Bite Club

[Sasheena]

More notable bites....

Once (and never again) I bought ten "bush baby" ball pythons. When they arrived I pulled them tick/mite ridden and everything out of the bag one at a time to put them in their separate enclosures. I got to snake #9, pulled her out, she took one look around the room and WHAM.... Bit me right on the nose... i had a perfect snakey dental impression on both sides of my nose.... bled like anything too!

Another time I was feeding the classroom pets (I'm a school teacher) and I pulled out one of my pair of corns to feed in a separate enclosure. I guess she was hungry, she opened her mouth and proceeded to try to eat my thumb in front of a class full of students. Now the students won't hold the snakes if they are "hungry".

Most the bites I get are from little hatchlings.. I can't help but think: "You're a little worm!" but they are so cute when they are that little and trying to scare you and impress you with how tough they are. I used to have one Apalachicola Kingsnake who would bite every time I opened the cage. He was convinced I was a mouse, no telling him different. For him I kept a bottle of rubbing alcohol near his cage. If he nabbed me I would soak a cotton ball in the alcohol and put that right near his mouth so the fumes would waft into his mouth... he always let go. When in doubt about the meanness of a snake, I keep alcohol around... gets them to let go.

Funny thing about the Apalachicola bites (I get this from the daughter of the one mean guy... who passed on)... they always cause a skin reaction... gets all red and itchy for about two hours. Must be something in their saliva I'm allergic to!

 

[Nate's Snakes]

Count me in

For about 2 years I have been caring for my own snakes and I have been bitten by 4 species. I would have to say that the worst was a sub-adult Blood Python. When they bight, they bight. I have a baby anery honduran milk that loves to bight. He will bight my hand 2-3 times and be done. Once in High School I was incharge of a sub-adult red tail Boa. This guy was probably about 4 to 5 feet and had a bad attitude. I had to pull him out of his cage to clean it. We where out of hooks at the time so I used my hands. He showed no interest in me so I didnt hold his head. There was a girl talking to me at the time. All the sudden her eyes opened really wide, my first instenct was to look down. Right as my eyes caught him, he was in the middle of coiling his neck to strike. Next thing I know I have this snake attached to my arm that looked kinda like a huge bracelet. I finally got him off and put him back in the cage. For several weeks I had teeth marks on boths sides of my arm. After I got him in his cage I walked up to my teacher with blood dripping down my arm and declaired him a waste of time. Now I know that it is just in their nature and I have to watch them and read them. Just cause i am bigger dosnt meen they cant hurt me. I never messed with that snake again, but that dosnt stop me from getting bitten. No its no big deal, ill heal and it usually dosnt hurt.

Bight Club, count me in!

 

[reptilegal12345]

Been bit by plated lizards garter snakes green tree python(adult and it hurt quite a bit. ) leopard geckos, prehensile tailed skink and a 5 foot gopher snake. Oh and a Tokay gecko.

 

[Ophis]

Biak

Bitten by my mean Biak on a few occasions.

 

[Gregg M]

All I have to say is it is a good thing the majority of you do not keep venomous....LOL

 

[Ophis]

Yea, Ive been reading alot latley about some mental midgets in the mid-west who got too close to their Rhino Viper, Cobra, Bushmaster, etc...and wound up dead or with a $20,000.00 medical bill. To each his own.

 

[Seamus Haley]

I actually do keep venomous, as I think you were aware Gregg... Totally different ball game though and completely different set of handling standards.

While I do not encourage bites from nonvenomous species, I by and large don't mind if they occur and have more concern for the health of the herp's teeth than my own skin. The "threat" of a bite is not going to dissuade me from whatever handling I need to do in order to ensure an animal is healthy, clean and well cared for. Thus... bites.

With the hots, one needs to have a respect for the capabilities of the animals (as I know you know, but for the general audience that may be reading) and take steps to ensure that any handling which needs to be done is done in a safe and appropriate manner. Bites from venomous snakes are a potential reality for anyone choosing to keep them but having a proper understanding of the animal and maintaining safe handling practices will help ensure that such envenomations are not frequent and that they are handled appropriately when and if they do happen.

 

[Otter_23]

I have been bitten by lots of wild garter snakes and a baby sand boa. At least the baby sand boa I think was trying to bite me. The worst was when I was jumping off a tire swing into a pond as a kid. I climbed out of the pond when my older brother informed me my foot was bleeding. I looked down and all I saw was blood all over. After many stitches on the top of my foot and side of my foot the doctor speculated it was from a snapping turtle. This is because on the top of my foot the cut was like a candy cane shape (or beak looking) and a straight cut on the inside of my foot. He didn't see how glass or a stick could have done that. I don't remember feeling it when it happened I think the nerves were cut right away. So anyway I think in the muddy water the turtle thought it was a fish and took a bite of half my foot then realized it was bigger than it thought and let go. Since it healed I have a lump on the top of my foot which is usefull for kicking footballs barefooted as long as i don't hit it just right, then it just stings bad. Other than that I've been pretty lucky.

 

[Glenn Bartley]

I had a bearded dragon try to eat my finger a few days ago. Funny how that did not concern me at all as it was chewing away on my fingertip, because if a snake did that I would just about pee myself. Still cannot firgure out what it is about the snake thing, heck I have kept up to at least 50 of them at once, and handle them fairly frequently, but if one tries to bite me, even a baby, I yank back so fast you can feel the wind in Kansas...

 

[Gregg M]

Yeah, I was just Joking and being a smart arse again Seamus.....LOL..... How have you been man???? Dont see you around the forums too much.....

 

[psilocybe]

Best Face Bite

This isn't me, and frankly I have no clue who it is, but I nominate him for bite club due to pure idiocy...this wasn't an "accident"...enjoy.

By the way, the snake is a southern pacific, not a good snake to get tagged by period, much less in the face...serves him right though.

 

[psilocybe]

Oh, and I have been bitten here and there by various species of snakes, geckos, monitors, etc., but it doesn't happen all that often...nothing all that memorable or worth mentioning specifically...never been bitten by a venomous species (knock on wood).

 

[Rattlesnake]

Taking a hit in the face

The person in the photo is lucky to be alive after taking a hit in that region of the body. The snake could just as easily have bitten him in the eye.

 

[Glenn Bartley]

I'll bet he doesn't tail a hot again......

 

[DAND]

Well...

Once in a while they do get ya.

 

[Traci1]

"...You may think that my calm actions would be the normal course of action for the big brave snake handler - but it was far from normal for me. Usually when a snake bites me, even when it is a neonate corn snake, I jerk back in sheer terror trying to avoid being bitten and scream "Aaaaahhhhh" or something to that effect. Many times over the years I have been too darned slow and the snakes got me. Other times though, and this has been due to lots of snakes trying to chomp down on me like I was a tasty mousicle, I manage with speed faster than a speeding bullet to jerk away just in the nick of time. The thing is though that when I do that, I do it in a motion more powerful than a locomotive. When you combine faster than a speeding bullet with more powerful than a locomotive you don't necessarily wind up with superman - especially when you add scared s--tless to that equation. What I do often wind up with is the scraped elbow as it rakes backwards across a tank top (those inside aquarium edges are a fine place to peel of a few layers of elbow grease and elbow skin). I once had about a 6 to 8 inch long, 2 to 3 inch wide scrape through several layers of skin avoiding a Gopher Snake bite. The thing is the bite would have been much less painful or damaging. Sometimes I smash backwards into the wall that I forgot was there...."

"...I once pulled back so fast and hard - with the snake attached to my index finger mind you - that the snake flew about 15 feet across the room. Yes that was with a vicious baby corn snake all of less than a week old. I guess that is the worst thing, when I loose it when a baby snake bites me. I have this absolute, I am a big sissy boy, aversion to being bitten by a snake, any snake...."

I am sorry, I know this message was posted a long time ago...but I just read it and was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. This is just too funny, as I can relate to the fear of being bitten...even if it is a little worm of a baby corn snake. Thanks Glenn.

 

[chondrogal]

bite club

Sometimes these old threads are a joy to go back and read!

There are a couple of chondros (green tree pythons) in my collection that used to enjoy getting a taste fo me from time to time......... mostly babies and juvies though. Only got tagged once by an adut and it still didn't compare to the multiple other bites I've taken over the years during the course of my work with dogs and cats. American Eskimo bite to the face, just above lip, completely pierced... chow latched on to left hand, multiple deep punctures, wild cat to palm of hand below thumb... that was probably my most painful... those were the only ones where I had to see Dr. and get stitches/tetanus booster etc.!! Ever been bit by a horse?!! Now THAT hurts!!
Duck got me on upper lip once, amazon parrots have a mean bite on them too!! I laugh inside sometimes when talking to herpers about bite experiences!! Only ones that intimidate me would be big lizards and venomous!! As a kid we use to hang alligater lizards from our earlobes while they were latched on goofing off like they were earrings!!

I apply for founding membership to the bite club!! lol, a wee bit late!!

 

[Glenn Bartley]

I laugh inside sometimes when talking to herpers about bite experiences!! Only ones that intimidate me would be big lizards and venomous!!

Herp bites from a wide variety of herps are nothing to laugh about, really they are not. If you are still laughing after having been bitten by a snapping turtle that takes off a chunk of finger, or after a Burmese Python, all 18 feet of it bites you in the face and leaves about 20 teeth imbedded under your skin then you have a better sense of humor than I ever could. I understand what you mean though when you compare a corn snake bite to a dog bite even from a tiny dog. man I hate Chihuahuas!

It maybe funny when a sissy boy like me screams if an itsy bitsy corn snake baby bites me (all that stuff in my previous true is absolutely true real life experience as much as I hate to admit it), but it is serious business if some of the bigger and nastier herps tag you - ouch.... Those bites can be just as serious as a dog bite, some more so. I would hate to get bitten by a large monitor that was pissed off, or even worse by a croc or gator. Don't underestimate a herp bite nastiness, or confine bad ones to just large lizards and hots..

Of course I laugh at most of my herp bite experiences because I am a wussy when it comes to them, just like I am if a mouse to a bear tries to bite me. Heck I had a cow swallow my hand once, well mouth it anyhow and I just about died. I also look back and laugh now at the Guatemalan bite on my left bicep, still a scar there after about 22 years. For the life of me I cannot figure why I didn't shoot him as he was biting me. It makes me laugh I guess because he only bit me when he realized he was not getting my gun away from me. Yes it was a man - not a Guatemalan Herp of any kind! But that is something else altogether different.

 

[BallPyFan]

Count me in too LOL. My first "bite" was an albino stripe cal king that sized up my knuckle the night I bought her and then tried to latch on. No pain, no blood, but from then on if she started eyeballing my fingers or knuckles I knew she was hungry.

My first real bite was a 5 1/2 ft Burm that was a malnourished rescue. She escaped from the feed box and was in major feed mode (I wqas cleaning her cage while she inhaled her food). I thought I had her close enough to the head to keep from getting nailed...I thought wrong.Lots of power in the srtike when only about an inch of her could swing around to nail me.

Worst bite was this sping by a 6 ft bci who tried to explore the outside of his cage only to find out I have pesky felines who are too big for him to eat. I came home from work to find an empty cage, found that good sized snake coiled under a small plant stand, so grabbed a bath towel before I tried to pick him up. Once he relaxed I took off the towel to see if he was scratched or anything. Unharmed, so I went to put him into his cage, holding him in the middle of his body as I reached to open the top enough to get him in. WHAP! I never saw it coming, no time to even blink he was just that fast. That ****head got me on the side of the nose and upper lip just at the base of the nose and that HURT! Not to mention that one of his teeth broke off in my nose, and took over 2 weeks to work its way up enough for me to pull it out with tweezers. I had to endure endlesss jokes about the "monster zit" from my soldiers, but I wasn't in any mood to correct them. Still have the scars from that one. I get tagged by my friends' boas all the time, and it has become a running joke about "Don't let Katrina handle the boas...they'll tag her!"

 

[wcreptiles]

My first bites were from my green iguana, Flower, he should have been named Chainsaw instead, meanest lizard known to mankind. This was over 40 years ago when I was a kid, didn’t know much about raising reptiles then. When he would bite you and got a good grip he wouldn’t let go so you had to set him down for a while until he felt like letting go. I lost a few drops of blood and I’m sure the years make the bites more dramatic than they really were but I do remember them hurting more the bigger he got. I had him for about 5 years and when I got drafted I gave him to a friend. I finally lost track of him a few years later but he was mean to the end. My first Redtail Boa about 35 years ago would tag me every few times I got it out of the cage. The poor thing was probably so stress out from poor husbandry that I don’t blame him. The cage was heated with a light bulb in a metal gallon oilcan and the cage was never really dark, the top was hardware cloth so the humidity was low, everything was wrong by today’s standards. Today I only have Ball Pythons and Black Milks so I don’t have to worry about getting bit everybody is peaceful.

When I was a teenager I was a nature guide in a private summer camp for small children, ages around 6 to 10. In my area we had small animals, all kinds of snakes, alligators, small crocodiles etc. At the time I had a large Indigo and was telling a group of children how wonderful this snake was. I was under the impression that Indigos didn’t bite, I had never seen one bite, this one was very placid, I had handled this one for months and it never attempted to bite, I was told they don’t bite. I was explaining to these bright-eyed 6 or 7-year-old children how Indigos don’t bite. Remember I’m just a dumb teenager and it’s 40 years ago, I gently press the nose of the Indigo up against the bare arm of the little girl sitting next to me several times, and say ‘SEE INDIGOS DON’T BITE’. About this time the snake in question figures he smells something delicious to eat or maybe he’s just tired of his nose being bumped up against her arm so WHAM! He nails this little girl big time and the class scatters, the little girl screams, I’m trying to keep the girl from taking off and ripping the snakes teeth out. It all ends well, I think. I would like to find this woman and see if she still has nightmares about snakes. I hopefully didn’t lose too many to Ophiciophobia that day.

I tried to pick up a Porcupine once and got quilled, that’s almost like getting bit except it’s from the wrong end (you pick a Porcupine up from the tail if you want to know). It doesn’t hurt to get quilled it’s when they pull them out is when it hurts. So much for my ramblings, I did enjoy reading this thread. Now that I read mine I guess you had to be there, too bad.

Don Flickner
Cincinnati, Ohio