How Mackay concreter Trent Humphreys fell in love with snakes

A Queensland concreter went from believing the only good snake is a dead snake, to owning hundreds of them. See the effort it takes to keep them alive.

Trent Humphreys displaying one of his most sought after snakes, the Albino Darwin

Trent Humphreys grew up with the notion that the only good snake was a dead snake.

Now, at 47 years old and with two children, he has over 300 of them sitting at home.

He makes up a small part of a growing community of snake enthusiasts in Mackay as more and more people have been drawn to an increasing number of morphs, the colour and pattern variations on a snake.

Mr Humphrey owns a number of green tree snakes which can be found in the north eastern tropics of Australia. Photo: Luke Lay

But for Mr Humphreys, it was a mate’s pet snake which sparked a fascination in him over 15 years ago and the passion just grew from there.

“We used to go for beers round his and take the snakes out and muck around with them,” he said.

“The fascination just got more and more and the more people that you know have got them.

The amount of stuff that we can have and some of the morphs that we’ve got now is just crazy.”

Mr Humphreys snake collection has grown to about 300. Photo: Luke lay

Beginning with only around half a dozen reptiles, Mr Humphreys now compares his collection to an addiction, so much so that he’s been forced to turn it into a business.

“It’s turned a bit too big to not turn into a business. A lot more people are getting into them,” he said.

“The younger generation is starting to get into them as well.

“They’re a great pet, especially snakes because they can go eight months without food.”

When he catches a break from working the concrete pumps, his attention is drawn to the reptiles, spot cleaning the tubs, feeding the baby pythons small frozen pink mice and the larger ones rats.

The baby snakes are kept in small containers in a 30 degree room Photo: Luke Lay

“Sometimes it’d take me a whole day to do everything,” he said.

“Mates come over and help him with it, they come because they’re fascinated by it too.

While none of his snakes are venomous, the collection does come with its risks.

Bret Modra has been collecting snakes as a hobby for 45 years but recently had to close off his collection due to the outbreak of a deadly disease plaguing captive serpents.

A respiratory disease called Nidovirus took off in Australia after the first outbreak was detected amongst captive snakes spreading worldwide.

Like all his snakes, the ALbino Darwin is not venomous. Photo: Luke lay

Mr Modra compares it to a coronavirus disease which can destroy a snake’s ability to breed, and potentially kill them.

“Female snakes will not produce follicles when they’re too sick, so therefore your breeding stops,” he says.

“It also drops their immune system like AIDs does and they can be killed from things that normally wouldn’t affect them too much.”

He says it can wipe out a whole collection and has forced him to spend upwards of $15,000 testing his snakes to ensure he didn’t have the virus.

“If you were to come out and say I have this virus, in the hobby basically you’ve destroyed your reputation,” he said.

“Even if you spend all the money in the world to clean your collection to get rid of it, your name will be associated with that virus.”