their, a lot of their costs, and they're, that's their byproduct. So, uh, they're actually making money off their byproducts, and a lot of the mills even use the byproducts as energy. So, that's the way I view all of this is, uh, this is one of the few, few industries where you can do something and be the beginning, the, be the actual beginning of it without a middleman, and, and be the actual end supplier of it. So, it's, it's very little businesses you can start out there where, where you can be the entire, uh, food chain there to where you're getting most, both, most, both the beginning of it and the end results of it. You know, very few

>> you just have to juggle all those balls though, which is starts to become

>> you got to be willing to do that.

>> Yeah. And starts to become, um, a jack of all trades sort of, so to speak. There's a lot of skill sets that you have to learn along the way. And I, um, I'm starting to empathize with that a little bit. And that's actually going to get a little bit at what we talk about. I was smirking when you said that about, uh, selling the bark, selling the chips, uh, selling the, the final wood product. I just, I just was in a business conversation this weekend with somebody, and, um, what you described is exactly the baked potato model, or the potato model I call it from my Ruby Tuesday days. We would bake potatoes that would be sides on an entree, and we, a full baked potato takes an hour. So we would do it on a 30-minute rotation, and there were two drawers. So the first potato goes in the top drawer. After 30 minutes, those get moved to the second drawer. Fresh ones come in. Uh, if the bottom ones don't sell in another half hour, then they go into the walk-in cooler, uh, where they cool down. And then the pulp is turned into the, uh, potato salad on the salad bar, and the skins are turned into the potato skin appetizer, and those go in the freezer, and we get to them when we get to them to use them because they're preserved in the freezer. And when you said that about the timber, I was like, "This is the same. These are like basic, uh, fundamentals, and when you find those types of products, you, you leverage every penny you can get from those products." I mean, is that, is that kind of what you're saying on the, whether it be the rodents into the snakes, or even the food that goes into the rodents into the snakes?

>> Absolutely. That's exactly what we're doing. And so every bit that we sell, any profits we make, and a lot of times we're only trying to make like a $2 a bag off our customers. So we're trying to cut their cost, which from what we've seen is as much as six and $7 a bag from what they're paying. And, uh, you know, the more they buy, the more discount they get. And, um, so not only are we cutting costs for our customers, but we're making profits there, which feed our, feed our, a few more of our animals, uh, rats anyways, for free, which gives us more lower cost animals for that. But we're also just way overproducing. So we're selling a lot of rodents, and it's good profit margins on the rodents. So, um, it's not anything that I want to do at a really just monstrous level, but, um, like I said, you know, deferring cost of the business, um, and, uh, being, being both the beginning of the end of the food chain to where we, we actually control every single bit of it. We're, we're, we're controlling, uh, exactly what's going into our rodents, which is going into our snakes, and then also the, you know, we're controlling the fact that, uh, we can have as many projects as we want without it, uh, costing us too much money.

>> Um, something that, uh, a thought that's been in my head, I was going to say lately, but, but really since the very, very beginning, and it, it, it's how it started. So you have a logging business, and you're still, that's still, is that the core? Is that still the core of the house around you? What funds your family? What makes sure that the, the dreams live and, and, and go forward, and there's college or car payments or what? I mean, all of that stuff, is that from the logging industry still for you?

>> Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely.

>> Okay. So for me, it's my restaurant consulting. That's still, I got out of restaurant operations. I couldn't do that anymore, and I couldn't be the father and husband and dad and family man and, and the dreams that I want to have doing the operations. But the consulting pays really well, but then it funds a little bit of the, of, of this snake world. And then I, then I kind of started looking at it like you're talking about, of what's either a my highest costs, or b my, uh, highest profitability. How do I chop down the costs, and how do I ramp up the profitability? And it was rodents. I was paying a fortune for them. Not because they're priced unfairly, but because as I grew and grew snakes, you got to buy more and more rodents. And feeding day is always right around the corner. So, um, and then you mentioned that the rodents have a pretty high margin, and that's sort of baked into it. And then when you can start bringing the cost of the rodents down, your margins get higher and higher. Um, with all that being said, here, here's the question of the whole episode. Like, what, what, what is, like, I was like, this is what I got to talk to Billy about. All those are like layers of an onion. Do you see a path, if somebody from a business standpoint, not a hobby standpoint, from a purely business standpoint, do you have to do that with ball pythons? Does there have to be layers? And what would you say, side hustles to the, the hustle kind of deal for it to work?

>> No, absolutely not. You can, we could already been full-time or full-time with just this if we, we have more overhead because we've been growing the quality of our animals so much. So, um, we could have already profited, uh, really well with this, but we've been buying tons of our own animals, or tons of animals from other people, like selling everything we have and then holding back. Now, now we're actually starting to fill holdback racks with just our animals, and that's starting to, uh, lower the amount that we need to purchase. And we could have done this a long time ago because, I mean, five years ago, six years ago, we were, we were clearing, you know, a good amount of money per year. But what we were doing, we're reinvesting every single dime of it. So. Right.

>> Um, we could have, we could have really already lived very well and put away a lot of money. But we just, we, we want to do this on an elite level, the same way we've done the timber industry and other things that we've been into, and, and, uh, one, just because of the excitement of it. I mean, I absolutely [laughter] passionate about it, and I love it. So, I, I just, with the rodents and everything, I didn't want cost or anything like that, or the, the, the being it being necessary for you to have to sell an animal that you don't want to sell just to fund things. I, I, I want to sell things I want to sell and never have to sell something just because I have plenty of infrastructure. We, we, we baked all that into everything that we're doing so we can hold on to animals and sell when we're ready to sell at prices we want to sell for. That being said, it is a business that we're trying to make money, and we've got a sale going on right now. We just launched our, our, uh, um, kind of like our Black Friday sale that we do every, every year. We launched that Black Friday sale. So, we have a pile of animals on sale right now that just went on this evening to, uh, to Morph Market. But, um, it's, it's not because we do that this time every, every single year. It's, it's, uh, the sales have been sporadic this year, but we, all we've, we've also this year had the best month we've ever had since we've been in business. So, it's, it's been really good.

>> That's funny because you said that same very line. I was, I, I have the transcript right here from the last episode. You said that same line. This is good. You got to come on the show more often. I can just take a little, a little cut, you know, and we'll, we'll [laughter] make

>> you be my agent.

>> Right. Yeah. No, I mean it. Uh, congratulatory, of course. Um,

>> thank you.

>> But okay, to my question and then to your answer, though, does having those other layers that did that allow you to reinvest in the way that you wanted to, versus, like you say, selling the best animals that you were making, or, and, or having to choose between holding back and losing money, versus saying, you know what, I'm going to hold this one back, and then the money that I make, or the money that I make on the ball pythons, I can reinvest because there's timber over here, and there's rodents over here. And now, uh, how many years in is this for you? 9, 10, 8, 10, somewhere in there?

>> We're at, uh, this is 12 going on 13 in April.

>> Okay. Okay. Now that puts everything in a whole different context, too. You're saying

>> was four, and she's, yeah, she was four. So, um, yeah, it would be, uh, it'll be 12, and then, no, it'll be 12 in April. I'm sorry.

>> That's, I mean, either way, that whole ballpark, though, for you to say after 12 years now, we're starting to really hold back,

>> the stuff that we're making. That's a decade. And nobody thinks about that. Everybody thinks,

>> "I'm going to buy this and this, and I'm going to sell this, you know, X thousand number dollar of animal, and then I'm going to have Ferraris." [laughter]

>> That's not how it works, right? I mean, I, I haven't figured it out. Maybe somebody has, but I haven't figured that out. That's incredible, Billy. Um, and

>> why? Okay, it isn't it is an Adam from a, from we weren't successful. We were very successful, but what we were doing is we were, we were re, um, re-evaluating the collection. So, I didn't want to hold anything back to start with. I wanted to to produce everything that we could resell and reinvest because, I mean, that really, we did the opposite of a debt snowball. We snowballed the profit, or the, the value of this collection, and we've just continued to do it and continued to do it. And, uh, I'm telling you, like, uh, the purchase of, of, uh, of Kittinger's Reptiles was the biggest purchase we ever made at one shot, but only by, only by, um, only by, um, $100,000.

>> And you know, he had a really nice collection. And that is a lot. That is a lot. Yes, sir. And I'm not making light of that, but I mean, what I'm saying is the purchases we've made, like we've, we've been able to do that with our reptiles. And that's what you have to do. Like, it's, it's this is a business that unless you got enough money to go put it down, buy tons of animals. I mean, just tons of animals of really good, nice stuff. And I'm not saying like, you got to have hundreds or anything like that, but you got to have high dollar animals, uh, for you to be able to to do this. It depends on what you live off of, too. I mean, if you live off $20,000 a year, you don't have to have much. But if I, I have always done well because I've been extremely hard worker. Like my normal days are six o'clock in the morning till about one o'clock at night. That's a normal day for me. Um, but I mean, a lot of people don't want to live that way. And, and, you know, I, I don't, I don't judge the way you want to do things at all, but I know that what's made our family successful is just being very, uh, passionate about what we do. There's not a business we own that we're not passionate about. Um, there's not a thing we do that we're not passionate about and fully bought into. And, um, you know, we're just excited about where this is going and, uh, what we're doing with it. But, uh, it come from, it come from a very small amount of money that just kept snowballing and snowballing and snowballing, and, uh, like me and my wife, we weren't given anything. Everything we've got, we've worked for, right?

>> So nothing, nothing was there for us to invest but our own money, and I'd done well in the timber industry. So we put a certain amount of that, and then we've added a little bit to that out of that over the times. But now the snakes fully fund themselves, and now they're, they're, they're doing way more than just funding themselves.

>> Right. Right. Um, let me ask you this. For somebody starting out to really, and I know that there's nuances and ins and outs and, and, you know, maybe they stumbled into a new gene, but for 99% of people, if they're starting out, whether they have money or they don't have money, if they produce something, should they hold anything back at the start, or should they sell everything that they possibly can, get every penny they possibly can, and then buy the very, very best thing that they can, rinse, repeat for five years?

>> I, if, if they want to play at the very elite top level of the game, they need to, unless they buy into a, a project to where they are one of the leaders in the project. You sell absolutely everything, just about it. But it comes a point, Adam, that high dollar animal isn't as valuable to you as much anymore. Like, you don't always have to go buy a $10,000 animal or $5,000 animal. You can, you can, there will come a point to where you do not have to to do that anymore. Adding something here and there to go along with it that's got the right mix in there will be just as valuable to you because you don't, you don't, you don't have to. You can, you can take some, some like just extra genes that have been out there and blend it into what you have and really do well off of it, and, uh, and make your own projects out of that without having to just go out and, and purchase a head in a project. You could, you just create your own projects. So, it's a give and take on that. You've got to be able to do both.

>> Well, and right. I know that there's nuance to it. Um, I know that the narrative particularly in kind of the co er era was, every fe, you're going to keep every female. You, you always keep every female.

>> But then I asked the question, and, and I think it was actually, uh, Kai from Lucas Landon, who I, I really look up to, and he's been a good mentor and friend. I just asked him point blank. I was like, "Can you just buy the better one and save yourself a year and a half or two years?" And he was kind of like, "Yeah, you can." And, and so I've always wrestled with that because, like you say, you want something unique, or if you have something that's nearly unique, and then you get to a point where you can go, "All right, I got this really incredible thing that maybe just needs, you know, something new that's accessible." Uh, uh, Mark Mandix in the audience. Maybe you just need Scrambler to go into it. Maybe you just need Java to go into it, and then you have this whole new world that you're the only one in. Is that kind of what you're saying on that topic then?

>> Absolutely. So, yeah, if you're not leading it, you want to, you want to at least steer it in into a direction that will put you in a leadership position in, in, in a project, or you, you've got to invest, and that's just the way it is. So that's what kept us, like, you would think our first investment, uh, huge investment would have been like, say, the first one we did with Justin. It wasn't the top mors out there. It was breeders, proven breeders, so that we could produce stuff and start making some animals that we would profit from. So it was not the top of the top of the list stuff. It was just good stuff. And, and that was our first stuff that we got into, just like, I, I did get a pastel lace clown. That was a really nice male at the time, you know. Um, that was way back there. Um, and, uh, we got a lot of the Batman project when Batman was super hot. That, that was a big driver for us. First, the first, uh, to our first real business stuff where we got past this is a hobby, this is a business, you know, as we transitioned, um, from, uh, something me and my daughter just love to an absolute, uh, family business. So, um, yeah, I think, um, for anyone that, that wants to do this as a business, you've got to push toward being at the top. This is a pyramid, but it's not a scheme. And you want to be as close to the tip,

>> sure,

>> as you possibly can, because all the money trickles up, and when it's not doing well,

>> the money doesn't trickle up. So, like, you're seeing it in this con, this economy where money is not trickling up, animals aren't moving quite as fast as they were. That's why all breeders should always try to take care of everybody up under them and, and help them become better at what they're doing, because, uh, if, if our, our pet people aren't, aren't doing well right now, what you're seeing is the high-end animals are still selling, and the low-end animals are still selling pretty decent, but the middle of the stuff you get around the two to $3,000 area, they're not selling as much as five and $6,000, depending on the projects. You know, all projects are different, but right, that middle, that middle line right now is not moving as well as what it was.

>> I, I think I completely agree. I think that what 500 to maybe 700, let's say 700 to what 2,2500 is

>> that's all moving. I mean, I hate to admit it. That's all moving towards that, to $800 mark at the moment. I mean, is that, I mean, maybe we don't see it because the auction price is the final selling price isn't posted, but is that, is that what I'm feeling? Is that what I'm hearing? Like, that's that's the kind of thing, right?

>> It's just because of, and, and that's going to happen during this kind of, this kind of economy. And I'm not going to be one that, I'm never one that's going to say, man, you shouldn't sell a snake for this. You never know someone's, you never know someone's position and what they're dealing with. I think they, they made that animal, they should do whatever they want to with that animal.

>> Um, so I'm not one to say any of that stuff. We do try to hold it because our people are investment, investment. Um, but I mean, everybody has to move some stuff out. You can't keep it. So, in these times, we're going to move them. But then this is going to flip around, and when it does, uh, then we're going to be more in the driver's seat of raising the prices back up a little bit. And I'm not saying they're going to be COVID prices, but they're going the prices will be good again. This is, this will be, this is a, a well-established business that's going through the exact thing, same things that real estate went through, housing, uh, restaurants, logging, every, like, all of that stuff, every business goes through up and down cycles, and this is just a world economy down cycle that will trend back up.

>> That could be like the whole show right there. Yes. You don't know what other people are going through. There's going to be markets ups and downs. You don't have the privilege of not experiencing difficult times and be ready when it comes around, like [laughter] that. That's it. It's, it's right there, right? Um, that first part, though, is really, really important to me. Um, you, you don't know either what other people are going through. Every person's resources and availability of, uh, either money or lack thereof, the opposite. And we all, I think, love, if we look at this as an industry and not a hobby, and I'm not saying anybody should do one or the other, but we're in different positions in it. If we look at it as an industry, uh, versus a hobby, um, we all really appreciate the almost pure capitalism of it. It's largely unregulated. It's largely

>> absolutely.

>> It is worth what somebody will pay for it right now. And we love that because we get to dictate what we do, right? So, we can't chastise people when they make a decision based on that same philosophy, but they make it different than what we would make. That's, that's hypocritical when I hear that from people. And, and honestly, like, I, in everyday life, I have no problem with, uh, this is going down an awkward place. I don't mean it to. We love, we love this because of that free range. So, if we start putting endcaps on that free range, that's what we, that's, we'll go back to corporate life for that. If I want to put up with that headache, I can get paid way, way better to go live in that world and, and play those games, you know? So, um, I, I appreciate you saying that, and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but that's my own thoughts of, if we love it in one way, you got to take, you got to love it when it's not as convenient either, and respect somebody else's decisions. And that is, like, I, I could see it at Tinley when there's a certain animal or a certain gene, and one person's selling it for this price, and it's wildly different over here. That's it. I can't get mad. I don't know what, I don't know what either person is on, and the power of their brand and their, their, their trust with their customers is what's going to pay off in the long run on that. I think, anyhow, and I actually, I think that's something that you guys have done very well. I think there is value in buying an animal from you, even if it's more, uh, than the next person over, because of you and your brand, what you've established. Could you talk a little bit about that?

>> Yes, this industry, industry is definitely like that. Anyone, anyone that, that establishes a brand, takes care of their customers, does, does really good job of customer service, and truly cares. Like, if you make mistakes or just anything happens, you correct them. You more than correct them. Uh, you really reach out and, and go above and beyond. Um, we never are pushing. We want to sell snakes, but we're never like a pushy car salesman. We, we always want someone to get exactly what they want. If they come here looking for a pet, I try to steer them forward towards something that'll be calm and be a pet. If they want an investment animal, you know, that's what I'm looking at at putting them in, and, and trying to steer them toward doing things that'll actually help them make money, because I have no reason not to want anyone to be successful, because if they're not successful, they're not going to be your customer. So, every single breeder out there, I have no breeder that I have any animosity towards whatsoever. I want everyone to be very successful and do very well. I view none of us as each other's competition. We're an industry that as long as we bring in enough people, we're going to do very, very well. And that's where all our outry, outreach needs to be, is bringing more people into what we do.

>> It's, I agree with you, and I think it's a simple equation. Um, when we see the same limited buyers, when we see the same, um, and it is limited. I mean, let's, let's be honest, and I'm grateful when you're on the show, we generally, we tend to get around a thousand views, which is fantastic. There's generally not a thousand reptile ball python podcast viewers. It's generally the same three to 500 people. I recognize most people in the audience, which I love having. You guys keep me going for years on end, which is fantastic. But when you see that there are, let's say, 500 dedicated enthusiasts, that doesn't go far enough when Billy's producing more than 5,000 hatchlings, and I'm 500 hatchlings, and I'm producing almost to that number, and you're leaving it in the dust, and we're talking about that number of finite, uh, uh, real enthusiasts that have really dug in and, and, and are as enthusiastic as we are. And I look at other, like, niches and trends and that stuff. I could put a post on a guitar forum, on a Gibson Les Paul guitar forum, just a forum about one model of one guitar, and I'll get 12,000 views on just a mediocre, everyday post. Hey, look at this picture of my '75 Gold Top. We don't have that, uh, that vast, uh, um, viewership and consumership. So, I think it's wildly important to let people get excited about, uh, blue-eyed Lucy's and bananas and pides and wonder, and, and, and let them start wondering, like, it, it's magic to them. It still goes back to that first moment. You see, I see the smile on your face like you're thinking about the first pie, or the first banana that you saw that made you go, "Holy smokes, what, how, how does that work? It looks like a cartoon right there in somebody's hands, but it's alive, and it's a real animal. How do I do that?" And that's what people, that's what we've got to have people be able to do and get enthusiastic about.

>> I try to, Adam, I try to during our, uh, YouTube videos. Is every now and then you'll see me pull out a normal that'll be hit several things, you know, but it'll be a normal that's come out of a pair, and, and I just, I just want people to think about and remember what we've come from. You know, look at what this has come from. And yes, we still have some animals that browned out, brown out in people's collections, but imagine 10 years from now, what we're going to be making, and how much crazier 10 from years from now, the public will be for these animals, as we all, all reduce house sizes and everything else. These kind of animals are going to continue to be more popular. Even though we're having a down cycle, all you have to do is stay positive. And if you want to make things happen, if you're truly passionate about it, you're not going to be so negative that you jump out of it right now. You, you'll stay in it and keep doing it when it's not doing well, if you're passionate and you love it. And the people that aren't doing that now and aren't willing to grind and make it make, if you're wanting dreams to come true, you have to do whatever you want to make those dreams come come true. Like, we have hustled all kind of ways to make, like, to make to grow Rice Reptiles. I mean, we've done anything in that you can think of, uh, financially, to to grow the company. I mean, I, I, I can name all kind of things that we've done just to be able to grow and to do, you know, get this to where we could have absolutely crazy animals. And we continue to do it. Like, I probably annoy Justin constantly trying to, uh, trying to upgrade the collection, you know, he's, he's like, you know, let's, let's, uh, you know, slow down and, and not, you know, not upgrade as much right now. So, um, anyway, like the way I viewed this market and like our purchase was, um, this recent purchase that we've done is, is, uh, right now is is the same thing you do in any, um, any market that has fallen some. We're dollar cost averaging right now. We're lowering, we're, we're reinvesting in stuff and really bringing up the quality of our, of our, uh, genetic pool in our collection. While, while we have taken on more animals, it's not on purpose. It's a necessary evil of how we had to do this. And then we're just going to, we're just going to downsize this back to what, to a, to a very elite collection, because man, the stuff we've bought and the stuff that's, that, uh, we have is totally different. So, it's going to really blend, uh, this, this last purchase is really going to blend well together.

>> Man. Um, I was going to say, let's talk about that for a minute. So, if the audience isn't aware, and you, you've been completely, uh, really public and transparent about this, you acquired a good percentage, a high percentage of Jason Kittinger's, uh, collection. And then,

>> everything but his 2025 babies.

>> Oh, wow. I didn't know that. So, even, so, he has no breeders right now? Is that, is that a fair statement to say?

>> That's, that's right.

>> That's completely right. Wow. So, Jason's going to sit tight for three years, is what you're saying? He's got, he's got that's

>> Huh. I didn't know that detail. I'm g have to ask him about that.

>> Well, Jason, Jason, so Jason is not out of it, but Jason's just kind of doing like a same thing I'm doing. So, like, I've been in the timber industry 30 years this year. June will be 30 years. Um, so I guess it's next year after it's first year, but June of next year.

>> Sure.

>> Um, but that's going to be 30 years for me in the timber industry. And it's not that I like it. I don't like that. I mean, that's what my dad and I did for 25 years together. I love the timber industry, but at the same time, um, there's things that I'm a little burned out on, and this just gives me another whole. I'm just dri, I'm driven by the process. I mean, people think that I do this stuff for money, but I don't even do the timber industry or this just for money. I do it, I, I love the process of what this is. I love the process of, yes, I love making the money, but it's more the process of getting to the money, you know? It's not really the actual end product that you have money. It's the, the product to the, the end product to me is just the process of going through it and, and watching it develop into what it is. You know, understand, like, I just, I really like to

>> I do.

>> I really like the feeling that you get from seeing this grow and

build over all these years and and then the process of of bringing in the customers and just all that stuff and developing these relationships. I mean, we went through this hurricane, you know, this past year. We had people all over this country reaching out wanting to help us and they were just great people. Like before our family even reached out to us, reptile communities reaching out to us. And and I mean, I had family do great things for us too, but I mean, we got shell-shocked here. But, um, like it, it's really just, um, the process is very fun. And, you know, to be a snake breeder, a lot of the things you do is going to be, if you don't have an employee, you're going to be washing a lot of tubs.

>> Yeah. You're going to clean.

>> Yeah.

>> Yes. And and in doing that, though, you enjoy the process of watching your animals grow. You see them develop. You see their color change and you get your ideas from there of where you go next, what you want to build. And if you don't enjoy those processes, you probably don't last and you burn out in this, especially as you grow. It becomes too much of a problem if you don't love it.

>> Well, and it's not glamorous. There's moments that are.

>> No, I wouldn't still say glamorous, but there's moments that are fun. There's moments sitting at Tinley or having that Wagyu steak before you kick off your Tinley show. That's pretty fun.

>> That's amazing.

>> Very fun.

>> But that's three hours in a 365-day year, you know. And, um, when you talk about the process, uh, I, I kind of lit up that way too. We have some things, uh, in common. Um, uh, September 7th will be, uh, next year will be 30 years since I, since my day one in restaurants. So, uh, our timeline is similar. And it's funny you said that about, um, the process of kind of figuring out. I always say I like figuring out business. Uh, what I ended up doing in my career was this perpetual seven to eight-year cycle where I would go to essentially, generally, it was a distressed property or a new, uh, something brand brand new. So, I was fortunate to open TPC Sawgrass for the, for the, uh, PGA Tour. That was brand new when we tore down the old clubhouse. But then I would, I got poached, uh, to a private club that was sort of in the doldrums. And I enjoyed getting that private club out of the doldrums way more than just following the PGA Tour script. It was way more fun figuring it out. And then I did that again. And then, and that's like, now I'm doing it with rodents, with snakes, with a car wash because I'm insane. And then my own consulting company. And that is, uh, that really does resonate. And, um, I don't.

>> You get Adam, when you get it totally fine-tuned, it's not, it's still interesting, but it's not quite as interesting.

>> Right.

>> Well, it's almost like, yeah. It's almost like you feel like you have to shoot yourself in the foot. You're like, "All right, this is too easy. Let me go, let me go find something else that's, uh, broken or let me break something."

[laughter]

Like, it's like, yeah. I, my wife laughs at me about this because, um, uh, I told her one time, we had been married a few years, and I said, "I'm going to draw up a plan because I want to retire when I'm 52." And she, like, she literally laughed in my face. And I said, "Babe, I'm not working hard to work this hard forever. I want to enjoy life." And she goes, "I have no doubt that you'll make the money you need to retire by 52." She goes, "You," she goes, "you won't stop. You, you will never retire. You might be taking social security. You're going to be have some side hustle. You're going to figure out what to do with it." I was like, "Oh, I don't know if I'm ever going to travel the world because I'm just going to do stuff, you know."

[laughter]

And she, she's of course exactly right. It's been about 12 years since that conversation and, and she's right. So.

[laughter]

When you, when you say that, uh, I appreciate it and I, I chuckle to myself. Um, as for, uh, um, maybe for, for content for the audience, what are, um, could you, can you share some like really specific examples of either, either you, you got going and then you said, "All right, it's pretty good. Let me look around here. What can I either lower cost on, increase margins on, or save myself time on?" What's.

>> I mean, that's really how you make money. I mean, we're not, it's not that much rocket science. There's only so many thing, there's only so many levers that that that you can move and those are typically the three. If I'm consulting and I go into a distressed property, all right, what are you paying too much for? What are you spending too much on? And what are you wasting too much time on? Let's make that list and work on that for two years. I bet you do pretty well, kind of deal. But what are some instances you've seen that are like, real specific to our, our world?

>> All right, so, um, just project-based like, so winning on a project is very big. So the Lace project is something that we really won on. We hit the market just right and, uh, we brought in one breeder male. And people think, you know, you keep this male forever. Okay. So, this male bred for me for eight months. I sold probably, I don't know, 27 to 35,000 somewhere in that area worth of animals off of off of him. Hit several world firsts. Held all that back into the collection and that's the offspring that we're starting to see today. So, in an eight, eight-month window, I had, uh, one animal come into the collection, you know, make me, you know, 30-something thousand dollars or more. And then, uh, he moved right on to another really great breeder and, uh, and in an eight-month period. And we were able to use that money. We invested off of him, rolled right off of Lace stuff, right into Pompei stuff, and we just rolled another, you know, stuff like that in there. And it wasn't, it wasn't actual Pompei. We brought in two males that just had the ingredients to make the stuff and it was really high-end males at the time. But that's where we won. We held back, you know, breeders off of that, things like that. Um, another thing that we've done, um, to far as far as like, um, like really winning and and helping the helping the, uh, the business a lot, um, is is like lowering our costs like with our food and stuff. That was a big deal with with rodent food. And then also, um, being able to use, uh, like our rodent facility person helping us in the in in the, uh, snake room. So the person that runs our rodent facility also comes into the snake room and helps us with full cleans, which gives us more marketing and more, um, more time to, uh, uh, promote ourselves. And that's been a big, that's been a big boost in what we've been able to do. And YouTube's done a lot for us. Um, Instagram and YouTube. We sell tons of snakes through Instagram and and YouTube.

>> Um, yeah. So, two points in there. Freeing yourself. Like, making the animals is one thing. I have found there are there are bedroom breeders out there producing bangers like that. You're just like, how have I never heard of this person? And they just, most people, myself included, I wrestle with finding the time to market the animals that I produce. I think I produce solid stuff. I'm not, you know, uh, but it almost doesn't matter how good of an animal you're producing. If you don't have the time to market it and to get your name front and center and to be front of people's minds when they go, "I might want to buy a ball python today." Who am I going to look at? You got to be, you got to be at the front of their mind there. And, um.

>> We're, we're still failing there, Adam. So that's that's something that that's where we should be 20 times better than what we are right now. And it's because of my lack of time. Our l, my lack of time is hurting us. So what business is it that's pulling too much of my time is something that I'm juggling to figure out, um, you know, how to how to streamline this and make it even better because this should be even way better.

>> Is it cost prohibitive? It seems overly simple. Is it cost prohibitive to just hire stuff out, whether it not the marketing part? I think I think in marketing and and by the way, Stephen, thank you for the 10 bucks in the jar. And and Stephen would have a great, uh, opinion on marketing, uh, insight. I think I think the people are the magic in marketing. I can speak to the fact that sitting in a basement with two banners behind you, you can reach a whole bunch of people. You just got to do it. You got to commit to doing it every week, week in and week out. And I do that. Um, but I, so I think that the person themselves is the, is the magic. Is it cost prohibitive or trust prohibitive, or do you not trust people around your animals to do the, uh, spot cleaning, to do the facility day-to-day work that I, I get.

[clears throat]

I'm, I'm spending five, six hours a day in in my facility a lot of times and I'm like, I don't have time to market. And then at 11 at night, I'm trying to set up shows with, uh, you know, Dawn, she's probably like, "Adam, stop messaging me at this time of night," you know, just filling all that in. How do you see that in your business? Does, does spending on labor make sense, or is labor so expensive that sometimes you say, "I'll get there. I'm just not there yet," and, uh, I'm going to go do this work myself? So that's something to where you have to balance. That's a, that's one of the the magic questions on balancing both the growth of your business and where you are as far as, will you do way more because of that, or do you need that money that you're paying that person to help you get a little better than what you are? So that's something that's something that I am at a point now where I've got to do more of that. Uh, more of pushing myself, more of putting Rice Reptiles out there and, and, uh, chanting my daughter and wanting to do more of that and continue to learn. Um, that's something that I'm at the point where I need to do that stuff. Um, but I'm still so involved with the other stuff and I'm training right now on the login side to move more toward that. Um, but that's something where it's a family, it's a family business, so I can get out of that. But at the same time, um, I mean, I'm the only family left owning it because my dad, you know, just passed away. So, that's why, guys, if you've not been seeing us on YouTube, I want to apologize again. I said we were starting it up this week, but we're just too behind on our animals. My father, uh, had prostate cancer, battled it for a lot of years, and, uh, he just, he just passed us, uh, the week before last. So, um, we're going through that right now as a family, but we're good. We're, we're totally good. Uh, definitely hurt because he's, you know, was with me every day doing that. So, we're definitely hurt because I loved him to death. But at the same time, you know, I was raised right and got, got, you know, the right morals and ethics instilled into me to know we, we carry on and take care of our kids now. So, um, we're good and appreciate everyone that supported us through that. But, um, but, uh, I, I want to apologize for that not being on YouTube because that's that's something that we've, we've prided ourselves on not missing any any of our videos and I appreciate that. But yeah, um, we, we've, we've prided ourselves on not missing our any of our videos and getting our content out there. Um, but that's something that we're at there. We're not even like, we need to be able to create better content and have more time for it, but we're just so busy. And our deal is right now, we just have too many animals and it's, and it's because of our purchase. But that purchase wasn't to grow the collection. It was to grow the quality of the collection. So tons of animals after after I get over, you know, what we've had to deal with, deal with over the last couple of weeks and just sorting through, uh, Jason's collections and blending the stuff with ours. There's going to be tons of animals released. So everybody's going to really benefit from this. We're really going to really going to push out tons of breeders.

>> Um, thank you for sharing that, uh, with us. I think I speak for everybody and we say that, uh, as I told you privately before, our condolences and thanks for being here and sharing that tonight. Um, as much as, uh, guys like you and I, we, I think you and I are wired a little bit similar. Maybe I'm giving myself too much credit, but I get antsy if I'm relaxing. I'm like, "I got too much opportunity out there. I'm wasting that opportunity if I relax." Like, if I'm.

>> Watching football, which I love. Uh, I've got my computer in front of me and I'm doing something, uh, on it business-wise. Um, but I've also found to be true in times like this, that stuff will be there for you tomorrow. You, you'll, you'll still need to market tomorrow. Um, if you, if you need to take a deep breath, just not, not literally, but just, just philosophically on your head, you know, that that stuff will be there. And I know you'll figure it out. And I know that you've been through, you have been through some real challenges with, uh, storms and, and I'm sure stuff that we don't even know about, but the stuff that we know about. So, I know you're resilient, but, uh, it'll be there. And nobody will judge you for taking a little moment to yourself. I think I speak for everybody if I say that too. So, um, I actually want to ask you about Instagram, YouTube, Morph Market, uh, Palm Street, and any other platform and strategy that you want to talk about. Uh, there's a variety of places, uh, and ways to sell, and you guys, you hit them all. And, um, I, I would like to pick your brain on that. So, um, I'm going to pay a couple bills. Uh, if you, if it's all right to do a, uh, a little, um, um, uh, it's not halftime because we've already been at this an hour, Billy. It feels like five minutes. We've already been at this an hour, but we're going to take a, just a moment like say, uh, audience, let me tell you about a couple brands that are supporting our industry and the people in our industry from within. So, if, uh, if you wouldn't mind checking out these brands, they've been taking care of Proper Royals and our industry, some of them for many, many years. And I have to give a shout out. But I don't give enough love to them on this show because I sponsor the, uh, Thursday morning show and one of my other Instagram channels. But Cold Water Cafe, uh, this November, uh, will be five years that I've been a customer of theirs and four years that I've been in business with them. So go check them out. Uh, Proper 11 is the current code. It never expires. If you spend $200, you get free shipping. If you spend, uh, $200 and you use the code proper 111. I just put out a reel yesterday or today showing the evidence of why I like, uh, uh, rodents from Cold Blood Cafe and all the, uh, years of of expertise in in in procuring high-quality food for humans that still applies to high-quality food for our animals. So go check out Cold Water Cafe. Huge thanks to them and that team. And like I say, they don't get enough, uh, uh, love on on this particular show sometimes and they don't get enough love when my camera won't focus and do the cool like slow focus thing. It's supposed to focus over my eyes. Cold blood cafe, proper 11, uh, proper, the word, and one one all together. Uh, get yourself free shipping on orders over $200. Temps are changing out there. If you need reptile experts that care about you and your animals, that are knowledgeable, I think most shipping companies care about you and your animals, that are knowledgeable about your animals, that are reptile enthusiasts, that are knowledgeable about shipping your animals and have the supplies to help you and a phone number where you can call them and the institutional relationships to help in tough times if issues do arise. That is why I use, uh, Redline Shipping. Um, they are now integrated with, uh, Palm Street and I believe on, uh, reptile ads as well. So, anyhow, check out, uh, uh, Redline Shipping wherever you buy and sell your animals and you can go to redlineshipping.com, check out their customer interface. It's quick, it's easy, uh, supplies are on there, and again, phone number for expert help that, uh, you can get with should you need it, should you want that. Um, Sund Dog Serpents, that is Josh and, uh, Sarah. They are down in Orlando. I've been doing business and vending with them for four years now as well. I bought animals from them. They've bought animals for me. We actually have a breeding project going on this year for a, uh, clown monsoon project, which is pretty cool to say out loud. Hearing Billy talk about, uh, trying to be at the front of some projects. It's pretty cool opportunity. But go check out their, uh, Morph Market page for their inventory as well as their, uh, Instagram pages. They are specializing in TSK clown, uh, project ingredients as well as some, uh, visual and hat ingredients that you could see on there. Uh, puzzle, um, uh, clutches have come as well as super asphalt projects they are working on. That's Sarah and Josh at Sund Dog Serpents. Reagan Renee Royal Pythons. Keep an eye out. Uh, that is Charlie Ryan up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He's going to be on the show. Uh, either I'm waiting to hear some feedback, but either next week or sometime in December. So, working out the schedule, but Charlie will be on Reagan Renee Royal Pythons. Do me a favor if you would, go to reaganrenee.com. Just the two, uh, names, reaganrenee.com. He's got all his inventory on there. And he's got some perks for you if you go there. Everything on, uh, reaganrenee.com is free shipping if you buy through reagan.com. There's tons of ways to pay, including Afterpay. Holidays are coming. I heard Billy say defer some costs. Not saying go in debt. Watch your credit cards there. I don't know how Afterpay works, but it's available on there for, uh, for you if you buy through reaganrenee.com. And last but not least, I think, uh, the promo code is proper 10. Message me if you're going there. I'll, I'll confirm what it is, but he's going to give you 10% off, too, on top of all of that. So, his full inventory is there. Charlie's working on Kryptons, DG, Gstripe, Candy Pi, and Clowns, uh, and single, double, and triple ingredients. So, go check him out as well. Keeper Kane is the newest, uh, advertising partner here on Tuesday nights. Uh, he'd love for you to check out his YouTube channel. It's just called Keeper Kane. and, uh, he is a ball python breeder, but he's got big snakes, he's got aquatics, he's got tarantulas. It's all documented there and, [clears throat] he's very active in Patreons. If you're in any, uh, of the industry Patreons, you've probably come across him. It's always family-friendly, always pretty uplifting stuff. Pretty honest and direct, I have to say. Uh, to his credit, I really enjoy him. I enjoy his support, his friendship. Go check out Keeper Kane. You can also see his inventory on Morph Market and follow him on Instagram, but, uh, the YouTube channel is what he'd love for you to check out. Last but not least is the original advertising partner for Proper Royals. That's BNS Reptilia. That's Chris Shel. Uh, Chris is a ball python breeder, but also specializes in blood pythons, locality boas, uh, colubrids of all shapes and sizes, the pituous, the bullsnakes, and the pine snakes, if you know what those are. He will have the, uh, permit information for your locality if, uh, you know, depending on your state jurisdiction. He'll be able to educate you on that. If you need the proper paperwork from him, he has that and can educate you on that as well for the Pituous. And, uh, he is the regional distributor for the Chipper Cocoa in Pennsylvania. And he can help you out if you're in that regional area or if you want to become your own regional distributor of the Chipper. Much like Billy was talking about earlier with his rodent food, you can get in touch with, uh, Chris about that and he'll point you in the right direction and help you on that. Thank you to all the, uh, advertisers. They literally help keep the lights on. They, they literally help, uh, bring me back every week. Audience, you guys are the ones that truly bring me back every week. Uh, we learn together, we grow together, support each other. I'm so thankful for this space on Tuesday nights. And I'm humbled that people like Billy Rice will come hang out with me, let me pick their brain and, uh, just get a chance to be, um, ourselves in our own little circle where we could just be as geeky as we like and break out, uh, as much, uh, you know, dig into as much information as we like. So, thank you guys so much. Uh, in the coming weeks, um, I've got, uh, Chris from Wide River, uh, Reptiles coming on the show. I mentioned, uh, Charlie Ryan from Reagan Renee Royal Pythons. Working with Winston on WHS, figuring out when we can make our schedules work. And I think, uh, Lace from Waste Balls is going to be on pretty soon, too, where sometimes we just need to remember to have a little fun in our lives with what we're doing, and I think they'll help us with that, too. So, uh, fun finish to the year coming up. Billy, thanks for your patience. Thanks, audience, for sticking around. Uh, I do read all your comments. I love to engage with the guest and really kind of stay focused with the guest, but I do keep an eye on the comments. Thank you guys. Stay, uh, stay active over there. I appreciate your, um, uh, interaction and participation. So, Billy, there are, [clears throat] and there's probably others that I'm leaving out, but you've mentioned YouTube and Instagram and, and really kind of had a twinkle in your eye talking about YouTube. Um, what do you see working? Why does it work? Why does one platform, I don't want to say work better than another. Why does one platform fit a certain scenario or maybe fit a certain animal, or what scenarios fit each other? Talk a little bit about that sort of mindset that you have, uh, using those various, uh, uh, uh, platforms.

>> So with, with, um, YouTube, it's just, it, it really, uh, allows people to feel like they've already met you. You know, you get that, you get that, uh, just real, uh, organic, uh, growth of your company where when you meet someone for the first time, they feel like they've already known you, uh, for for years because you're right there on YouTube in front of them every day. And, uh, I think that that's where that's where YouTube is best is it one, you're showing off projects every time you're on there, uh, showing off something with your animals or tips to people to help them or just anything that you can come up with, you know, that that's going to, uh, uh, be valuable to your, to your, um, subscribers. And then, then on top of it, uh, you get that just direct personal connection. Then with the, with Instagram, you're reaching, YouTube's reaching the same thing, but Instagram's just quick views of just beautiful animal after beautiful animal that you produce, which really gets lots of followers and lots of people reaching out to you. We do tons of our international sales go through, um, Instagram. Um, that's where the vast majority of of, uh, all international sales are made. Um, I, I would say it's probably, uh, eight, eight.

[clears throat]

Out of 10, uh, international sales are made there. Um, then, um, Morph Market, of course, is a great platform. I mean, that's where we, uh, eat, eat and, uh, eat from. I mean, that's that's the bread.

[laughter]

And butter. I mean, that's that's the place to, uh, to, uh, that that really just sells the bulk of our animals. I, I can't tell you, uh, what Morph Market means to us. And then Palm Street is also something we really like. Um, I really love it and the platform that it is for the fact that not only can you educate there, but you can do just like what you're doing where you're connecting with your audience and then on top of it, you can show projects off. You don't have to just constantly be about a sale, but if you make a sale, there's just a small fee and you can, you can, you do not have to go on there and sell a ton of animals. Like I've had breeders say like, "You were on there and you showed like, you know, 60 animals and 70% of them went back on the shelf." And I'm like, "Of course."

>> What, I, I, so keep going because I don't want to bias this conversation and you're exactly on the right track. Keep, keep going on that. That.

>> Yeah.

>> So, so yeah. So they're, they're like, you know, 70% goes back on the shelf. Like, yeah, I'm there protecting our investors and also, uh, protecting our projects and things like that. I'm not there giving away animals. I'm giving deals on good animals. So, um, and then we're selling even at, at, at, uh, retail on there. So, I mean, we're getting, we're, we're seeing every single walk of life on that. Uh, it's a platform that I think really has tons of potential even further into it. And it's, it's not as good as it was to start with, but it's only because this economy is not good right now. Morph Mark, I know that that platform with Palm Street will be great for just tons of ways that you can absolutely use it and and and, uh, configure it to, uh, to promote your business. I mean, it's the sky's and imagination is the limit with that.

>> Yeah. And if, if anybody wants to get inspired, forget even if you use it or not. I do think you should use it. But if you forget even if you use it or not, if you want to get inspired for creative selling techniques and marketing, just go to Palm Street. Not even in the reptile section, just go to Palm Street and see the creative, uh, output there. It is, it's next level for me. Like, I, I find a lot of inspiration just scrolling through it and seeing what's going on. But you bring up a good, a really, really valid point. And I've gotten a little bit jaded, uh, with some of the feedback and, and I found myself thinking to myself, I've never said this to somebody, but I found myself thinking to myself, yeah, if you're looking for a shortcut where you get rich doing less work, I'm sorry to let you down. That's not, that was never the promise. That was never part of the pitch. But if you're looking for a way to reach, uh, like you say, all walks of life, but a new audience, and they have a massive platform of sort of similarly wired people. If, if people will pay four grand for plants on Palm Street, those are our people. I need them to wonder what a banana and a pi is. Like, we could, I could talk to those folks, you know, and they are there. And it's well-established. I mean, years and years. It's incredibly well-funded. Um, I mean, like, I think their own blog said they recently raised around a 25 million investment money. Like.

>> Wow.

>> It is, it's not going anywhere. So, anyway, uh, thanks for, thanks for sharing that. And, um, to not be cynical whatsoever. Uh, yeah, any, I mean, unless you just, unless you go to an expo and wholesale everything. Yeah, 60% of your stuff is coming. I don't know about you. I would kill for an expo that I only bring se 60 or 70% back home from. Like.

>> Exactly.

>> You know what I mean? And again, I could sell every one of them for a dollar a piece and be like, "Yeah, I sold them," but, but that's not my goal. That's not what I'm interested in. So, um, I just, I, I warn people to temper their expectations. If, again, if, if you're looking for a shortcut where you get rich, I don't have that answer. I've never had that answer and I've, I'm always skeptical of that answer. So, um, anyhow, yeah. Uh, YouTube, who do you see, uh, if, if there was, is there a, uh, a demographic or a metric that you can assign to the buyers that you see on YouTube? Do you see that as first-time pet enthusiasts? Do you see it, everybody? It's just another way to reach everybody.

>> It's everybody that I've seen. I mean, it's, it's literally, um, it's, it's our, it's our international people. It's, it's, it's every single walk of our, if it's people, I, I guess it has to be someone that's interested in YouTube or they don't find you. Right. And, and lots of people use YouTube for anything they're doing. If you're doing something to your house, you YouTube it. If you're doing something to your car, you YouTube it. So.

>> Right.

>> That's, I mean, that's what, that's, we're really getting every walk from YouTube. I can't, I can't, like, we've got families that invest with us on pet level. We have it on, uh, we have international customers that are buying like, really proven high-end stuff. Um, like wanting breeders too, you know, just every, every aspect of it that you can think of has has been on YouTube.

>> Um, I, it's the same conversation we were just having. I just have to find time to get back to it. And I've been taking the past two years have been nothing but projects. Move into Minnesota, move everything here. Then a year ago, buy a car wash, renovate a facility. Notice there's no racks around me anymore. They're all in the new facility. And it's like, man, I am, I'm missing, uh, I'm missing doing some of the regional shows. Even like, I've noticed the calls outside of of the actual show themselves. This time last year, when I was doing maybe five more regional shows than I did this year, I would get intermittent calls. "Hey, you got ASFs?" "Hey, you got animals?" "What is this?" "I saw you list this. What do you got there?" "Can I come by your shop? Check this out." And I'm like, "Okay, those things where I'm customer-facing have got to come back." Doesn't matter what kind of palace I build. If I'm not interacting with the customers, they're not going to be there. I got to get, I've got to get the stuff back out in front of them. On your, um, on your YouTube, uh, content, what are you doing on there? Is it a, "Hey, here's how we," is it a, like you say, you search how to do stuff? Is it a, "Hey, here's how we do this," or is it an educational, "Hey, here's a talk about this gene," or is it, "Hey, here's a recent clutches, check them out, guys, and here's why we're excited about them?" What are you, what are you doing on there?

>> That's our biggest thing is we're doing clutch reveals on there. So that's our biggest deal, deal. I want to put more time and energy into it to where we can do more of, uh, more educational stuff and things like that, but it's really, we're throwing in as much YouTube content as we can at the end of just super busy weeks or it's just been insane. And a lot of times we'll just have, we'll be pouring sweat while we're trying to make those videos from just finishing cleaning or something like that. So, right, that's something that we've talked about a lot recently is getting it away from the finding a time.

>> During the week to really hone in and make those a lot better. So, we just do uncut, unfiltered, and we feel like that's been very good. Um, we make our mistakes. Uh, we do a lot of intros that I just have to start over because I get mad that I didn't, I said something wrong. But if I get through the intro and we make mistakes, we're just gonna laugh them off because we've done that. If, uh, if you ever get down on yourself, you can always come back to this episode and just be like, "I'm just gonna watch that and fumble around for three."

[laughter]

No, we, uh, we enjoy it though. Uh, I enjoyed making the videos. It's just I want to, I want to be able to devote more, uh, creative time to that to be able to make them better. And that's something that we're really struggling with. And it's just, it's due to just juggling, juggling too much right now. And it's just, it's really, it's really been since the, the kittener acquisition has has just really pushed us up, uh, too many animals. And, you know, we knew that coming in. That's why we went ahead and started the hatchling room and sub-adult room, uh, for all animals that are for sale in our pool house, but it's also like our entertainment area for that. So, come, yep. We can hang out and, and just have a good time there. It's, it's right by our pool. So, uh, it's just a good area where we could grill and, and, uh, just invite guests and friends over. Um, then, uh, on top of that, um, we built all that infrastructure. So, it's, it's all that just transition and then getting all this stuff and getting it into our system, getting everything back on food, uh, from a move, uh, just, just, I mean, there's little things that you don't think of that take a lot of time. Um, it took me an entire day just to enter those animals into, uh, the computer and make the tags for them. I mean, that was a, that was a, it took me to, like, from, like, seven in the morning till about 2:30 or 3:00 just to make all the tags.

>> I believe you. I got, I don't know, five or six clutches that I just have like. So, my process is when I set them up in the, uh, in the bins, I just put painter's tape on it and put the, the, I put the clutch and then the number. So, you know, 2542-1 and then I'll ID and I'll sex them later, but I want to get them eating, get them going. It doesn't matter what their morphs and their sex are. I need them and I need them eating. And I, I'll get the others. And I'm like, "I just been, it's not even procrastinating, just too much." And, and show, you know, we went through, we just went, for me, I just went through a really big showtime, but, um, a big run of shows over the past two months. So, yeah, just getting like six or eight clutches entered in, it's a whole day of identifying, entering, print the label, sex, and then double-checking, making, you know, that you got it right to the best of your ability as well because it starts, man, it starts getting blurry. Did I click male? Did I click female? I'm pretty sure I did. I wrote female. Did I click female? Oh, you just, you turn into a zombie staring at the screen, you know?

>> We literally, we literally had. So, we, we produced some wholesale animals here that we released into the, um. Thank you, Will and Audrey, man. You guys are awesome.

>> They're wonderful people. Will and I hope you guys are well. I was thinking about them today because I got a.

>> Um, uh, it said, uh, uh, scam likely. Not that they're scammers, but it was from Forest City, North Carolina. That's right. By, uh, Rutherford, where, uh, where Audrey's from. I said, "Wait a minute. I know, I know a little something about Forest City." So, but that made me think of y'all. Thank you for the, uh, the kind gesture there. Thanks very much, guys. So, so one of the issues like with us recently with being just so busy and not able to do as much of it is not only did we bring that stuff in, but we're at the peak time of all our hatchlings. That's right.

>> So, we had, we had 58 wholesale animals go out. I had too many in stock and we had 58 wholesale animals leave the facility and at that same time, one week later, replaced it with 58 hatchlings.

[laughter]

No lie.

>> Yeah. And then, and then another, and then a, then a few weeks after that, another 30-something hatchlings. And because, I mean, we've never had that many clutches hatch at one time. That's by far, this is by far the biggest year we had. I think we ended up with 143, and that's more than we want.

>> That's, yeah, that's a whole lot of animals there. Yeah, that is a lot. Did, do you find, uh, do you find the longer that that you have the same breeders and I mean the females in the facility, that they, do they, do they concentrate their clutches? Like, do they, do they sink? Do they seem to be like narrowing, or is it, it's all year round?

>> If they're narrowing, you're narrowing it.

[clears throat]

If you're getting everything that you can get out of a, out of a collection, you're breeding year-round.

>> Right.

>> Yeah. You're breeding year-round because you go, your your females are going to go when they go. And if you're not on top of it, when, when a female here in our collection hits 1500 grams or or even before that, if they're at 1250, I start ultrasounding every single one of them once a month for the rest of their life.

>> Until, until we get a lay. When we get a lay date.

>> Yeah. So, until like, if they, if they're a female that lays four years later, like, you know, a female that doesn't, doesn't go in her first, you know, two years, like most of them will, um, yeah, we're going to go, we're going to keep ultrasounding her every month till for four, for two years of her life, until we get a clutch out of her. But I think that's why we have a huge go rate with our females. Like we have, we have really, that's why we hit so many animals, you know. If our go rate was near as high, we wouldn't have had near that, near that turnout. Um, that's why we had a many held back. So, now, now we're just the focus from here out. Now that we've gotten to the level we've gotten to with it, is last year we were able to release 60 breeder females out the collection. And we really want to turn that up to where a female maybe gives us two clutches of eggs. If she's really good, maybe three, and then they're no longer here. We have lots of turnover. That'll help our customers that are that are invested in in really high-end breeders. And then it'll also help us, uh, really fine-tune the collection and bring the genetics up to where we're, where we want them to be.

>> And that's, that's to say that after three years, in theory, that that female would be obsolete for your needs, but not physically.

>> Perfect for someone else.

>> Incapable, right? She's, she's still in her prime. She's fine for, you know, another decade or whatever.

>> Or longer.

>> Right. Or longer. Exactly. Exactly. Um, some, uh, Billy, some quickfire questions for you. What's your preferred, uh, rodent, or do you have different rodents at different needs or different times in the breeding cycles or life cycles, for that matter?

>> Norwegian rats. That's, that's if they'll stay on that, I am super happy.

>> Okay. All right. Uh, no, uh, no ASFs around in your world?

>> It's illegal to have them here, but we have mice and fancy softers.

>> I, I hear you. Okay. All right. Fair enough then. I'll leave it at, uh, I'll leave it at the, uh, Norwegian, uh, rodents. You said, uh, 140 was a little more than you wanted. What's your, what's your target goal on the number of clutches?

>> It really, like, I want to do less than that for sure. I don't really have a target. What I want my target to be is I'm happy with all the projects that I have going and I feel like I've left too much fat in the room. Like I need to cut that away and really get, really get it lean. And that's just because I want to produce amazing animals all the time. I don't want to produce as many, uh, like, like this year I really was focusing on, and that's the reason why we had as much wholesale stuff, is I was putting, you know, visual females that were double-head visual females that are triple-head, they, they're going on the shelf, or double visuals that are, you know, double-head, things like that. We're putting those kind of type of females on the shelf as much as possible this year. Um, really held, we've filled up. So, this is the first time I think last year I commented that we held back 40-some females.

>> This year we have, I think 75 or more, and we're not near through with our hatching. So.

>> Right.

>> So we're way, we're where we want to be now. We're, we're producing a lot of our males versus going out and buying them. And that's, that's big when you get to be doing, when you're doing that because now we're, we really can just, you know, invest in the right females or a really big project if we want to, you know, a really, a really high-end genetic,

>> Something brand brand new.

>> Yes. And everybody can do that. That's, we talk, I'm talking a lot tonight about business and high-end stuff. If you're dreaming of doing this, you absolutely can start on the low end of this and work your way up. You just need to get with someone that will help you get into genetics that will, uh, and not that anybody can do it and know the market perfectly, but somebody that cares enough to make you successful with the genetics they sell you. And that if you'll, if you do that, you'll get a great jump on making money in this industry. And, but then you've got to be willing to put in the work and hustle until you, until you, uh, see this through to fruition and into a real business. There's been, um, I won't say who because I never again, I try and I try and balance private friendship conversations with sort of public reporting, which I don't think I'm a reporter. I find this as entertainment and, and hopefully educational. Um, but there was somebody, uh, that was hosting us at their house and a very well-known breeder and there was a moment where I was like, "What am I even, what am I even doing? What am I even working to?" I'm sure. So, like, like you get excited at what they're doing and then you're like, "How am I ever going to get here?" And they have a wonderful, uh, uh, uh, entertainment area. And I was, you know, just enjoying the evening. And I said to the host, I said, "Uh, how long did it take you to, like, how long you been in this house? You, this is really like got your fingerprint all over it." And he said, "Well, we moved here with the snake and we moved here and got the snakes 26 years ago." And I was like, "Oh, it takes time." That, yeah, give me 26 years. I'm going to be slaying it, too. You know, and this is genuinely someone I look up to and hold in the highest, highest esteem. And, um, uh, and so sometimes that's really important. Just get started and people figure it out and there's going to be bumps and, and again, earlier in the show, audience, if you missed it, there was a moment with Billy where I was like, 12 years, you're talking about just hitting a certain, you know, certain, uh, point of reducing your cost of goods sold by buying less, sourcing less, and, and producing your own that you're.

holding back. So it's definitely a long run, and enjoying the ride, I think, is important. When I hear from you as well, man, that's, uh, that's a really, really cool thing.

With all that being said, what are genes or combos or projects that get you excited? And I'm sure there's 99 of them, but if you were to talk about one for two or three minutes, what's something that gets you excited and and and why? And it, and and the why can be it's amazing. It doesn't have to be any more complicated if that's what it is, but what's something that gets you going right now?

Right now, it's, it's still the same thing I've been on for like four years now, is lace. And I'm, I'm just excited to have lace into absolutely every project that we're working with. It doesn't matter what it is, lace makes everything better. And we had a lot of negative, uh, negative, um, side effects of lace and, uh, kind of like scrambler is getting now from, from like the start of it, not having a test and things like that. Um, but, but lace now you have a test for, so there's no reason not to just work with it. And I think it will really bounce back as the must-have gene. We like it rivaling desert ghost, like, like in a dead heat together. It's that important, I think, in, into the future of ball pythons because it doesn't constrict pattern and it allows animals to express theirself while also adding, um, add an amazing contrast, contrasted animal, and then it also creates a crazy belly pattern on animals. So, I'm super excited about our puzzle project stuff, uh, and where we're going with that sunset project stuff that I haven't been excited about, but now like with Leviathan there and other people hitting sunset, uh, ultram stuff.

Yeah. You see the right thing and suddenly you get excited, right?

Yes. Yes. And that's, see, that's, and that's what I say, you know, like I'm never gonna be one. I may stay out of a project and it's just because I don't know where to go with it yet. It doesn't mean it's not a great project. So, I won't knock a project. I'll just say I don't like that project yet.

Yeah.

Because I mean, we've seen that like with leopard and pides. So we didn't like leopard and pides, but as you go into, uh, into like, uh, clown pides and, and deeper into like desert ghost, uh, pides and desert ghost clown pides, leopard's really nice with the boldness that it makes and the blacks and the patterns and things like that. So it's always, you just like, well, we also hit like a pinstripe hurricane, uh, clown that had a few more codes in it this year, and, uh, that thing was amazing. It kind of, to me, rivaled like a monsoon clown, looked like a little better version of that. So, uh, I think just sometimes we haven't taken that extra step with each one of these genes. And if you, if you like a gene and you're trying to figure it out, work with it a little longer and see if you, because sometimes you're going to let it go and fall, and it'll, you'll fall, you'll fall short of what could have been absolutely amazing. That doesn't say mean keep everything either though.

I mean, it's, uh, it's hard to know. I mean, you talk about lace and, and, uh, I, I don't have any lace and I've never worked with it, and, um, to, I agree with you completely, and I, I own Scrambler and I love Scrambler. I'm very, very excited about Scrambler. There's going to be a, I call it a lace moment with Scrambler. There's going to come a time where every, uh, bright orange something has gotten labeled scrambler and somebody's tried to make money on it, and then there's going to be, there's going to be a, I call it a lace moment. So anyway.

We, we like, we like, um, Chris Hernand a lot. We, we, we really enjoy spending time with him. So with us, you know, someone asked me, you know, is this gene legitimate and everything? And I'm like, I don't know how do I good yet? But if you look at his animals on his table and how beautiful and honest they are, um, I mean, do you want the, if, if you like, if you like the way they look and you see them standing out here at the show above a lot of animals that are here at the show?

I mean, if it isn't Scrambler, then he's got the best like orange dream stuff on the planet. So, like.

That was my thing with, uh, uh, uh, Marcus Jane.

I don't care what you call this stuff. I don't care. I don't, I, I would like to know what it is so that I can have a plan and a path. But whatever it is is in that animal. Is it the combo? Is it the line? Is it a unique gene? I don't care. I want to recreate what is there and I want to figure out how to make that better in my own image.

I, I'm not a, I'm not like a genetic master. But like.

But to me, like in every other, other lines of animals, like, like carpets or, or hog noose or just any, any anything that you can think of, they're bringing the best color and best things like that to each other. And we're doing in the ball python industry, we, we hold back our best. But so if, if we are, if we are creating lines that are better than other, that's what we should be doing, right? Like it shouldn't be something that this shouldn't be something that it should be discussion, but in positive ways. So, like even if Scrambler wasn't a thing and he's, and he did create the best Orange Dream line, I think we all should be proud that that someone worked with a line and made it, made it a line. But, you know, we're seeing, we're seeing stuff with the Scrambler. Like Bob has it. I mean, I know a lot of people working with it. So, like I definitely think Scrambler is a thing for sure. But when we get a test, you know, if we can get a, if we can get a super made so we can get a test there, that I mean, this is what's crazy is this, this has popped out with all these genes in it. Now we're having to re reverse.

Right? You got to go back to the basic. Yeah.

Which is cool.

It is cool. And I think, um, uh, don't get me wrong, I love shed Testing obviously. I love shedtesting.com. I neglected guys to mention earlier, use a promo code proper 10. You get yourself 10% off of, uh, two orders. You can order as many shed tests as you want in there. Uh, Charlie's also recently lowered his prices. You could do a recessive panel, 10 test, recessive panel, 85 bucks, $8.50 per test. Go check that out. Um, I think it spoiled us. Can you imagine before shed testing seeing Scrambler going, "Well, I don't care what it is. It's in there. I'll figure it out and we're going to figure out how to make beautiful stuff with it." Now we're like, "Well, there's not a test and somebody's going to lie. I'm not going to deal with it and the price is going to do this and that." Like scramblers is one of the those com, whether they're combos, jeans, whatever it is, those animals are some of the first things that in a long time have like stopped me in the aisle and gone, "I don't care what that's what is that animal and how much is it? Let me figure because if I can afford it, I'm probably going to buy it and then I'll figure out, I'll backtrack what to do with it." And I think that like those magical moments like we were talking about earlier, the first time we saw a banana or a pi or a banana pi or whatever, uh, when those moments of magic happen, we got to seize them and figure like that's the inspiration. That's that passion. That's that twinkle in your eye, you know? That's, um, so anyway, um, [laughter] yada yada yada. I own some scrambler now because of all of those things that we've, we've, we've just said. So, um, let me think, uh, what else like a, I need like a real, like banger finish up question here. I promised you a, uh, a 90 minute, uh, show and, um, we are, we are close on that, if not a little bit over, actually. Um, here you go. Talk us through this. Lord knows there are narratives in our industry from within. There are narratives outside from people looking in. Um, and then there's data, and then there's individual brands doing great things regardless of any of the narratives. I think that you're one of those brands and I've always respected you for that. Uh, talk a little bit about that. Talk a little how you navigate through that, what you pay attention to or don't pay attention to, what's important to pay attention to or not pay attention to, and, um, kind of wrap it up with your big picture, I suppose. Is that, uh, does that sort of make sense? You kind of feel what I'm getting at there?

Yes. So, I mean, the biggest thing for us is quality over quantity, and then also, um, customer care. So that's the, that's that's the, that's the number one thing driving us. One, our whole business model is we want to put you in business to be successful. So everything we do here is to allow our customers to be successful. If you're not being successful and you're buying from us, you're not hitting us up and asking us enough questions so we can help you to be successful because that's, that's the number one goal of our family business is to create any individual or any family doing exactly what they want to do. So that's our big picture of it is to make this reptile industry be all absolutely all that it possibly can be and to enjoy the company of all these breeders and all these good people we get to know and all the people that are negative right now and are that are down on this market. Like even when we, when we did our purchase, you know, we, we had some messages like, well, Jason was the one that really won there. But, you know, that's, that's, that's not at all what we want in this industry for this industry. Um, for people to be negative, that those kind of people will fall to the wayside because they're not passionate about what we're doing. So, everybody that's that's feeling like strain on their selves right now in this, in this market and in this time, double down on what you love in this. If, if, if it's parts of it you don't love, narrow it down in, in what you're doing and then the avenues you're doing, narrow that down so you can focus on the love and the passion that will drive you through this time. And don't let it, don't let it off always be about profits because if you do the right things and you treat people the right way, everything will come back to you and, and you will grow and, and the profits will come. It's, it's about the process and the journey.

Billy, good for you. I couldn't have said it, uh, better and good for you. Sounds patronizing. Like genuinely, I'm, I'm happy for you and thank you for taking that stand. Uh, thanks for the generosity with your time. You guys are, uh, and I say you guys, I mean, uh, you, Don, Channing, you guys are great. You've, uh, you've, you've always just been, um, a real pleasure to work with in person. You're the same person in person as you are everywhere else. I see you. You're generous with your time and your insight. And, um, thank you. Uh, we're, we're in a better place with you guys in, in the world, um, here in.

This, this is one of our favorite shows. So, we appreciate what you, what you put on and the questions that you ask and, and, uh, you know, we're, we're happy to be a part of it. And anytime you want me here, I'll be here. I promise you.

Well, I appreciate it. That means the world to me. And, um, uh, if you got five minutes, stick around in the green room for just a second, maybe for a brief conversation and thank you and that stuff. Audience, uh, do me a favor. Go check out Rice Reptiles if you aren't already. You, you should be, but if you aren't already, and not everybody knows everything and there's, there's, uh, new faces and all of that, go check them out all the platforms. Uh, Rice Reptiles, you won't find better people and you'd be hard-pressed to find people doing better stuff, too, in the snakes, but you certainly won't find any better people. Uh, we'll be back here same time, same place next week. Audience, I can't say thank you enough. Uh, hope to see you soon. And, uh, thanks everybody. I appreciate it. See you next time. Heat.

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Heat.