Garter Snakes, MMA, & Is The Reptile Hobby An Addiction?? With Adam De Freitas

Episode #159 of Daffy’s Round Table!

On this episode, I’m joined by Adam De Freitas, with David from Clubtail Exotics joining me as co-host.

Adam has a pretty unique background. He’s a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, a former MMA fighter, currently competes in bare-knuckle boxing, and has also been keeping and breeding reptiles for the last 20 to 25 years.

Over that time, Adam has worked with a huge variety of reptiles, including a number of different day gecko species, but these days he’s probably best known in Canada for his work with garter snakes.

We spend a lot of this episode talking about garters, but the conversation goes way beyond one species. We get into how your taste in reptiles changes over time, how your husbandry and techniques evolve as you gain experience, and how the reptile hobby can very quickly become a bit of an addiction.

We also talk about how reptile keepers can become completely unreasonable without even realizing it. The number of animals, the space, the money, the time, and how sometimes you do not really notice how far it has gone until you step back and look at it from the outside.

Adam and David also share some great stories about what it was like working in reptile stores years ago, and we compare the reptile hobby today to what it looked like 20 years ago. We talk about what has improved, what has changed, and some of the things that were completely normal back then that would probably seem crazy now.

If you’re into garter snakes, old-school reptile stories, the evolution of the hobby, or just want to hear three reptile keepers talk about how far this obsession can go, there’s a lot of great stuff in this one.

Follow Adam De Freitas:

https://www.instagram.com/adamdef/

Follow Clubtail Exotics:

https://www.instagram.com/clubtailexotics/