Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. We're going to talk about this week's sponsor, joe's Shrimp shack. Joe Shrimp shack has the finest shrimp all the way from Plymouth, Minnesota. That's in the metro down by Minneapolis St. Paul. They will ship anywhere in the nation the sweetest and freshest shrimp. You can check their website, Joe Shrimp shack.com, for amazing deals like the very popular BlackBerry shrimp, fire, red cherry shrimp, or even snowball shrimp. If you have black sand in your tank, I would like to have some.

Snowballs shrimp because I bet you they would do well out here in my front yard with all the damn snow.

They're shrimp. I mean, you were googling snowballs. Ho hos and ding dongs. This is shrimp for your aquarium.

Jimmy, look at me. I eat a lot of hose, ding dongs and things like that.

How could you?

I know.

Stick to twinkies.

Do it.

Go to Joe Shrimp shack.com for 10% off using promo code aquarium guides at checkout. It supports the show and allows you to get some dank shrimp.

And he's got 10% off. So get out there and spend some money just a little bit.

And don't forget our charity of choice, Big Rich. That was a Santa claus. Ho ho. Well, you know that it's very close.

To Christmas and stuff, but Big Rich over there in Ohio.

The Ohio Fish Rescue needs some love. They just purchased two amazing tanks in the bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. It was on the show tanked, and they actually had to haul them and transport them. There's multiple YouTube videos showing their struggles and their back pains. Please consider donating to them. Ohiofishrescue.com, you can buy a T shirt, donate on anything like paypal. Go fund me. Or just call them and tell them you love them.

I got tanks to bellagio one time. It's kind of fun.

Not the same thing. Not the same thing.

Let's check it.

All right, let's kick that podcast.

Welcome.

To the aquarium, guys. Podcast. Today we're going to do something not very aquarium like. So I once upon a time watched the show how to Buy a Zoo. I think it was something like that. Oh, do you remember that movie?

Yes. Leave It To beaver.

No. It was literally a movie beginning to end of I Bought a Zoo, I think it was called. Right?

We bought a zoo. We bought a zoo.

We bought it.

We bought a zoo.

Right. So this is way better. We have dusty from virgos, Minnesota. I'm going to pronounce this correctly. trow Bridge Creek Zoo.

That's correct.

I always want to say toe, but there's an R in it.

Yeah.

So thanks for coming on the podcast, man.

And some people say troll. troll Bridge. I like that better. It is kind of cooler, but yeah, it's not the name of the lake.

Well, thanks for joining the podcast.

I like troll Bridge better, actually.

I know they pay a toll to get in. I mean, it only makes sense.

That's right. You should put some trolls underneath the bridge. Just hear the crap out of kids.

That's a good idea.

So, thanks for coming out again and again. I'm your host, Rob Zulson.

Hey, I'm Jim colby.

And I'm Adam Elvisar.

Hey, Adam. how's it going down there in southern Minnesota? Pretty good.

He gets all the nice violin guard.

Blizzard.

You had a blizzard on Saturday also up here, and it was cold and dank and angry.

Dank is no, not dank.

Dank'S.

Not a word. Not in that scenario.

Okay.

They changed it.

My generation changed it for you.

Yeah, we giggled.

It on the inner tubes.

There you go. That's all we need.

Jim learned a new word, dank.

Dank. Yeah, he learned it in the advertisement this week.

Yeah, just before we got that blizzard. It was the cold front that came through. That was named after my ex wife, and that was cold and bitter and angry and in your face.

It's okay. Each week, this is jim's therapy. Just to let you know, I can't.

Afford to go to therapy anymore because she took up my money.

Everything in time, sir.

All right, so now you guys are my therapy. So let's get this on.

So this week, we're going to be talking a little bit outside the aquarium. I think that everybody should look outside. Just normal aquarium, typical aquarium places to look like. We've had the dnr as a wonderful podcast to learn breeding secrets and how they do things on a budget.

On a budget from 1951.

There's a lot of things that the traditional aquarius can learn from nontraditional points. And I think it's wonderful to have a privately owned zoo owner on here to learn some secrets about maybe business management, and maybe we can convince him to put a small aquariums in there and get something going. So we'll go halfway. We'll meet you here, and then you'll meet us there, right?

Yeah, of course. Wonderful.

So did you bring any wolves or anything along today?

I thought about bringing a lemur, but.

We should have brought a lemur because robbie's got cats, and I think that would be fun for right.

It would be a change. Instead of having your puppy shit on you, it'll be some sort of primate.

My ex wife again, I'll talk about another primate pooping on me there. I'm a lot of bitters.

We get cute points here. Anybody that has a puppy or kitten, they get higher viewership. So, Jimmy, please tell us about your new puppy.

Well, Robbie sent me the top 20 podcast in Canada, and we made number 15. And the only people that beat us were all the people that owned dogs. So last week, I bought a puppy just so we can move up in the rankings.

Darn right. So your puppy is named moose. Is that correct?

His name is moose. He's angry at the world. He's chewing up cords and stealing slippers and stuff like that. Things that puppy do.

So go to our Facebook page. I'll make sure that if not, Jim does it. We'll make sure that jen posts a.

Picture of the puppy of moose.

So a couple of updates before we get into the interview, because we have to update our audience, right? We're not going to take emails this week. We did get a few, however. But we want to put out there that we had some people that are interested in Charlie the catfish.

Cool.

Let's get rid of that thing.

So after the last podcast, we said that it's open for anybody and they have to pay shipping. So all they're waiting for Jimmy is you to get pictures for these four people.

I have to go down there with a wrangling net to get him out. And I need help. I need like six or seven strong people to help me out.

We'll get there. So we're going to get you those pictures. And first come, first serve. We got a couple of people that message on Facebook. So go to our Facebook page again, aquarium Guys Podcast Group, and you'll see some pictures of it. If they don't take them still on the board, we've got to get pictures out there.

And one thing I want to throw out there, too, is that I have not mailed out the plan bulbs yet, because we have been in the extreme cold, 15 below, 20 below for a high. I did check into it. We can't mail these plant bulbs and let them freeze. And so we're working on getting some better packaging to send them out to you. We haven't forgot about you. They're on their way now. At the end of our week, we're supposed to warm up. So we'll get them sent out to you.

That and you order the first batch of podcast or the first batch of bulbs, and a friend of yours put them in the ten to sprout them already.

That's right. I brought them in. I brought in like 100 plant bulbs, and I was going to send them out. And when I got there, she goes, hey, I threw them in a tank for you so they'd sprout for you. And they were all like four or five inches already.

I had to send living plants, all right?

I had to reorder. So they are here. They are at my house. I'm just waiting for it to warm up a little bit.

I only got like a couple of text messages from the group. So they're waiting.

Well, they're going to get them.

They're wanting their bulbs.

And if you're angry about it, just call Rob in the middle of the night and yell at him. I don't care.

Well, we have this wonderful place where you can complain. Go to our website, aquariumgyspodcast.com. On the bottom of the website, you'll see Discord. Discord is a chat opportunity and we have a pile of people, well, deep into three digits of people on here continually, all hours of the night because we have people in UK, Australia, so the party never stops. The aquarium guys discord go on there and complain. You get to talk to Jimmy directly if he's feeling in a good mood.

Was on it just before Christmas. I should probably go on there and harass some people.

You can.

You'll see the Arnold memes and all the goodies.

That's not very nice, by the way.

So also you'd be looking, there's an upcoming T shirt that we're going to be doing and it's jimmy's face that's deep fried as a meme saying, I'm going to punch you in the throat. So look forward to those T shirts. They're going to go on sale very soon.

I am going to get myself a whole bunch of those and just shoot them out of my freaking T shirt cannon. T shirt cannon, exactly.

Wait, we have T shirt cannons?

We are now. Jimmy said, so I am.

Okay, we got a few things in the budget we got to talk about, but I think it'd be fun to hand out T shirts to people from a T shirt cannon from about 6ft away.

Right.

I have a list of people we can shoot them at.

There we go. But I already know where my ex wife lives, so don't worry about that one. I got it covered.

We need to talk about therapy. dusty, thank you again for joining us in the podcast.

Yes, you're welcome.

So I'm going to try to give a little overview and please edit where you see a fit. I'm just going to do my best here. Okay, so a few years ago, you decided that you're not going to buy a zoo, you're going to build a zoo.

Correct.

So let's just start there. At the beginning of this whole operation, what induced the idea that I need to make a zoo in my front yard?

Right, well, I tell a lot of people this. It actually started as a hobby and it got out of control, and I'm sure there's a lot of people that can relate to that. But it started like he's a fish guy.

Just going to say that.

Yeah, it all started 20 years ago now. Back in 2000, I decided to buy a couple of white tailed deer to raise just as a hobby, like I said. So I got deer at first and that moved into elk and buffalo just for fun.

Not for the just for fun. amazingly tasty back straps, right?

Yeah, just for fun. Something in the backyard. After a while, met some other exotic animal people and worked out a deal and got a kangaroo.

Where do you meet these people?

What club are you clubbing at?

Well, there's places we have some unique people in a fish hobby. Where do you find people to get a kangaroo or anything else crazy?

There is some exotic animal sales. Most of them in Minnesota are more like sheep and goat sales.

So you have to travel out of state for these things?

Most of the time. I do, yes.

So where to? Give us some examples.

I go to Missouri a lot. I've gotten stuff out of Texas, New York, I've sold stuff to Florida, Michigan, literally everywhere. Yeah.

So you're just part of this weirdos fan club network, and you just go where the freaks are?

Yeah, we just call ourselves animal people or exotic animal people.

I've been to a couple of those, and they're dressed up in costumes, and that's a furry thing. You have to make sure when you're looking at these no furries, you're looking for animal people.

And I've had some people that have been down in the Missouri one. Is that the one that's two or three days long?

Yeah. I thought that Ohio has one as well. There's one in Ohio. One in Missouri. There's one or two in Tennessee. Texas has a couple, florida has one. But yeah, there's there's quite a few exotic animal sales around the country.

So what's the craziest thing you've ever seen go through the auction?

Well, before that, have you ever seen an upside down catfish? Like, right next to Jimmy there? Look at that. You don't train that type of stupidity. Look at that.

No, I would think there's something wrong with them.

So hold that thought. We are in now a new podcast studio. We moved it to another side of my house to expand a little more space. So we have a 75 gallon rainfall, rescue fish and fluffy. The catfish is a giant squeaker sedontus, and it decides that it wants to be an upside down catfish because it looks like this. And I'll send pictures on Facebook all the time. So I decided to take that moment before he flips over.

Yeah, sure.

But back to the question.

So the question.

What's the craziest thing you've ever seen at the auction?

I don't know if it's crazy, people don't bring them anymore, but giraffes will come up. The last one I saw, they didn't actually bring it to the sale barn. It was like video auction type deal, and it was bred female, and I believe it was $260,000 she sold for.

Holy how can we how much was she?

$260,000.

I was going to say, I heard that a regular giraffe is about 100 grand.

Young males, you can get about 45 grand now.

And they're coming down.

No, they're going up years ago. I know a guy that paid 20 grand for one, but yeah, they've gone up since then.

Owie.

And the the cheapest female I've heard of was 75 grand.

So, I mean, how do you transport something that's that tall? I mean, I've seen the bad movies where they go under the overpass and decapitate darn giraffe. It's got to be a huge thing to undertaking?

Well, like a young giraffe, six to 8ft tall. My camel trailer is seven foot tall.

Okay.

It would handle that if you're hauling a full size giraffe, you got to find somebody with a giraffe trailer or exotic animal trailer. And they are, I want to say 14 to six. They're probably 14ft tall.

I was going to say most of the overpasses I see in the area are all 17 tall, so and so. Yeah, I imagine you have to get underneath the overpass as well.

Fun fact, right. I did a bit of research, and there are a select few animals that are kosher for Jewish purposes, and giraffes are kosher split, hop and chew the cud. So if you do hit one on the overpass, at least, you know, you can pack it up for a nice Jewish family.

Sure.

Wow. So you can make some giraffe hot dogs. Perfect.

I can only imagine that a $45,000 animal, though. that'd be a bit cost of a steak.

Yeah. It's amazing when people talk about kosher. And I was in the grocery business for a lot of years. All the equipment is blessed before they start making the product in that particular.

I want to be that rabbi just go in, it's like, yeah, this pickle pallet is good. Here's your quota for the next pickle pallets.

I was told I have a friend down in Minneapolis, and what they do is on one particular day of that week, they come in there and they totally tear everything down and clean it and disinfect everything. And then the rabbi I'm not sorry if I'm screwing this up rabbi. Rabbi comes in and blesses it. He told me how much they spend for the rabbi, come in and bless it. And it is an amazing amount, amazing amount, how much money they spend on it. And then they come in and they produce the kosher hot dogs and the different things like that. And then the next day, it's just back up and running as a regular butcher shop. But it's just incredible how much money is spent on to make a kosher.

Product just that much more for draft. Don't worry, we'll get into business together. That's all we're saying.

Sure.

So you decided to start a zoo because you're having a collection? Yeah, but it's got to be more than that. I have a lot of fish. I don't want to start an aquarium yet.

Jimmy, I'm not helping you.

Damn.

Yeah, I got you.

Don't worry.

Like I said, I've got other animal friends. A lot of them were either had a zoo or starting up a zoo.

So so this is a common thing, I mean, more than we figure. Yeah, because no one hears about people starting a zoo.

Right. And I'd say in the last ten years or so, there's a lot of newer zoos like myself starting up, for instance, Animal Adventure Park in upstate New York. Remember, shout out april the Giraffe. That was a big YouTube hit.

I do. I remember that.

Yeah. Funny story for that is owner Jordan Patch on Facebook, friends with him just because we're both animal people. Clearly. A couple of months before that went viral, he made a post. He was wondering if any of his friends did wireless cameras. He wanted to set it up in his draft bar, and he must have figured that out, obviously, and put it on YouTube.

We're going to have to get on it, man.

Yeah.

You got some ridiculously cute creatures.

Yeah.

So again, starting to get a collection. You have kids, so you're a stay at home dad. You had to quit your job.

My wife's a stay at home mom.

Stay at home mom, yeah. So what did you do before his due?

I got a farming background.

You were a handyman farmer, all in the area?

Yeah, I think all farmers are kind of jack.

All trades, pretty much. You got to fix it anyway, right?

Yeah. And it's cheaper to do it yourself.

Than to so rather than farming, you'd rather scoop kangaroo poo?

Yeah, it was dairy farming. And anybody that knows cattle. There's a lot of crap. I mean, a lot of crap.

I grew up on the farm. I have to agree with him.

Yeah.

A lot of crap.

Yeah. bovine in general, just not what you.

Want to be in a lot of.

Bulls because all those cows got 19 stomachs or something like that. And they're busy all the time.

Yeah.

So the light bulb went off. You're talking to some of these people, they're starting to do it. Like, what if I could start a zoo?

How do you make a business plan successful? Again, I talk to my animal friends, like, okay, let's say brainerd, for instance. I can't remember what the population? Let's say 20,000, right? And they were getting, like, 20,000 visitors a year. But midgie, same deal, 13,013, you know. So that's kind of your so you.

Kind of use other people's metrics to go, they have X people. This is how many people can show up. So you have a kind of an estimation of numbers, and you just decided, well, let's give this a try. Worst case scenario, I already have a bunch of weird animals.

Right. I was halfway there.

It's not that big of a risk. And you did the research. So let's pretend that Robbie is going to open up an aquarium right. In the area. There's probably, what, 30,000 people through all the small lake area, I'm assuming, because they're, what, ten in Detroit lakes? And then probably another 20 for all.

The small I went off Detroit Lakes population, they're just under 10,000. So that's the number I went off. And that's what we hit the first year, is 10,000 people.

Fantastic. So if you have a populace of it, you're just expecting with all the vacationers in our area, that it'll. Meet the exact population. Give or take.

Yeah, give or take. Yeah.

Well, that's fantastic. I would have not expected any of those numbers to be on the outside.

So that gives you a number for a formula. You got X amount of people, times whatever your admission rate is, how much money are you going to generate selling admission. And then of course, there's a cost involved as well.

And shots licenses with the usda, there's all kinds of feeds, vet bills for the stuff that you can't take care of.

Advertising is a big one.

Yeah.

Hold marketing budget.

Without that, people don't know what's even there.

Right.

Otherwise you're going to bunch of city chamber meetings saying, I have a zoo. Weird.

Yeah.

Was it a huge problem to go and try to get licensed for all this and stuff? I mean, you get some fly back on you.

Two of the licenses I had already that's with the Board of Animal Health with all the servants, all the deer species. And another one is a fur bear's license with Minnesota dnr holder.

Deal.

Yeah. And those two are pretty easy. The hard one is the usda exhibitors license.

Oh, the usda licenses are a pain in the ass.

Yes. There's a pre license inspection, so you get three pre license inspections. Okay. So I applied in January, the winter before we plan on opening. I think they came out April sometime. And it was like a five hour inspection. And this is pre licensed and they.

Charge you every time they come out, right?

No, it's a yearly license fee.

Okay.

Yeah. So after that first initial inspection, she gave me a list of things I needed to do, and I had to come up with another five grand to fix all the stuff she wanted done. But I did that and then I was like, okay, I'm ready. Let's do the second inspection. Came back, did the second one. There were a few minor things, so I was able to fix those overnight. They actually stayed in town, just came back the next day and approved me and everything.

So you pulled an all nighter?

Yeah. Well, it wasn't too bad.

Okay.

It was just a few minor things.

But for those that don't know about the usda, the usda is probably the hardest one to work with. usda regulates a lot, a lot of crap. So one of the things that you told me, Jimmy, was if you're going to bring in turtles, the usda mandates that you have to have a turtle over four inches because of sell manila issues. Correct. Calm down, calm down. So the idea for the usda doing this is kids are more likely, especially small children, to take a turtle and put them in their mouth. So their thought behind this process is that they'll take a four inch turtle and they're less likely to put them in their mouth. Let me tell you that that's a pile of crap. So if you're having a turtle, a baby turtle versus a five inch turtle, they have the same risk for salmonella.

When I dealt with the usda, I had read a whole bunch about stuff on it. You have a better chance of getting salmonella poisoning from the chicken juice, from the meat market, from your local grocery store just by touching the meat. You have a better chance of that than you do of getting salmonella from a turtle. And when we were down in Florida, we went into a lot of pet stores. And when we were down there with my buddy Mark, we're going to decide one day we're going to rip out the page of the yellow Pages. And for you people don't know what the yellow pages is, that's a phone book.

It's what Jimmy uses to sit on his pickup so he can drive.

Yeah, so I can see over the steering wheels. Piece of crud, punch you in a throat. So we went in all these different pet stores, but every pet store in Florida had one and a half two inch little turtle, baby turtles. And their law is that you can have them for educational purposes only, and you can sell them. So if you have a daycare, you can take home four little turtles to teach your kids. And so we brought that back to Minnesota. It didn't fly for nothing. We brought back a few turtles and put them in a pet store. They came in and said, you can't do it. And we said, well, florida's doing it. And they said, that's too bad. And they asked us to quit doing it, and we quit doing it. And we part of it as friends.

Sure. Part of his friends.

Sure. Yeah, we did.

So, yeah, the usda has a lot of ridiculous legalities licenses, and I think that's probably the hardest. Is that the same for you, that usda is the hardest?

Yeah, it's the hardest. And, yeah, since that initial pre license inspection, I get inspected yearly. They can come anytime.

Well, kind of like a health inspector, I mean, right. They're going to check your Chinese food. They're going to check a zoo.

Yeah. I mean, excluding weekends, weekdays, 07:00 A.m. Or yeah, 07:00 a.m..

They are a government agency. In fact, they probably had the day off, which was Martin luther King Junior Day.

Did you have the day off today, Rob?

I certainly did.

Piece of criminal get jealous. Yeah. Today's Martin luther King Day. By the way, if you're listening to this podcast at a later date right.

What animals did you start out with when you opened the zoo? Like, what was your your list?

I wanted to get some of the main popular ones. zebras, camels, kangaroos. We start with we had alligators, wolves, bobcats.

So let's pick out a couple of those.

Right.

Wolves are the most shocked. Wow, wolves. What type of wolves do you have?

They are tundra wolves.

Oh, the white ones?

They're like a smaller Arctic wolf. Is that correct?

Arctic wolves are the white ones. Tundra wolves, they probably look like a timber wolf.

Like a dirty, dirty wolf. Like a dirty wolf.

We got some that are darker and some that are lighter. We got four right now.

So being at your place, I think that's just incredible, seeing the wolves. And they do act like puppies, essentially, how they seem to react with you. I'm assuming that they're not that way with everybody, but it's really interesting seeing that at the zoo in person.

Yeah. People are like, well, that's a dangerous animal there. And well, it is, don't get me wrong, but we hand raise those from pups. I myself do go in there generally and play with them and they're just like big dogs, really, to be honest with you.

So what other critters did you have starting out? Because you've expanded since then.

Yeah, I think we had kotamundes, like I said, the white tail deer, elk, some other exotic deer, fallow deer, sequin deer, munch.

You did have a petting zoo?

Yeah, petting zoo. Typical farm animals and whatnot.

Yeah, I got mugged there.

You got mugged?

I got mugged at the goddamn petting zoo.

Please tell the story.

It's kind of embarrassing.

Is it?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, let's hear it. We already heard your phone book story.

My wife has some family from down Minneapolis and they came up and and we drove by one of the signs out on the highway ten here, and they said we should go over there. I said, absolutely. And so we went over there. One I think it was one Sunday afternoon before us went. And we went, walked around, looked at everything, and then we went over by the petting zoo. And my wife is from the Minneapolis area and not a farm girl, and so she goes up with her with their handcuffed with some of the the feed that we bought to feed the animals. And the first thing that little a pony did was try to bite her fingers. I don't think he was biting her fingers, but you have to have your hands flat in order for them to try to bite your finger.

Right.

And so me being a heman, I said, sweetheart, let me show you how to do this, because I grew up on the farm and I'm tough and I go over there and I make my hand completely flat and put the food on there. And the thing went for my fingers immediately and a little dickhead and knew.

You were going to punch it in the throat.

Yeah. This is a little tiny shetland pony that stands up maybe, what, 3ft?

Oh, it's that yeah.

Don't know.

It's bigger than that.

It's like a clydesdale.

People, if you're listening, it hauled budweiser as we speak.

That's right. Anyway, after being accosted by this little shetland pony, I took. The feed cup, and I went to just feed him out of the cup, and he latched on to the cup with his mouth, and there was a tug of war, and I had both feet pulling as hard as I could. And he's pulling back and forth. And finally he gets it out of my hand. He steps back, two steps into the corral, takes the cup in his mouth, he spikes it on the ground, and then he kicks it with his foot. And then all the goats come over and eat it. And I was mugged by goddamn horse.

We snaw.

Well, you'll be glad to know Jimmy, though, those horses are no longer there.

Are they glued?

They were actually my biggest problem that first year for reasons like that. Yeah. One little girl yeah, got bit, threw some blood.

They were just going after the cups, man.

I mean, they weren't bad before we opened. They just got crazy, really.

So you're blaming me? Yeah, it's pretty much my fault.

It started with Jimmy and went downhill. Is this on video? Because I really hope no one talks about this like it's the best day.

Everybody about peed themselves watching this and stuff. And there's, of course, another six or eight people around watching it this time. But, no, we didn't win the $10,000. We did not have it on video, unfortunately. But I was mugged by a horse. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

A very tiny horse.

Shut up.

It was a client.

Have you been back since then?

No, I have not.

Because I'm scared, you know, now that they're gone, they're gone.

So I'll be back.

You should be safe now.

Well, what I'm going to do, I'm going to come over with one of those bombsuits like that so I don't get accosted by any of the animals.

We'll let you in the wolfpin, see if they attack.

We'll hang steaks on you, too.

But a pork chopper on my neck?

We'll do it for charity.

That's how my parents used to get the dog to play with me. But a pork chop, hey, that'd be.

A good fundraiser for Rich.

Well, we'll put him in a suit and get him eaten up. That would be funny.

Just do like a steak thing. Jump in that giant pool they have with a bunch of feed.

There we go.

If you get bit by an alligator gar.

No, thank you.

So we have a friend, he's in Ohio. He has a fish rescue. He has now 94,000 gallons in his house.

Wow.

In his house?

It's insane. He's literally converted his whole house over to the fish sanctuary. His whole idea is that he wants to take these fish that normally purchase in the aquarium hobby. They're not intended to be. They're six foot, eight foot creatures and has a place for them to go. So he has one massive aquarium, and it's just his private just to rescue him. He's not there for show. If people want to, they can show up, but it's not a zoo setting. And yeah, that would be a big thing.

Yeah. They're always looking to make a little bit of money.

Comfort yourself in stakes and jump in.

Jump in. There we go.

Right?

All right, so you give us a little taste of how it started. So your first year, you're nervous as all heck. What happened?

What happened?

You opened the gates and open the gates. You had a line going all the way into town.

And those that second and third pre license inspection, the third one happened the day before I planned on opening, so in case it went south, I didn't want to advertise too much before that day. I call it a silent opening. We were open, but we didn't yeah.

There was I was there a couple of days before, and you gave me a private tour. It was quite nice. And you were talking, showing off the wolf pen. And there was no wolves in it because the usda hasn't that's right.

I'm not clear about that.

Yeah, you had to keep these things in a trailer because, like, the first.

Night they were in the trailer. I got something set up after that.

I was there that first night.

Yeah. Because under their guidelines, wolves are a dangerous game. So I had to essentially write an essay. And I'm not an essay person. I had to write an essay. Would you hire calligrapher my dangerous animal experience. Wow.

I used to go to school with Steve irwin. I wrangle crocodile.

My nickname is nubs.

Yeah.

My nickname is nubs.

And the teacher to grade this essay is in North Carolina.

So you got to put some Southern comfort ahead.

I have to send this I forget what it's called.

Letter of whatever sent.

Yeah. To this gallon.

I will not.

North Carolina. She's going to grade it and decide if I'm going to open or not good enough to exhibit my wolves, which I already own legally and everything.

Right.

So you didn't want to put in your essay that if somebody doesn't pay the entry fee and they sneak in and they wolves eat them, that's just fine. They couldn't put that in there?

Couldn't put that in there. But yeah, after I think it was like six weeks or so, we were finally cleared with that, and we got our wolves out and on display.

How long did it take for real people to show up?

Because Robbie is not a real person.

Yeah.

No, I'm not real.

Everybody will agree on that.

Love you, too.

We had, like I said, silent opening. And then once a few people started coming, facebook started blowing up. At the time, I didn't have an actual business page for the zoo, and I knew I just used my own account, had trobridge Creek Zoo as the name, and I was getting, like, 200 friend requests a day for people wanting to see the information on it.

Fantastic.

But yeah, I'd say after the first couple of weeks, when it was starting to get around that we're finally open and everything, it really started blowing up. And then, of course, we got some news channels out of fargo that came and did a story, and so that got some good cheap.

Yeah.

So in that first two weeks, you're kind of like, wow, this is going to work.

Yeah, it's really good. I think we did have, like, 30 people that first day, which I thought was amazing. Now if we get 30 people, I was like, dang, that was a slow day. That wasn't even worth coming out here.

You're hopping and skipping.

That first day, when the 30 people left, you said, thanks, mom and dad.

I think half of them were friends, by the way.

We didn't spend any money.

Yeah.

So by the middle of that first year, I think I talked to you and you started having this idea of upgrade phases.

Yeah. And that's always been in the back of my mind, and I'll admit they're not happening as fast as I thought they were.

But you didn't even know you could do a zoo a few years ago.

That's correct.

I mean, this is leaps and bounds, sir. applaud yourself.

Thank you.

Everything costs money, and if you think it's going to be $100, it's $600 every time.

Yeah, I think that.

And people don't realize that, and they'll look at what I charge for admission, and some people are like, that's expensive. Even if I tell people, yeah, we had 10,000 people that year.

Oh.

They're like, oh, you made 100 grand. I'm like, yeah, but it cost me 200 to make that. So, I mean, there's cost everything, the.

Fencing, the usda, the licensing, the feed.

And just the cost of the animals.

Well, then you seem to be there all the time, but you have helpers. Are they just family or friends?

I got two part time girls that in the summer, they do most of the feeding and yeah, they help a little bit in the off season. Like, if I do take a short vacation or something, they can jump in and take care of stuff.

So how long have you been doing this?

We've been open for summers now, so we're going into our fifth summer this next year.

It's fantastic.

Yeah.

How many acres you have out there?

I own just over 40 there on the property we developed, I'd say it's around eight to ten right now.

So you have eight to ten acres with the zoo that you pretty much.

That'S open right now.

Yeah. And you're and you live on that property, correct?

Yes, on the back side of the property. So I'm there all the time.

So when he goes to sleep, he's.

Like, oh, yeah, wolves all night long.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

So quick question. I have seen some timberwolves in the area over by the frazier area a couple of years ago. When those wolves are bang, does that bring in other wolves? I mean, does other wolves show up? where's the party?

I have not heard any wild wolves react to my wolves. Occasionally we will get some coyotes that react to it.

I'll be terrified of yours.

Yeah.

The one liner from Cliff in like.

Get out of here. Yeah, but I've not heard any wild wolves react to mine anyway.

Okay. Yeah. I happened to be driving home one night and it was a timberwolf that went over there and I had two other people in the car and we all went, what? I mean, the thing was almost as high as the hood of the vehicle. It was a bigger vehicle and stuff. And I did talk to somebody over by the crazy area and they said, oh, yeah, yeah, there's a pair of them living back behind there somewhere. So they're very aware of them. So they are out there.

That's why they're saying Fraser, not virgos. They're opposing cities.

That's right.

They need to keep away from them.

I don't think wolves cross highway ten.

Yeah, no, clearly not the line.

My guess would be that his wolves have their when they howl. That's how they notify other wolves, that this is their territory. So they're probably telling them, this is my spot, stay out of it. And coyotes are the only thing stupid enough to go visit with them.

Yeah.

So that's probably what's happening, is that the wild wolves won't go near your spot because your wolves are like, this is ours. And they also sound different, so they're probably like, well, I don't want to go near it.

Right.

And coyote is like, well, this sounds interesting, let's go check it out.

Yeah, but yeah, the most noisy time of the year is in the fall because I got elk bugling. The wolves are more active in the fall. Halloween fox are really loud and annoying at night. I do got some coyotes in the zoo right now. When the wolves go, the coyotes go all the time now, and every now and then you get a donkey going off, too.

I just have a million questions. I don't know about you, Jimmy.

Do your neighbors hate you then or not?

We're far enough away. They got to listen to to hear it, actually.

They just make sure to keep their ammunition by their door. You know, one of the offenses.

If they get out, let me know if we're headway right away.

We got callers on everybody. So you said talked about elk, right. Do you have issues? What do you do in the rut to prevent a lot of fighting?

For my safety and my family and my kids and for the animals themselves. A lot of the elk and the deer, I knock them out with some tranquilizer and I cut their antlers off.

Because by the time you want to knock their horns off, I'm assuming you don't want to get up and touch them. So you literally try to hit them with tranquilizer from a distance, or do you walk up to them, trank them, cut the horns off?

I got a tranquilizer gun, so I shoot a dart at them and take them down safely. Ten minutes later, they're sleeping on the ground and I go in.

So you ever auction off these antlers? Because I want a pair.

I have sold some in the past. I haven't auctioned any, but they're good.

Less competition. Call me. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, they are not cheap, those antlers. There's a lot of money being spent on the wall.

Imagine right up here, podcast studio, antlers on the wall.

You can see it right here.

Yeah, right. Some milk antlers would be good, but you'd probably have to mount it near the floor.

But, yeah, that's your freaking 6ft.

It's a coat rack. Think about it.

Like I said, if I don't cut them, I got more than one bull in that band. They're going to fight. One of them is going to die.

So you knew this from the get go? You haven't like it's the hard way?

Well, like I said, I started 20 years ago with what, deer and elk, and I have lost them in the past, leaving the antlers on again, like I said, safety of myself and my kids and everybody. It's just best to take them off.

Did they ever try to fight without horns?

Oh, yeah. They'll still head butt.

They'll still get into each other.

The first couple of days after they wake up, they're, like, kind of hung over quite a bit for a while.

At the trank. Yeah, you give them a good cocktail.

I got so drunk last night, I lost my horns.

A few days later, they just got little buttons on their head. But they're still going at it, so they still get their job done as well with the ladies.

So that's all that matters. Let's get to breeding. Because you have a ton of animals.

Adam is thinking about breeding.

Is there any unusual breeding going on?

Not even unusual. I mean, you have a ton of critters. There's got to be babies and certain times of year for a lot of your creatures. What have you bred? And I'm assuming you have to sell these. Correct. After you get them breed, you don't just keep on creating a massive herd.

Yeah, I mean, my kids have problems with that. We have wolf puppies every year.

You have four wolves. You have puppies every year.

And we can't keep after this. I need to talk.

Sure. They got it, buddy.

All right.

Usda is not listing. Adam.

Where was I?

You're telling us about puppies and how.

You make your kids cry.

No, I can't keep them all. Yeah, my kids get upset, but they did you know? They did.

Over how old are your kids?

Youngest is six and a half. Oldest is 14 now.

Wow. And they have a huge interest in this with you quite a bit.

You know, it's just like growing up on a farm. Just more different animals, really.

So you have these small pups. Again, your hand feeding them, training them. From a young age, you can sell them. So they're more human conditioned.

Yeah, just like ours were when we got them.

So then your family literally has little puppies, and then you have to get rid of the puppies. That's why it's hard.

Right.

Wolves are cool. It's literally like a dog in their house and they have to get her up. Their favorite puppy.

Yeah. Just like you, Jim. Once you breed your dogs and have puppies, if you had kids in the house yeah. They'd be upset with the puppies leaving.

Yeah. My kids are growing up. They're 28 and 26. And those are the jerks that named my dog moose. I got no say in it whatsoever.

None.

None.

Over. Yeah, it's gracie and moose.

Gracie and moose. Yeah.

You have wolves that procreate and sell. The most interesting one that I found was the African porcupines that you breed.

Yes.

I want to hear about for those.

That don't know, there's two different main types of porcupines you'll see in a zoo. The American porcupine, which has almost looks like they're just a palm. Palm. You don't really notice the hard spikes from a distance. The African porcupines, they're a different story. They look like they have bones sticking out of their features.

Yeah. American porcupines quills are probably four inches max. It's probably more like three inches.

These things make you look like you went to a Pier One and stole them out of a vase.

Yeah, that's kind of what it is. African pork vines, they can be short as much as two inches, but they get up to a foot long, even.

Longer, and they're hollow. So they're very intimidating. When you walk up, you either piss one off or he wants to tell you that you need to back away. They'll shake their air end, and these things are hollow, so all you hear is like a hiss. And it's all of these hollow quills hitting together.

Their tail quills rattled just like a rattle snake. Pretty much, yeah.

First of all, where do you buy one of these things? I mean, do you buy one of the exotic animal auctions?

Our first pair of African porcupines yeah. Came from exotic animal auction down in Missouri.

So I'm assuming these things aren't very tame.

Our first pair? No, they hated me.

They hated swatch.

So how does one capture porcupine? I mean, do you go up with big gloves and wrestling to the ground like your marble?

No, gloves. Gloves don't help at all. I just take a large grain shovel, like, if I can move them in for the winter.

Just a flat snow shovel and call it good.

Yeah, pretty much. I take the PEC carrier, put them in the pen, and just kind of herd it into the PEC area with the shovel. And that's about the easiest way, really.

So you breathe these things?

Yeah.

I got to hear about this. How do they mate? I mean, how are they not getting.

Very careful, very carefully, very slow.

So what he does I don't want to give your spoilers here because you have trade secrets. We don't want to give those out.

Okay, sure.

He starts out by grabbing a 80s boom box on a shoulder and starts playing you're the Inspiration by Chicago.

Oh, yeah, right.

And that song is right here.

Right here?

Yeah.

That's beautiful.

That'Ll get any porcupine going right there.

Get them all thorny.

So that's how we get started, but please continue on from there. What's the rest of the tracy so.

How many how many babies do they have at a time?

That first pair, we were doing pretty good for a while. The one year we had four litters in a year?

In a year. And how many babies do they have per litter?

That took a lot of D batteries.

One to three, typically.

One to three?

Yeah. I never got three. One or two was the most common.

And so when the babies are born, of course, the quills are very soft.

Of course they're soft until they dry off.

Okay.

Only for a short time.

So they're sort of like a hedgehog, because we used to raise hedgehogs for a long time, and those are nice little critters.

I'd rather handle a porcupine than a hedgehog.

Really?

Yeah, the hedgehogs hedgehogs are a pain in the ass.

Yeah. Don't put them for a while, but.

Yeah, they were just and they're angry.

So when you end up with some babies, do you keep add some more females so you have a little bit bigger brood? Or do you just immediately put them for sale somewhere after they mature?

Sometimes we'll let the parents raise them. If there's, like, a sale coming up that I want to take them to or something, we'll pull them. If we do pull or decide to hand raise them, we got to pull them right away. This is just porcupines in general. Otherwise it could kind of become pricks.

We love it.

We'll pull them right away and start them on the bottle and everything. Everything. And get them going.

I got actually, there two days after one of your first batches, and it was the most adorable thing. If you want to have a cute moment or an ah moment, google baby porky pines and lose your mind. Yeah, you want to touch them. Don't get your hands too deep.

I don't know if it's African, but North American baby porcupines are called porcupets.

Yeah, porcupts.

And we typically hand raise a North American porcupine every summer. As well.

Do you guys still have a lot.

Of North American porcupines up there? Because I saw less and less of them.

Are you talking about in the wild in general?

In the wild in general, yeah.

There is quite a few. I've never seen one south of Highway Ten. It's always probably about an hour north. A deal. Like Parker rapids area. Bamidji. Okay.

They generally stay in the Pine area from my experience around this area.

And there's definitely more pines north Iowa Ten than there is south.

We're right on the edge of the Pine central of Minnesota. From here up from Minnesota all the way north, that's where you get all the Pine territory. So we see them, just not as particular. If you drive 1 hour.

Right.

You have so many different creatures. What is your most difficult creatures? I would expect to be the alligator, because you got to bring it in. You're in the middle of winter. You can't leave them outside. You can't leave them in a barn. You probably have to keep them heated somewhere, at least to a decent temperature.

Yeah. Do you know the answer to this?

I don't.

I've not told you this?

No.

The alligators and the tortoises, those are two things. They go in my basement in the winter.

So let's just say you have children, right? Your children are going to get older. So when they get older, you're going to be like, hey, 10:00, or I'll feed your boyfriend to the gator.

That's how you keep the boyfriend away.

That's how you make it done right there.

Yeah. And reptiles, they're really sun driven as far as growth or something.

We kind of place yourself in your basement right now. You probably have some stock tank with the gator in it with, like, eight sun or heat lamps over top. How does that set up?

Yeah, you're right. It is in the stock tank. It's about seven, 8ft long. I got my two bigger gators in there.

How big are your gators?

I think right now they're like five and 6ft long. So they're not huge.

And they're not five and 6ft. They're not guys.

They're not they're not that theirs.

They could just kill me. I mean, they're not that big, though.

Five and six footer ain't going to kill you.

No. They're just going to lop off your fingers and your name will be nubs.

All right.

So we got to address this. Right? A few weeks ago, I have a little aquarium decoration, some of the other tank over there, and there's these little glass Ponchi stick to the side. I decided to break one off in my hand.

Right.

So they just healed. You could kind of see some of that went to the bone.

Yeah.

So now I'm nubs. Right. That's why I can't have gators to me, I know you wanted me to have gators. I can't have gators. The blood in the water type thing.

I sold Adam cayman a while back.

No, you didn't.

Wasn't you?

No, it wasn't me.

Because remember, I had one in the lake in rapids, and they got all pissy. They thought I had it, and I'm like, It wasn't mine.

Yeah, that was a big ordeal that they had some black cayman down in southern Minnesota. You probably saw the articles.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Somebody released they can't confirm if it's intentional, but they got punished regardless. A handful of gators in there, and they found them kind of half alive in the fall on the shore because they're freezing to death. And of course, families lost their mind because it was what, pier Lake, Minnesota? Over by the casino?

Yeah, it was over by the casino.

Highly populated area with these gators sitting there. And these weren't particularly small, and they're not alligators, so they're not that friendly.

Well, 20 years ago, I was able to purchase cayman from one of my fish suppliers, and they were cheap as heck. They honestly were cheap as heck. Like, I want to see.

They were, like, $30 wholesale.

And anyway, talking to those people down there and stuff, and they said, I'd rather handle alligator or crocodile before handling a cayman. Because caymans are much nastier because they have all of them down in Florida, out in the everglades and stuff.

Okay.

But, yeah, I sold several cayman to people in the area and stuff, and then they ended up at zoos because they got too big thing where they're in somebody's basement in the stockpile, that sort of thing.

Our third alligator is just a baby. One is about a foot, 16 inches. That one was found in audubon.

You're kidding.

Which is what, a half hour? Yeah.

That's not far at all.

Yeah. And the person that found it, we had alligators and said, hey, do you want this alligator I found in my backyard? And I was like, yeah.

That was my first call when I heard about Prior Lake because I was talking to some of these animal rescuers in Minneapolis and they told me, no, they died before they could get a hold because they froze.

Okay.

So I'm like, I got a buddy who's got a zoo. He'd love some cake.

You bet.

So what do you feed alligators, Summer, or in your basement?

Our bigger ones. It's a raw boneless chicken.

Like a bone in.

I've never tried bone in.

I mean, you don't want to risk a lot of stuff in there.

I'll be fine, but yeah, and it's almost chicken.

It's a good stuff.

Yeah, kfc, right?

Get yeah, kfc. Once a week, I head to kfc. Got to feed my gators cheaper and raw sometimes.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I'll take the 200 piece bucket, please.

The vet comes in. It's like he's got a real high cholesterol right there.

Lipitor.

All right, I'll cut the biscuits.

There we go.

Summertime. We feed the gators once a week, winter. We offer it to them once a month and sometimes they don't even so.

How cold is your basement?

It's 70 or better.

They're just not getting a lot of it's.

The sunlight. Yeah. And we do have the uv lights and everything, but they know it's fake light.

They're hibernating. They're doing their best.

It really is just like winter storage. I mean, we forget they're down there sometimes.

A lot of the creatures, they do do like a hibernation esque deal at.

Christmas time and everybody's over having some hot toddies and stuff. You send your uncle John downstairs to get a can of supercompute, comes back.

And go, what the heck is at me?

Yeah, they do make a little bit of noise. So do you have cayman and crocodiles?

I just got alligators.

Just alligators. Okay. Because crocodiles are saltwater, correct, or am I wrong?

No freshwater one.

Yeah, there is.

It's just different locations. There's a lot in Africa, there's crocodiles in a lot of places. But like Florida is the gator area.

Yeah, we were down in florida.

Florida has got crocodiles now.

They're kind of recent development.

Yeah, it's just like down in Florida now. You can go down there and they're paying people to go out and get the large snakes out of the pythons.

The pythons that are exploding so heavily.

Yeah, and I believe it is the python. Yeah, they're not native there. They were just kind of like the fish. People have them. They're all invasive pets and people release them or hurricane goes through and wipes out some houses and they get escaped.

The difference between Minnesota and Florida is Minnesota. If someone releases a croc in the audubon, they're dead by winter. Florida, they just keep on going, procreating. It's perfect. I mean, they're vacationing like the old people.

Yeah, right.

So you said you had turtles. Now, I love your turtle exhibit because tortoise tortoise your petting zoo area. You have this area where you put boulders. It's really a creative idea. It doesn't really work out from what I'm seeing.

But you have these creative that was supposed to be the easiest, cheapest exhibit to build.

Right.

All those boulders I got within a mile of my place, but now it's.

A big pain in your ass.

But I didn't realize 50, 60 pound tortoises were going to escape from that.

Right. So to explain this, you put a bunch of boulders in a row around in kind of like a circle area. And you put kids play pens in the area and it's like a little grassy area. And all the big tortoises you have stay in there. They feed on grass.

They're supposed to stay in there.

The kids can touch them, interact with the tortoises.

So the boulders are just wide enough you can scoot your feet through and go in there with them. And we encourage that. Yeah, it's a hands on exhibit, but.

Clearly the tortoises gathered. Together, got pissed and started digging out your giant boulders.

What species of tortoise?

Salkata tortoise. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Those guys are assholes.

See, they'll dig.

Yeah, they're pretty popular.

Adam down by wabashaw takes care of he has somebody that saves reptiles and whatnot. So, Adam, tell a little bit about what you do, your part time gig with, that you help out the animals. And how many tortoises do you have?

Okay, yeah, they have leopard tortoises, Russian tortoises, box turtles, salcatas. They have an algebra. They also have a gator and a red tail, boa, constrictor, some other snakes. And I just go there every day. I feed them, make sure they got clean water, clean up the poop, just check on them every day. I love that job.

And those tortoises you have, too, they put them outside for pretty much the whole summer, don't they?

Yes.

Once it gets warm enough, we let them out. And then they have like a hillside to graze with prairie plants and a bunch of basically it's like maybe half an acre outside. And I put them in, I rotate them from pen to pen to pen, and they just graze. And then I move them when they get the grass too short and just keep rotating them around so that everybody gets food at all times. And they just love the summer.

So, Adam, is it like chainlink fencing or what's continuing on there?

He needs some ideas here.

So what they did for their salt is to keep them in is the only way to do it is you have to bury wire, chain link fence down about 4ft.

I believe it. Yeah, we got a couple of tunnels along our rocks that are that deep.

Yeah. So what they do is they dig. So you have to bury it down like 4ft deep. And then you also have to make sure that you don't have any really sharp corners because smaller tortoises will actually climb straight up the walls and get out that way.

Spider turtle.

Yeah, pretty much. What else might work instead of chain link for you is actually cattle panel. And that I know works because we've been able to keep them in with.

That.

Kind of just dig, dig no matter what. And so the whole thing you got to do is the ground that they're on is really heavy with clay, and it doesn't really hold well for their digging.

Okay.

So that's how they've been able to keep theirs in. Eventually, we're going to dig a pond in there for the algebra to soak, because the algebra need to soak. And you know what an alibaba is, right?

Yeah. Okay.

For the audience tell you how about algebra, please, I'm uneducated here. Come on.

If you know what a galapagos tortoise is, it's like those big 500 pound.

Tortoises, the ones I wrote on back before they were illegal.

They are still there.

Yeah, it's illegal to write on them.

Now.

But an algebra is just from a different island in African, near Africa. And these are a giant tortoise that was almost extinct, and now people can buy them as pets. They're not cheap.

You should see dusty Face, his face lighting up like more tortoises.

Just what I need. I think galapagos are the largest, whatever you just said. The ones you're talking about are the second, I believe algebra. Algebra, algebra. And I know Solcados are the third. Get to be the third largest.

Yeah.

And solicitors are just assholes. They're fun to deal with sometimes, but if you have a bunch of males, they fight. How many males and females do you have?

I got two males and yeah, they're constant. No, well, I'm not real good at sexing my tortoises yet. I think we got a male and female, but either way, yeah, they're constantly fighting.

He only has so many batteries for the other animals. That's right.

Adam, what's the biggest tortoise you have over there?

That would be the algebra, and I think he's pushing £200.

Wow.

Holy crap.

The biggest salkata I ever saw was £400. And it took four full grown men.

To lift them 60 more pounds. And that's Jimmy.

This is the part of the show where I say, I'm going to punch you in the throat and actually do it. So, down in South Dakota, Rapid City reptile Gardens.

Yes.

When I was a kid, as all.

Of us I was a kid, we went there. I rode turtles when I was, like, six.

Yeah, great. They have these big galapagos turtles. Tortoise. Are they tortoises turtles?

Tortoise.

Tortoise.

That's tortoise.

And they are absolutely huge. So I was there, and they always have somebody kind of standing right next to them. You could go in and interact with them, but they don't want you sitting on them anymore.

Yeah.

The one we were just there a few years ago, the one they said was like 103 years old. And she says, what's funny is that people will bring photos when they were a kid from 30, 40, 50 years ago and say, yeah, this is me as a kid. And she goes, I can look at that picture and say, Was that tortoise over there? Because they've got six or eight of them.

Yeah, it's a little bunch they have there.

And she goes, I can look at any picture and tell you what tortoise it is just by looking at the patterns of the shells, because I've spent half my lifetime here.

I think they breed them and Reptile Gardens, do they? I think so.

That is incredible.

I think so, too.

Yeah. If you want to see something outrageous, go to the Reptile Gardens in Rap City, South Dakota. It will blow your mind.

Yeah, right.

All right. So we went through some of your toughest, but where do you keep the turtles? Along with the same place? alligators. In the basement.

In the basement. Different stock tank, different pen.

Got you.

Now you have a lot of hooved animals also over there. And I used to belong to one of the zoo associations down Wapdon, North Dakota.

Sure.

And I used to deal with the zebras.

Zebras are turks.

Okay? That's where I'm going. So my favorite thing was back in the I want to say late 90s or early 2000s, Wapperton, the zoo flooded. And at that time, 97. And at that time I lived up here in Detroit Lakes, and I still belong to zoo association, still belonged to the club. And they called me out of the blue and say, we are flooding down here. Everybody that's from the area is fighting the flood. We need people to help evacuate the animals. Can you come help us? And I went, yes, I'll be down there in an hour and a half. And I got in my car, I went down there not really knowing what to expect. And so I got down near breckenridge, which is for people listening. breckenridge walked in their sister cities. One is in Minnesota, one's in North Dakota, and from there the National Guard took me in in humvees, and we went into the zoo and I got elected to help take out the two meanest freaking animals. The first one were the bald eagles, marca. And the only way you can keep bald eagles is if they've been rehabilitated because they have a broken wing or they can't be released out into the wild.

Right.

The water was about four and a half foot deep and they were scared to death. And the water is ice cold. I have waiters, I go in there and I grab a hold of this eagle. They actually had the is there a certain word they have they have those little leather things they put on the legs.

Eagles.

I don't know, trusses.

That they called adam trusses, yeah, that's the tethers.

Right?

Right.

So somebody had gotten in there, got the tethers on the darn thing and then got out of there. So I went in and grabbed the eagle. That was a young male, and he had one good wing, one bad wing, and he beat the levant tar out of me. But what hurt the worse is I had a pair of leather big gloves on. He grabbed a hold of my thumb and I thought he was going to break my thumb. And my thumb turned black and blue and went up, all the way up, about six inches up into my hand by the time I got him out of there. And then the next thing they sent me over was to go get the zebras. And we're trying to get the zebras.

And you have, no offense, like zero animal experience before this.

I grew up on a farm. I didn't want to hurt a hog.

But I just find it odd. They call you out of the blue, stick you in with the papers, they.

Literally wrote him that he was supposed to be in existence. He was supposed to be part of the monkeys.

I had lived in Wapton for quite a few years, and so I was a volunteer zookeeper okay. And stuff. So, yeah, I'd had some experience. Not in your face. Up and close.

Right.

And so then we had to move the zebras. And who shows up but our friends from to tell us that we can wear the government.

The government?

Hold on, Sam.

You're making me edit a lot here.

Calm down, dude. So anyway, they're telling us we had people that were in Minnesota that said, I've got a barn. I can take these things. And they're saying, you can't take them over state lines.

Right.

And the zookeepers are going, people, have you noticed that the water has gone up six inches since we've stood here talking?

It goes deeper the farther it is.

It's at that time when they had four or five zebras, we got the females in, but we couldn't get the male in. And so somebody thought it'd be a really good idea if we just got a piece of plywood and just kind of try to push him into the trailer. And he kicked through the plywood and hit me on the inner thigh next to my I thought that was a tattoo. No, it's not a tattoo.

Well, quit wearing a speedo around me.

It's gross. And so by the time I got home, it looked like the hell's Angels had kicked my ass because I got beat up by an eagle who had given me a black eye and a bad thumb. And then it got kicked darn near in the crotch by this zebra. Meanwhile, we're fighting with the government, too, that we can't take these things out of there. And finally they kind of just got ran off. They said, you need to leave.

Yeah. You're not helping.

Right?

Yeah.

And so we moved all these animals and stuff, and a lot of these animals. It was like noah's ark in this guy's barn. And he just happened to have this huge horse barn with all these different stalls.

Oh, that's perfect.

And he had just built it brand new and hadn't gotten any horses yet.

A miracle.

It was like noah's ark in there.

That was like, yeah, perfect.

And very lucky. But yeah. Zebras are dicks. Yeah, your horse is a dick and zebras are dick.

So now your four summers into it, next year is the fifth summer. Right?

Shifting gears.

Now, what other dick animals can you get now? What do you have right now? So again, just start rattling off because this is like your flex area. Like, I'm a great zoo. Hit you with some names. What do you got?

Top to bottom. Whenever, anytime anybody asks me what I got, I got to visually go through the zoo and my let's do it. Let's walk through together. In the gates. We got seacadeer, we got drama degree camels.

Well, I was going to say you got to talk about the camels. That's the first thing when I see there.

Yeah.

Bitters.

You have this special area to do camel rides even.

You're a cool zoo. Our second year we started doing camel rides.

Right. And then you also said, please don't don't smoke. I know it's a camel. Don't smoke.

Yeah. So camels, kangaroos, we got a couple of walls.

Okay, I have questions.

Here's my other point. There we go again. Anytime somebody asks me what animal you.

Can'T get through, I can't get to.

Five without another question popping up.

All right, you get two questions here, adam, come on now.

No, I'll wait, I'll wait.

Keep going, keep going.

Okay. muntjack deer. rob's favorite cappa berries.

Darn right.

Or as I like to call them, crappy berries.

These things are the sexiest rodents you've ever seen.

100 pound guinea pigs.

That's exactly what they are.

They're delicious.

We got some marias, we got some emu.

Wait, they're not kosher. Jimmy, you should watch your palate.

Continue. I'm not Jewish. ah. dads.

What are craw? dads.

But he is barbaric sheep of North Africa. It's like Africa's. bighorn sheep.

Are those the ones, the creepy eyes?

They all have creepy eyes.

Yeah, the sheep, they were right along the lake there. Yeah.

Okay, continue.

They're eyeballing me.

Let's see. We got some Neil guy antelope, not.

To be mistaken with Neil Young antelope.

He's just making shit up now.

We started with a male and when we got her female, my daughter was like, so is this a Neil girl?

And it just caught me off guard.

I was hilarious. But yeah, then we got white tails. We got some skimmitar horned oryx which are actually extinct in the wild.

He had to beat up an old lady to get one pair.

David'S deer. I think I said earlier, we got the only herd of them in Minnesota. So that's pretty cool.

Swag, do you still have prairie dogs in that same area?

Yes, prairie dogs.

It's cool because you don't have like, a cage for these things. You just set up a den and they're kind of just everywhere. They'll stay around home.

I don't want to say they're free ranging, but they're not contained.

They're free ranging.

They are established.

If the usda is listening, they're contained.

Usda does not like them.

Aren't they kind of like the worst animal there? I went to the what?

They are cutered in hell. That's one of my favorites.

I like them.

One of the meanest.

No, they're fine. They do their own thing. I don't have to feed them, I don't have to water them. I have to do anything with them. I just look at them.

One of them came up to my cup. They were real friendly and personable.

Yeah, when you got on the western North Dakota, they're everywhere out in Western north Dakota out in the badlands, and they have prairie dog owns and people sit there and watch them for hours.

Yeah. And we've managed to keep our prairie dog town around a dozen or so.

Yeah, you keep it like, right in the middle of the hooved pens. Right in the middle.

I used to have American buddies in that pen, and it looked more natural then.

So compared, like, the prairie dogs, the Red River Zoo to yours, like river zoo. You can't even send the smell because I got this pen that's just dug up every day. It's real bad, yours. It's fun. They are. And they seem like a natural habitat, but continue.

Okay. Red deer, elk. We got the farmyard petting zoo area. Just goats, sheep.

You still got fuzzy pigs?

No, darn.

Fuzzy pigs.

They're fuzzy pigs.

Yeah, I got rid of those.

They said that you couldn't have that unless you fried bacon.

My inspector's issue was he wasn't paid.

Enough get to work on the weekend.

So they were digging underneath the fence because they're pigs. pigs dig. Right. And so what we did what any farmer would do. We put hogg rings in their nose to keep them from digging. Right. Well, she didn't like that because it wasn't natural.

It's a pig.

And at the time, I'm like, nothing's natural about that. Kind of like the tortoises. If you got to dig a fence 4ft deep, it was not worth it for me at the time to dig a fence 4ft deep.

Okay, you're keeping the tortoises, which launch.

You know yeah, we're keeping those.

Good.

But, yeah, I think we butchered the pigs.

You didn't hear that? They're in a better place.

Yeah. So goats, sheep. We got some miniature cattle, miniature donkeys. Then we got the emus. emus. I mentioned that already.

Did you pay attention?

I was trying to go through in my head.

While we're doing this, we got some coyotes. I just picked up a black back jackal last fall. It's like an African coyote, pretty much flex. We got Arctic marble fox, red fox and silver fox, tunder wolves, alligators, american porcupines bobcats, North American raccoon.

You also have an aviary, if I remember correctly.

Yeah. We got some macaw parrots, and we had some green wings. We got rid of the green wings because they were jerks to me anyway. The male was jerk.

Is that why your hands shaking while you talk about them? No, as he shakes his hand.

I'm just counting with my fingers. Yeah. We got parrots. What else? We got a kinkachu.

Just making stuff up now. What's a kinkachu?

Kinkachu. Do you know what a pikachu is? From pokemon?

I do, actually.

It's nothing like that.

Nothing like that at all.

Good start.

Right into my best.

I know, best new joke when you've.

Only got four, I thought, hey, are.

You a Pokey stop. For pokemon Go?

I think we are. I'll buy your sign.

I think now you have a new zoo contest, I think it'd be interesting.

To do a pokey stop on the back of one of the wolves.

I think we just stopped you from your list again.

Okay. I think mountain coat of Monday and white nose coat of Monday. That's South American raccoon? Pretty much. patagonian cavies.

They're way better, by the way.

Yeah. patagonian cavies. We got ringtail lemurs. Got some eland antelope, fallow deer and zebras.

What about the cranes? Don't you still have those?

Oh, yeah, the cranes. We got some Stanley cranes. Yeah. I didn't get them out this year.

No.

For some reason, I needed to go more this year.

I think I only went once in.

This for two years. I had a temporary pen set up for them, and I just didn't feel like building it and taking it down this year, so I didn't get them out. Also this year, we got an owl monkey that's coming once again, making up stuff again. And even better, we have a snow monkey. Snow monkey right now is in my house. My daughters take care of them.

Are these the same monkeys that have little jacuzzis in their natural are you going to make a little jacuzzi?

I told my wife we need a jacuzzi with a monkey.

It's like, what are you doing? And just sitting there, taking selfies in your jacuzzi.

With the monkey? With the monkey.

He's picking ticks, you know, picking ticks and sticking ticks.

Chicken.

And we got we got some peacocks roaming around.

Also, fun fact, peacocks will make you crap your pants if you're not prepared in the middle of the night. They will just scream out of the middle of the trees.

Okay.

Yeah, we're so used to them now.

Are you?

Yeah, we sleep right through it.

I mean, you could sleep through a literal zoo.

Yeah. There we go.

So what's on your wish list?

Wish list?

What's on your wish list?

If Adam is sitting there at night and he's looking at some magazines and he's got some weird people to talk to, what's he going to send your way.

Again? A draft would be cool. Just not feasible at this point.

Do you have a place to donate to help with animals?

We used to have a draft donation chart up, and then I remodeled and I just didn't get back up. But yeah, we will take donations for that.

So what is your website and how do people donate?

What is my website? Our website is trowbridgecreekzoo.com. Donations. I think we just do in person.

If you want, we'll fix that. We're going to get a PayPal link up there. We're going to make this digital, have stuff flow in for you.

Awesome.

Go to Trowbridgecreeksoo.com and all strong artem. Don't worry, you'll be able to donate some money.

Okay, I'm still waiting. What other thing did you want besides.

The giraffe sitting at the edge of the seat?

You have no idea. Well before I leave Giraffe. Before you get a giraffe, you need a draft barn, especially in Minnesota.

That's part of it. That's like a kit. You buy, like, one aquarium. You just don't get fish. You buy a tank.

And you're probably going to be close to 100 grand just in the barn itself before you even purchase the draft. So that's why that's a little far out. You'll get that? The next things on my list would probably be hyenas and warthogs.

Oh, I know a guy.

I knew that was coming.

Anytime you need some weird stuff, the battle is like, I know a guy.

I know a guy.

He goes to dirty, if you know what I mean.

No, I'll talk about it off the air.

Okay? I probably know the guy already. Probably knows the guy.

He's probably already got his stuff.

He's like, I know the guy that did timon and pumpa like that. That's the guy.

Yeah.

See, there's a story behind this. My wife, when we found out we were pregnant with our first daughter, I was like, I want hyenas. Because I figured any teenage boy that could go through a pack of hyenas is good enough to date my teenage daughter.

There you go.

And she bet me that I couldn't find hyenas. And it took me, like, two emails and a phone call and a beer. Don't forget the most important ingredient, and besides the hyenas.

Warthogs. Okay. Yeah, warthogs.

Adam doesn't have a warthog connection.

Ward hog guy. How long until you get a big cat? Come on, now.

Big cat. I do have a buddy with snow leopards.

Oh, my God. How do you get how do you not get that in your zoo immediately? Like, those must cost a pretty penny.

Yeah, well, let's not go there. Yeah. They do not sell leopards. They are endangered.

Clearly. That's why I'm blown away.

Technically, you're not supposed to take money for them. You can donate them, but you can't take money for them.

Got you.

So what do these big zoos do? Something like that? I mean, do they just trade them? They loan them, that sort of thing.

For something like that where you're not supposed to sell them? Yeah, there's probably something.

Eight African porcupines and a goat.

Yeah, it's zoo. Not a logistics, but zoo adequate part of the business. Yeah.

Number one.

Yeah, it's basically trading.

I just read an interesting article about the pandas that we get and the pandas that are in the United States. None of them are owned by any of the zoos, but they rent them. They rent those pandas for $100,000 each.

Wow.

To the zoos? Like the Columbus Zoo and stuff? And they do big fundraisers and stuff so they can get pandas. But once they get the pandas, the amount of people they get in the zoo just quadruples and whatnot. I don't know why people love the pandas so much, but then look at that. They got to bring in bamboo every day to feed them those darn things and stuff. And I mean, that's just not logistically even possible up in this neck of the woods.

And personally, bandas don't really excite me too much, but like you said, some people go crazy over them for some reason.

I would love to have some giraffes in the area. I mean, I know that como Zoo down in Minneapolis has some giraffes and I know there's some to our east and whatnot.

There's actually 25 privately owned giraffes in Minnesota. I knew a guy up north and he knew everybody. And I'll give you his name too.

We're going to have a conversation after this.

Yeah. I feel like we're running a black market here somehow.

I know, right. Besides your wish list, what are some of the things we can expect? Give us some secrets to the future of your zoo. What are these phases you talked about?

Yeah, phases are basically just additions I want to do. And one that me and Rob have talked about a lot is I got a pond in a corner of the property that once I get that fenced in, we're going to have a pier going out there and we're going to have some koi fish.

You talked about a waterfall rehabilitation center. Is that still a viable idea?

I don't know about rehabilitation. It'd be more like along the lines of the ball to give if you can't rehabilitate it back to the wild.

It's a place to heal. And if they don't heal, there's their home.

Right. Yeah.

The plan that you spoke of is you have this pond. It's all within your property. There's two giant bluffs behind it. So even if you had a massive flood, you would have to flood the earth before these would overflow. And they seem to be not necessarily man made, that could possibly be man made, but there's definitely no connecting body of water. So appear across it having broken wing waterfowl and coy below it and coin their natural setting. So they have hopefully we're still trying to measure, but hopefully over 6ft so they can winterize on their own with some little help with aerators and goodies. But what other stuff that you got going? I know you have the entire front of the zoo that you had some ideas with or more hooved animals.

Yeah, I'd say along with that pond area, the rest of the wooded area in the zoo, I want to do more than North American. Like cougars. That would be a big cat, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. Links, badgers, stuff like that. Bears.

Badgers, bears. And then 65 year old women wearing leopard print cougars.

Yeah, cougars.

The nanny. So it keeps going through my head.

Every time I make that joke behind a black curtain. Right, right.

Virgos, Minnesota trowbridge Creek zoo.com. But go to your Facebook page to find more information. That's where you have those videos.

That's probably the best place to get content. Yeah.

And if you want news, like, did you know, did they have a baby porcupine? You know, and you want to see the cute baby leaners, that's the place to see it. You're going to get the updates and the notifications and the events, because you've had a lot of events there in the past.

Yeah, we have.

What's the upcoming events you're going to do this year? If you're thinking about fish show. Fish show? I'm sorry, what?

I'm sure. I think we're doing Kids Day for Saturday in June. I think it is sometimes on the 4 July, kind of depending when it is, we'll have an event, and then every fall we've had a fall fest as well, and yeah, always a great turnouts.

Well, then he's going to be doing a pokemon Go tournament at his establishment.

Has he known this yet? Probably not.

So one of the fun things we did here in perm just for food, for thought, people are listening. If you have a business that has a pokemon stop, this is fun to do. So what you can do is you can have a bug catching competition. So what they do is they go to your business, and they're going to pay an entry fee after your access for your zoo. Right, right. But you offer a prize, whatever the prize may be, cash, tickets, whatever else, free giraffe. They have to catch a Bug type pokemon inside the range of your zoo during that day. And whoever has the highest rated, the biggest pokemon gets the prize. You have a first, 2nd, or third place. They did that in perm over at the ice cream parlor. You had to catch it somewhere within city limits. Worked out really well. Just all kinds of people showed up.

Nice. I think I should do whoever can kill the most flies. Right?

There you go. And your prizes. You could take them all home. Yeah, take them and put them in your pocket.

There's another expense. People don't think it flies. pest control. Yeah.

You got a spray, don't you? A lot of spots.

And this year, I don't know if it's just a bad year or what. I spent over two grand on trying to get rid of the flies. They were still terrible.

Well, now the zoo is growing bigger. Right. They have a taste for camel.

That's probably that's what it is. You're exotic flies rates.

I bet you Adam knows a guy.

Who knows a guy who can get.

You some lizards to eat those flies. Probably.

Yeah, I probably do.

You got to paint up those camels. Use advertisement space. Like a nascar.

Yeah.

Be like a community bank.

Yeah.

On the fur that won't tick people off. No, that's not we painted our camels.

Just like what they do at Easter time. There's always some numbskull who paints baby chicks and sells them at a pet store. And people lose their mind.

Hey, those normally taste like marshmallow, though.

Yeah, like the little peeps, right? There we go.

Oh, you're not talking about peeps.

No, I'm talking about real live chickens.

I won't eat those.

This and they paint them bright pink, bright blue. And people just lose their mind.

They'll do that with the rabbits, too?

Yeah, I don't know. I see your wife, she has purple hair. We don't know.

She doesn't have purple hair. And you know why? Because when we are on the cruise or at a concert, I can find her in a crowd, or at least I can narrow it down to 25 people.

You just look up for me, you.

Know, going along with that. Sheep farmers, for every 100 sheep you have, you've put in one black sheep. So if you got a count of sheep, you just count how many black sheep you have. So if you're missing a black sheep, you're missing 100 sheep.

Hold on. What if they have 150? Did they plant one, like half black, like a cow?

Maybe they go by 50, have these, I don't know.

Well, God, HR is going to be down to you again.

All right, well, Adam, you had questions that you saved up so politely.

They can wait.

Are you sure? Because the audience is listening. They might want to be part of a couple of those.

Okay.

You just have the right what species of kangaroo do you have? Do you have the reds or the grays?

I got 1 reds.

Okay.

Now, I was wondering because I was looking into wallabies at one time and somebody had told me that it's so nonchalant.

I was looking at wallabies.

Is this the type of nuts people that you hang out with? I was looking at wallabies.

How have I not met Adam before?

Right. How did you not have a zoo?

Okay, well, anyways, he's got a poor kid that I was talking to because they said that you had to shield the water because if the birds crapping it, there's a parasite that will kill the wallabies. Is that the same way for kangaroos?

Wow.

I think dusty just fell off his chair.

This is why dusty brought a cap on his water bottle.

That is the first I've ever heard of that. I'm not saying it giggle that on.

Your inner tube there, Adam.

Yeah, I'm not saying it's false, but.

There'S something behind it.

Horsepucky.

I mean, our water bowls are maybe three gallons, so the chances of a bird carrying the disease or whatever and crafting it is probably pretty rare and they get cleaned out daily.

Well, that's what I mean. That's what I couldn't understand because it just made no sense. Why would a bird carry something that would kill a wallaby or a kangaroo?

Yeah, what are the questions you got, buddy?

I wouldn't worry about that. Go ahead and get your wallabies.

Get six wallabies.

Okay.

Get a whole pod since Minnesota changed their rules a few years ago so that you couldn't have primates and wolves and big cats.

I don't think it was wolves. I think it's just big cats and primates. Wolves might be on there.

Wolves were put on there and then bears, too.

Do you have to get flyers with.

Tigers and like a zoo in order to get them or how did you go about it?

It all boils down to your local law enforcement. It really does. When I was looking into getting lemurs, I called my usda person. They're like, well, it's up to your state rules and everything. We just regulate how you exhibit them. So I called my board of Animal health. They kind of have the same answer. It's against the law, but it's up to your local authorities if they're going to enforce it. So then I called my local game warden that does game farm license and he's like, well, you got your usda license, I'm cool with you having them, you know.

So you're asking for permission from literally everybody?

From everybody. And then I called the local sheriff's office and same thing. They checked in to make sure I had a usda exhibitor's license and they're like, yeah, we're cool with it, but not every county is going to be the same on that. I basically got permission. I didn't get any nose.

You go down to hennepin, there's too many famous people getting mauled by tigers that you can't do that in the Minneapolis. No, but up here in the metro.

Area I can see that. Yeah.

What I'm saying is I do have special permission from otter Tail County to have primates.

So the other question I have is you're not an aza zoo, right?

No. And I don't want to speak badly about them. I'm kind of against aza because they're not bad, but they're not really like my skimmer horned oryx they'd rather fix all the males and not breed them. Whereas I'm like, no, we need to repopulate the world with these things. They're extinct in the wild. But I am Z.

There are running differences between you.

Yeah. So aza is more like your government funded zoo, but we are like they call it a zaa, zoological I forget what it's called.

We got them on the spot.

It's more for smaller guys like myself.

Okay, yeah, these are good questions. Cliff has got his game today.

Well, no, I like all this stuff and yeah, I'll just go into it later.

Adam is going to be having a podcast by himself tonight.

This is his favorite podcast by far.

Adam, he's so excited. I feel like I have to talk him off a ledge or something. My goodness.

Don't worry. He was like this before we were on the podcast. Oh, zoo. You'll do it. All right, no more questions than Adam. You want to take the rest offline?

Oh, the Cape vera, are they as friendly as regular guinea pigs. Because guinea pigs are awesome.

They're more friendly. Don't let them kid you.

They poop more if you hand raise them. They're pretty friendly. Ours are just not wild. But they weren't hand raised, they were mother raised. So they're just basically a breeding group.

Google Petting cappy barras. And you'll get this whole thing where they're getting massaged and they just make these faces. They're cute. You may hate them, but I love them.

Down where you're at, if you look up cockadoodle Zoo.

That'S not a dirty.

I feel like you're trolling him.

He's a friend of mine. He's got a permanent spot set up at Maplewood Mall right now that just.

Started yeah, last weekend.

And he picked up he got a cap baby from me this past spring. I'm sure that one's good and goodly for you and everything.

I'm just trying to think. So what mall is it down in Minneapolis that they put this in?

It's Maple.

Maplewood Mall. Correct.

I know it's maplewood something.

Yeah, it just made the news down in Minneapolis here, and they took part of the mall and leased it out to him for a long time. Wait.

Yeah. Since I've known him, he's been wanting to get into Mall of America, but it's just too big.

Too expensive.

Yeah, too expensive. I can't remember what the rent was.

The Mall of America is going to fifth floor now, and of course, they already have apartments and all this craziness. The bottom floor is done with sea life. That giant aquarium. They're vastly running out of space.

Yeah, like I said, I think rent was like over a million dollars or something.

They probably do it like a contractor that they pay over his time.

Crazy. I'm glad he's got something going now. It's not his big dream of Mall of America. It's in a smaller mall. So it's been successful or I know, yeah.

That's the problem we have up here in northern Minnesota. I mean, you have a short season because I mean, when it's ten below, I'm not going to come over and look at your kaka berry.

Yeah, because it's probably all shriveled up in kaka berry.

I don't know. He's just making stuff out.

No more beer in the spring before the snow is even gone. I'll get people that come up my private driveway, ask if we're open and we're like, the gates are closed, we're closed. We got some spring cleaning to do for I'm sorry.

I'll leave you alone next spring, I promise.

I don't think you were quite that bad, but he was. But yeah, in the fall, really, once it starts getting below 50 degrees, you know, you just don't get the traffic and it's not worth it.

Now, are you doing any programs with the local schools and stuff for education to get the kids in and stuff?

I've done a few. I'm not the best.

He's willing, though. You've done it for fairs and whatnot.

Yeah. Well, we do mobile petting zoos, I say, right? Yeah. We do probably ten to twelve small town festivals every summer.

Don't call him for catering, but as.

Far as the schools, I haven't done a lot of that. I'm not much of a public speaker to little kids.

There you go, Jimmy. There's a job position.

Yeah. Little kids love me.

Yeah.

They'll ask you about the cappy berries or whatever that you can't pronounce.

I can't pronounce a lot of stuff.

Yeah. I got to put up with my own kids. So put me in the room with a bunch more that aren't going to listen.

How many kids do you have?

I got six.

See, Adam, you have no excuse. Get a zoo going.

You've got six kids.

I do.

Dang. When did you have time? Free zoo.

Okay. Yeah, this is prezoo, but along with the petting zoo, kind of an off season gig, if you will, after Thanksgiving, we start nativities. So we bring a camel, a donkey, a ox, sheep and goats.

Can we dress Jimmy up as Santa and have caribou?

Oh, you bet.

I'll be one of the three wise men. Matter of fact, I'll be all of the wise man.

Hey, we'll dress my wife up as an elf. It'll be great.

If the three wise men were wise, they wouldn't have camels.

That's right. Because they're spitters.

They don't spit.

They don't spit.

If they're super pissed off at you, they will spit.

He's got a fun camel.

I got one.

Out of all the camels that you know, this is the most fun. How many camels do you know? It Robbie.

I know two. You know, two camels, his camel and then the one that you're not supposed to smoke anymore.

Wow. This is right here is where you put the crickets chirping really bad.

Get right on that. I'm the one that edits this.

Yeah.

So I don't put crickets on myself.

Yeah, I know. So do you have a one hump camel or two hump camel?

We got one hump camels.

I thought he was going to say three.

I hate that joke. I hate that joke because I do the camel rides, you know, and I get every kid what do you call a three hump? I'm sick and tired.

I do call a three on camel. I don't know the joke.

I don't know that.

No, really, you guys have to you.

Still have to watch zootopia.

What is a three hump camel?

It's an animated kids movie that came.

Out save me 2 hours of my life.

All right. Three hump camel yeah. Is pregnant, which it's kind of a dumb joke because it has to be a bacterin camel to have the first.

He'S analyzing this way too much.

Yeah. That's why every zookeeper hates that joke.

Do they?

I just hear it too much.

You know what you do when those kids ask you to punch them right in the throat.

What'Ll? Go.

Well, we're going to get him a T shirt now.

I'm getting him a T shirt.

What it is, is they tell that joke to a sloth and the sloth's expressions is so funny because it's such a slow expression.

That zootopia. That was the best movie ever because the sloth worked at the dmv.

Exactly.

And that's where the joke comes from.

I must have been drunk. But no, the dmv joke where the sloth is there stamping stuff was freaking hilarious.

Again, thank you, dusty, for your time. Coming. You're here in person. We don't give this a lot, so it's nice to get you local. This is your off season.

Yeah.

Before you get busy and start opening coin the pond or some other aquatic spring shoes, we'll talk. If you guys want to support them again, trowbridgecreekzoo.com and find them on Facebook as well. We're going to get him to put PayPal on his website so you can throw money at him so he can get that draft. Finally.

Yeah.

If you guys are looking for rates that are on the website. Otherwise you can get a season pass, which is by far the best way to go. If you're in the local Minnesota area and help support the zoo, just mention the aquarium guys and maybe he'll give you some another free scoop of feed to give them. You never know.

Oh, yeah.

If you know somebody out there with a draft that's just causing trouble and you want to donate a draft, send them our way because we'll happily put them up in $100,000 barn. Because dusty's got nothing but money in time.

Nothing but money in time. Exactly. Well, thanks again, buddy. And let's kick that outro.

You're not supposed to knock me in the head with the stump.

Darn. It Jimmy. Give me the right outro this time. All right, let's do it.

Thanks, guys, for listening to this podcast. Please visit us@aquariumguyspodcast.com and listen to us on spotify, iHeartRadio itunes and anywhere you can listen to podcasts.

We're practically everywhere. We're on Google. I mean, just go to your favorite place, Pocket casts subscribe to make sure it gets push notifications directly to your phone. Otherwise Jim will be crying into sleep.

Can I listen to it in my treehouse?

In your treehouse? In your fish room. Even alone at work.

What about my man cave?

Especially your man cave.

Yeah.

Only if adam's there no with feeder guppy.

No, they're analyzed you magic loving sucking motherfuck.

Well, I guess we'll see you next time. Later.