Getting into hots

[Bighead]

I'm not considering getting one any time in the near future as I am far from being prepared and don't have any close friends that own hots. Now that I have that out of the way,

How did you guys get into them? You must have had some experience with them before you bought one, right? Was it a close friend, a breeder, etc.? Just curious.

Jordan

[boydsnakes]

I was offered the snakes for a good price and went from there.

[Mustangrde1]

Natural selection lol... I guess just a life long love for them. The first hot i can remember seeing was a Coral snake on the Original Wild Kingdom. From that point on it was a quest to have one. Little did I know what type of addiction it would become.

[crazykeeper]

I was at a reptile show in Florida and talked to a few people,bought 3 and have been hooked ever since,the only thing i can say is there is no snake to train you for a HOT other than a HOT,dont get me wrong,do not buy a black mamba as your first HOT,start out small like a copperhead.Hope this helps...

[jtpRUGGER]

Everyone at our family ranch kept killing all the copperheads we found. I argued for hours on end with them, year after year, but to no avail. Finally, I just started catching them, and bringing them home. That solved that. I don't know if that lead to my current interests, but I'm sure that had something to do with it. Several years later I started getting real training for hots, and I can not express to you what a difference it has made.

[Bighead]

Couple new questions... What type of reaction is typical with a copperhead bite? I know there was a huge thread about "the best beginner hot" and I don't want to get into all that, but what are some other common ones that have less severe consequences when bitten?

And jtpRUGGER, what was your "real training" and who was it from?

Thanks

[jtpRUGGER]

My real training consisted of hour upon hour cleaning empty sweater boxes, watching someone else work with the snakes. From there we moved on to hookwork, and safety practices. Basically what it all boiled down to was me watching and being around someone with years and years of experience with hots while they worked with them. I don't have his permission to use his name here. I don't think my training can ever really finish, as each time I work with him I learn something new about individual animals and their habits. After I started I was amazed at the safety protocol (even though now it seems like common sense) that I never would have thought about before. I can't stress enough how important that training has been for me. If you start now, you will be doing yourself a huge favor FAR in the future. Just my two cents...hope it helps.

[KrokadilyanGuy3]

Back in the olden days, Xain lived with his childhood sweetheart "Josh's Mom" on a hillside farm deep in the hollows of Western Oklahoma. Xain had loved no one but "Josh's Mom" since he was a boy, until one day they both decided to travel a treacherous roadway..
The dirt roads gave way to wild, untamed forests. Strange creatures chattered and shrieked from behind the dark trees. Gentle creeks gave way to raging, dangerous rivers.
Xain fought his way through the thick brush and found himself standing on a ledge overlooking a beautiful creek bed, And nestled in that converted gulley was a dull dirt mound pile of pony dun; So I thought. With lush fields and gardens, and a clean, sparkling stream flowing through the center of the bed.
Josh's Mom sain, don't fret 'G. I have a magical stick to move this mound from our path. As she poked and prodded, the horsey dun moved.. Twitched! Alive came the dun, Alive I say! We gleemed upon this magical feat and soon after through it into a bag, made the merciless journey home and encloused the animal into a glass container we now call terrariums..
On some nights,though, a strange thing would happen that would awaken Xain and Josh's Mom from their deep slumber. He would hear strange sounds drifting from the dark woods surrounding their home. At first, they only heard the sounds of the night crickets as they called out to one another. Sometimes they would hear the howl of a wolf, or the low hoot of a mountain owl, But then he would hear something else, something that sounded like - whispers. Numerous whispering voices drifting from the blackness, in a hushed conversation the two could not understand. They would then drift away, and they would return to his slumber..

Well, that's something like how I started. Found a cotton, decided what the hey and kept him for a few weeks. I was young, 11, 12 maybe? Never did get actual training. I was way into herps long before this though, so being it was a snake mainly provoked me to keeping it.
~Xain

[Bighead]

Thanks for the story, Xain. :)

[KrokadilyanGuy3]

Heh, Im sorry. I was bored..

[Crotalus75]

I have always had an obsession with reptiles and amphibians and I started keeping them at around 3 or 4 years of age. Herps have just always been in my life and I learned to work with venomous by keeping herps in general and interacting with them in their natural habitat. My first venomous encounter (other than at the zoo) was a massasauga rattlesnake that was underneath a rowboat that my father and grandfather had rented. I was probably about 7 or 8. My first hands on encounters were with copperheads and cottonmouths in the wild.

[Artemis]

Originally posted by Bighead
Couple new questions... What type of reaction is typical with a copperhead bite?
Thanks

Though I myself do not keep venemous snakes, nor do I think I would have the kahunas to do so, I can answer this question.

When I was young I had returned from a long trip, and had gone outside in the early morning to vist with my cat. Growing up as a kid in the country shoes were a non-necessity for me. I managed to step on what I thought was a shard of glass, quick and painful, but not excruciating, much like stepping on a needle. I looked down to find a tiny baby coppehead attached to my foot. Turns out the cat had been pissing it off before I got out there.

Now, being that the bite was on my foot, and therefore far away from my heart and brain, I was able to take my sweet time getting to the hospital. My father was insistent that we capture the snake to take with us. Ill never forget riding to the hospital with the snake in a little tupperware next to me, clinking at the sides of it, still trying to bite me.

I was too young for antivenin at the time, they were afraid it would be worse on me than the venom itself. Also this was the early 80s when things in terms of treatment were a lot different than they are now.

I was in the hospital for a good week and a half, lots of the veins in my legs died, and they looked like big black and blue road maps, my foot turned black and scabby, and swelled up about 3 times its normal size. I hallucinated, could not keep any food or drink down, and horrible and painful muscle spams in my leg and up into my chest. I had to use crutches for a month and a half after I was released, and to this day, and I swear depending on the atmospheric pressure, the bite site still gets achy.

Now, as like ALL of you probably already know, baby snakes have the potential to give you a much larger dose of Venom, and they have more of it. Also, a snake that has been agitated and sees no escape (thank you cat) is no longer striking and running, but striking to kill.

Now, I do not say all of this to discourage you or anyone else from keeping venemous snakes. I think it is a cool hobby for anyone who has the wisdom to understand that there will ALWAYS be a risk factor no matter how careful or experienced you are, and that being blithe about keeping venemous snakes is probably the stupidest mistake one could make.

Not fear, but healthy respect, and detailed understanding of exactly what you are dealing with, which varies from species to species. Copperhead bites are seldom fatal but they can be. Factors that play into that are where on your body you are bitten, and how much venom you take on from your bite.

Copperheads, to me, are very beautiful snakes. But Ive had all the "up close and personal" experiences I need to with them. I dont like to tempt fate ;)

To anyone who keeps or is thinking of keeping a poisonous snake, you are taking on the dual responsibility of caring for one of God's creatures, and yourself. In addition to learning all about how to take care of the snake, I would check with my local medical facilities to see what types of antivenin they keep a supply of, and search the net for info on bites. That way, no matter what species of snake you keep, you can take care of you, too.

Artemis

[Crotalus75]

"Now, as like ALL of you probably already know, baby snakes have the potential to give you a much larger dose of Venom, and they have more of it."

Larger venom gland = more venom output. A larger adult would have a larger output.....as for toxicity.......I really don't know with certainty so I will refrain from speculation.....

[psilocybe]

Originally posted by Crotalus75
"Now, as like ALL of you probably already know, baby snakes have the potential to give you a much larger dose of Venom, and they have more of it."

Larger venom gland = more venom output. A larger adult would have a larger output.....as for toxicity.......I really don't know with certainty so I will refrain from speculation.....

I agree, an adult snake has the capacity to inject much more venom than a baby, if for nothing else than larger venom glands. There is some evidence to show that some species of snake's venom changes as the snake matures. This is usually in snakes that change dietary habits as they mature, i.e. fer-de-lances. The venom changes to deal with the change in prey items. I'm not sure if the mechanisms and nature of the modifications in venom is understood very well though. Therefore, it is possible a neonates venom could be more potent than an adult of the same species. Again, I'm no expert, so anything I say is purely what I've concluded from my own research and investigations into the subject....hope it helps.

AP

[Artemis]

Really? All the doctors told me that baby bites were generally worse. They said that baby copperheads had a lot of Venom as a natural defense, and that as they grew older, their bites were less serious. But, it was the 80's, and I still think half the time doctors really dont know what they are talking about ;)

Thanks for the clarification.

Artemis

[Oliverian]

You might have been right about them injecting more venom as babies because I've heard adults can and often do control the amount of venom they inject. (Hence, dry bites) I don't know much about it, but if a baby injected all the venom it could and an adult limited the amount, I can see how a baby bite could be worse.

-TammyR

[Crotalus75]

I have heard that neonates lack the control that an adult has over its venom glands, but an adult specimen will still generally yield a much larger quantity of venom (assuming that it is not a dry bite). A neonate vipers venom glands are tiny. They don't have the capability to inject the quantities of venom that an adult does.

[psilocybe]

Originally posted by Oliverian
You might have been right about them injecting more venom as babies because I've heard adults can and often do control the amount of venom they inject. (Hence, dry bites) I don't know much about it, but if a baby injected all the venom it could and an adult limited the amount, I can see how a baby bite could be worse.

-TammyR

Crotalus75


I have heard that neonates lack the control that an adult has over its venom glands, but an adult specimen will still generally yield a much larger quantity of venom (assuming that it is not a dry bite). A neonate vipers venom glands are tiny. They don't have the capability to inject the quantities of venom that an adult does.

I have heard this also. An adult rattlesnake has learned through experience to save and conserve it's venom. A baby has no experience and is willing to give it's all to you. Personally, I don't know what to neccesarily believe. I have heard a counter argument to this that simply states that babies are less toxic because of the tiny quantity of venom they are capable of delivering in comparison to an adult. I would just say, baby, adult, doesn't matter, I don't wanna get tagged by either :)

AP

[BWSmith]

It is called "Metering Venom". Adults often have the capability to control the amount of venom injected. Newborns often lack this ability, so a neonate may empty as much venom possible. The perfect example of metering venom is PK. She will not inject venom into prey items. One the couple occasions when i was forced to offer live food, she would grab the rat and throw it across the cage or beat it into the side of the cage. This would go on for often over an hour untilt he rat died of pysical trauma (shove sharp things through a rat enough times and you will pierce a vital organ). On the other hand, she is very aggressive to humans. Cleaning enom off the glass is a constant chore. She will even bite the hook and squirt venom in great volume. She seems to control when and how the venom is used (unfortunately, it seems to be all aimed for use on humans).

[Matt]

thats interesting, i wonder why she wouldnt use her venom on a prey item, especially when she expends so much energy into killing it other ways?

[BWSmith]

Maybe she would if i were not in the room. Perhaps since I am there she wants to "have her guns loaded". But i am not going to leave alive rat unattended in her cage ;)