comments on venomous snake handling

careylane · #1 (**permalink**) 02-10-2005, 12:28 AM

I have been impressed with the knowledge of some of the folks here and even though we have different opinions on steve erwin I would still like to learn any potential knowledge available as would I am sure many here. so I would like to start having disscusions on various venomous snake handling ideas and hopefully we can all learn something new because when you have it all figured out than You can't learn anything new.
So to start I would like to hear opinions on short stout vipers. Staying out of strike range is always a key to not getting bitten but what happens when they are short and quick and you cannot safely stay out of strick range. Puff adders are fast and not much of a chance of touching a young puff and staying out of strike range. Of course we always have small tree vipers such as bush vipers, pope vipers and the such, small little fellows who do not like letting go of the limb and are way too small to stay out of range and even though the copperhead is not as dangerous as puffs or gaboons they are quick little buggers. So how about some ideas on handling short quick vipers. Thanks guys and look foward to your opinions.
Careylane

JuliusSqueezer · #2 (**permalink**) 02-10-2005, 01:04 AM

2 hooks are better than 1

ChicagoCubs22 · #3 (**permalink**) 02-10-2005, 01:42 AM

well im 16, and i watch Jeff Corwin, Austin Stevens, and Steve Irwin regularly, and i make observations of them as a viewer. All i can say is the snakes first should be comfortable as where they are and what there sorroundings are. A snake that tries to crawl away can be timid, but handling should not restrict those movements. I'd say that getting past the snakes mid section with your hand is a no-no...

Perhaps with most short vipers handling should be restricted to hooks...but from what i've seen some rattlesnakes can be docile, usually the new and unencroached species. Some of them just want to get away from humans instead of thinking they are a threat...

careylane · #4 (**permalink**) 02-10-2005, 01:54 AM

I appreciate everyones wisdom. You pay alot of attention to what is going on, I hope you stay after it and learn more and more, good luck. Steve haters be easy on him, we all are here to learn and share our knowledge.

BWSmith · #5 (**permalink**) 02-10-2005, 03:12 AM

With stockier vipers such as Puffs and Cottons, two hooks should be used to help disperse the weight of the snake and lessen the risk of broken ribs due to its own body weight. A snake hook has little surface area, so the weight of the animal is on one or two ribs. Two hooks helps this.

Smaller ones simply cannot be tailed safely. This is particularly true of many members of the Bitis genus (i.e. Puffs and Gaboons). These are relatively lethargic animals but are capable of launching a very accurate strike, over their body, with little or no warning prior to impact. Gaboons are notorious for exploding into a strike with little warning other than the movement of their pupils.

Two hooks are also advantageous with arboreal vipers. Particularly if one of the hooks is an "L" formation. The L makes it easier to relinquish the hook from the snake's prehensile tail. Usually it takes a bit of work and juggling. Two hooks are also a good idea because they have a habit of climbing the hooks to a point that you simply have to let the snake have it.

Dbutton · #6 (**permalink**) 02-10-2005, 05:17 AM

Well first off I want to know what you mean by handling? If by handling you mean taking the snake out to show somebody such as doing a demonstration then I am a one hook man. I already have 38" arms and I don't really need a long hook anyhow because the snake would have to be 7ft. long for me to tail it on a standard sized hook and also that is the way I was taught to handle them, with just one hook. But as BWSmith said, smaller ones jsut can't be tailed safely anyhow. That is how I got bit by a 3ft. eastern at the top of the shin. He was just too small and came off the hook while placing him in the catch box and swung back towards me.
For capturing venomous snakes I prefer tongs though. And with the new wide mouthed gentler tongs it really is the safest way to go for both handler and snake. If I still kept hots I would use then for moving snakes for cage cleaning too.
Well that is my 2 cents worth anyhow.

David

BWSmith · #7 (**permalink**) 02-10-2005, 06:18 AM

Hooks are actually much less stressful on the animal. It basically becomes a branch to them. Tonging is #3 on the stress chart. Milking is of course #1 and completely unnecessary for anyone not working in a venom lab. Pinning is number 2, again usually unnecessary when you can just do number 4, tubing. Number 5 is tailing with a hook (since no venomous snake should be tailed without one). And number 6 is hooking. Of course, anything above #6 involves non-contact restraint such as trap boxes. Hey, that was not bad off the top of my head. I should write that down.

I love my pair of Gentle Giants. But I only use them on animals about 1% of the time I use them. Usually they are used for removing cage items, etc. The few occasions I have used them on snakes include wrangling one out from under caging, pulling Cottons out of a swamp, and pulling racers and Coachwhips out of trees. For use on animals, I consider tongs to be an "emergency backup".

Dbutton · #8 (**permalink**) 02-10-2005, 06:23 AM

I think you did just write that down.LOL.

JuliusSqueezer · #9 (**permalink**) 02-10-2005, 06:52 AM

I use my tongs to feed large things to large snakes. Anything over 9 feet gets fed off tongs. If I have to move the canebrake or the cottonmouth, I have to use tongs. they are way too flighty for a hook and their flight path is usually where ever I am standing. I have found though that they freak out far less if I tong somewhere between the middle and rear and then hook in the front. If I use the tongs up front, they both strike repeatedly at the tongs and / or their own body self envenomating and breaking fangs off...no fun at all for either of us in the aftermath. Once out and onto the floor, they can be easily hooked...It's just that pulling them out of a front opening cage thing that makes just a single hook fairly useless when they go all mambapsycho on me. Copperheads? Copperheads are good little snakies...I never have trouble hooking coppers. they even seem to enjoy the ride. I've never hooked a bush viper or other arboreal viper but I'm assiming it's similar to corallus. 2 hooks rocks. Get what you can on one hook and use the other to tickle the tail and coax them into moving off the branch and onto the hook...and then be like Zorro with that other hook once they start climbing your way. Act fast but precise and gentle....or else you will have a very sore finger or two.

Db...how can you argue that one hook is better than 2 and in the same breath describe your getting bit on the shin? lol...Apparently your way didn't work out so well.

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