“Hey Waffle!” -- it's never gotten old, and since I can’t seem to run from it, I embraced it in 2008 when I formally launched Waffa House Reptiles. Like so many others, I must confess to a lifelong fascination with snakes. Growing up in a suburb of Chicago, reptiles were the mysterious living dinosaurs I so rarely got to see. My parents bought me books to try satiating my curiosity, but they only fed the fire. It seemed the answer to every question yielded only new questions, so I get the sense that my chronic fascination may be terminal...
I am a very small-scale breeder of unique, exceptional quality reptiles. As a veterinarian with a background in conservation biology, population ecology and public health, my approach to (and reasons for) captive breeding differ greatly from many -- though not all -- breeders in herpetoculture today. The development and propagation of morphs, a respectable industry in its own right, is not the focus of most of my projects. Rather, I seek to cultivate natural art: breeding and refining wild type specimens representing living monuments to a time and place in our natural history. An avid field herper with an eye toward conservation, my overarching career goal is to improve the husbandry and veterinary care standards of captive reptiles while helping to bridge the gap between academic herpetology and popular herpetoculture. I breed snakes to help reduce the pressure to collect and sell wild stock, to help ensure a future for my chosen lines in the face of mounting environmental tensions, and -- ultimately -- because it satisfies a morbidly primal curiosity, one that has always yearned to understand that which is most feared and least understood. It follows that I do not condone hybridizing species, nor do I line breed animals for which I believe there is a likelihood of inbreeding depression or clutch failure. Rather, I go to great lengths to hand-pick the specimens I add to my collection and keep detailed records to ensure that the animals I produce are as outbred, robust and healthy as nature intended.
