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What causes bites?

How did your closest call or bite happen?

  • Cage or container too small for the snake

    Votes: 11 16.9%

  • Wrong tool for the job

    Votes: 8 12.3%

  • Took a careless shortcut

    Votes: 23 35.4%

  • Distracted, was doing more than one thing

    Votes: 22 33.8%

  • Bad mental/emotional condition

    Votes: 8 12.3%

  • Drugs or alcohol (any kind of medicine)

    Votes: 11 16.9%

  • Showing off for an audience

    Votes: 11 16.9%

  • Freehandling

    Votes: 12 18.5%

  • Freak accident, not preventable

    Votes: 13 20.0%
  • Total voters
    65
Here's a couple of close calls....

Medicating a pet store sick boiga black and yellow nightmare for stomatitis. I had welders gloves on and had successfully restrained it in hand. For some stupid reason, I thought I could gently open its mouth with the restraining hand thumb by using the seam of the welders glove and then medicate with the free hand. Using the seam worked well.....well enough that it turned its head and inserted my thumb in it's mouth. The gloves prevented me from receiving a bite but the process should have been more carefully thought out.

If you've kept several cobras in the same room, you undoubtabley know that they seem to smell food as it enters the room, do not appreciate waiting in line, and show their displeasure by lunging out of the cage at you. While in a hurry to feed the snakes, I happened to have my 24" hemo's somewhere else, and decided to 'tail swing toss' the mouse into the cage. So here's what transpired:

1) Monocle is orientated with head in back right corner of a larger vision cage.

2) Slid left glass open about 4". Monocle hasn't moved.

3) With left hand still on glass. right arm forms a 'T' over left arm holding mouse by tail. Monocle hasn't moved.

4) Mouse now in mid swing ready to toss. Monocle now bullets from opposite back corner of cage, hoods, stands and strikes outside the cage knocking the mouse out of my hand.

5) Change my underwear. :)

6) Note to self......Shortcuts save time....not lives.
 
lycosa said:
Here's a couple of close calls....

Medicating a pet store sick boiga black and yellow nightmare for stomatitis. I had welders gloves on and had successfully restrained it in hand. For some stupid reason, I thought I could gently open its mouth with the restraining hand thumb by using the seam of the welders glove and then medicate with the free hand. Using the seam worked well.....well enough that it turned its head and inserted my thumb in it's mouth. The gloves prevented me from receiving a bite but the process should have been more carefully thought out.

If you've kept several cobras in the same room, you undoubtabley know that they seem to smell food as it enters the room, do not appreciate waiting in line, and show their displeasure by lunging out of the cage at you. While in a hurry to feed the snakes, I happened to have my 24" hemo's somewhere else, and decided to 'tail swing toss' the mouse into the cage. So here's what transpired:

1) Monocle is orientated with head in back right corner of a larger vision cage.

2) Slid left glass open about 4". Monocle hasn't moved.

3) With left hand still on glass. right arm forms a 'T' over left arm holding mouse by tail. Monocle hasn't moved.

4) Mouse now in mid swing ready to toss. Monocle now bullets from opposite back corner of cage, hoods, stands and strikes outside the cage knocking the mouse out of my hand.

5) Change my underwear. :)

6) Note to self......Shortcuts save time....not lives.
Click to expand...

I think most here would agree that handfeeding ANY venomous snake is NOT a good idea...much less a monocle. Glad everything worked out okay, and I hope that hemos have become your best friends (along with hooks and the like).
 
my close calls

The worst close call I have had to date was a near miss from a rather large King Brown. I was keeping a pair of them for a friend of mine and he gave them to me in a small sweater box. I had to take them out to seperate them and put them in some decent caging. You know what happens next. The top comes off. The two snakes head in opposite directions. I hook one and tail the other as quickly as possible. I place the hooked one back in the box just in time to see the tailed one coming around mouth wide open. I pull back just a touch and his head misses my forearm by about a quarter of an inch. Not a lot of fun.

I had a large Canebrake pull a sandal off my foot. I know. I know. Why was I handling in sandals? Stupidity comes in many forms.

One time I pulled a baby Gaboon out of a bag barehanded at Hamburg. That wasn't fun. There's a reason to mark down. Opening bags that someone else packed and mislabeled. There's nothing in the world more disconcerting than looking into the palm of your hand expecting to see a boa and instead you have a handful of slow, painful death.

I've got several more but I'm tired of typing now.
 
At a reptile show this guy who owns a pet store was telling me & a couple other people this story: He was at his pet shop and several people were browsing around. This lady came up to him and said that his albino corn snake was getting out of it's cage. He laughed and thought it was pretty funny as he doesn't have any corn snakes. It was a baby albino monacled cobra getting out of it's cage.
Now what if that lady had picked up that cobra thinking it was a corn snake?
 
close calls

I have had a few close calls no bites thank god one of the most memerable close calls was right after the greenville show I was unpacking my animals after a long underslept weekend I was taking the tape off of one of my texas black tails deli's and wham he decided he did not want to wait for me to open the cup for him he hit the lid of the 10" deli like a ton of bricks ad as the lid opens without missing a beat he turns and strikes straight at my hand still pulling tape away from the cup that was a real eye opener I now un tape the deli's while holding the lid securly with my deli cup lid remover (a homeade tool mr snipes taught me how to make) thank god

my other close call was with a egyptian I talked about in previous threads this occured while opening the bag I recieved him in in my useual mannor clamp my tongs on the bag below the knot and untie the knot once the knot waas untied I attemted to hook the fastest snake I have yet to encounter out needless to say he hook struck and missed my hand by 1/4 inch
once again great poll tanith
Joe Lesh
 
Good reply Joe. Could you describe the homemade deli cup opener tool in a separate thread on this forum please? Bonus points for photos of the tool.
 
What causes bites?
Click to expand...
Teeth, you silly people!

Seriously, even though this is a hot forum and I rarely deal with hots (except the occasional natives), I will tell you that the only time I was actually bitten was out of sheer carelessness. Never, ever, ever take your eyes off the snake.
 
I don't keep hots but I did have the unfortunate experience of getting up close and personal with one. About 1993 I was working for the entomology dept for the college I was attending and made daily trips to the Barrens to get samples. I always wore long pants and work boots when I went and am glad that I did. I stepped right on a copperhead and it bit my sole of the boot right by the big toe. I never even noticed it among the leaf litter. Needless to say that day was cut short due to my almost having a coronary. My co-worker was a few feet away from me when he saw the strike and couldn't believe that I hadn't gotten bitten. To this day when I'm out taking a walk in the woods, I'm alot more attentive to my surroundings. I plan on passing that bit of experience on to my daughter when she's old enough to comprehend it all.
 
Way late but here go's, I am learning to hook snakes in preperation to keep venomus. I made a hook from a bar of 10 guage steel and was trying it out on my large Iran Jaya. Normaley it is well behaved and I do beleave it was just trying to help me properly test my gear. Anyway as soon as I hooked it and lifted it came around and got me right on the side of my left hand. Here is ware I fit in to the preventable bit question.
1. being a cheap skate.
2. wrong tool for the job.

Thees issurs have been corrected and if I get educated again I will be sure to post pictures.
 
How about inexperience at catching/handling? Being 16 at the time field hunting in S Cal, I came across a C.v. helleri laying at rest. Awe stuck at my find I pinned it's head down with my hook, reached down with my right hand and picked it up behind the head. Little did I know the strenght and flexability of these snakes as it turned it's head and opened it's mouth getting it's fangs with in reach of my thumb. Droped it , jumped back and started shaking at my too close of a bad incounter. Inexperience can be a fatal move, one of the things that scares me when I see newbies asking about owning hots!

Scott
 
i agree totally.

although im not very old and have not been keeping hots as long as a lot of people on here, i get naseous sometimes when i think of some of the things that i used to do when i was younger and more stupid.

i should have been bit numerous times.

its been pure luck that i havent.
 
snakegetters said:
My guess is that a lot of snake bites are probably proceeded by words to the effect of, "Hey, y'all watch this" or "I bet I could do that." Most common victim profile in North America is a young male in his early 20's, intoxicated.
Click to expand...

Ha! The three most dangerous words in aviation: "Check this out!"

(No hots for me right now) BUT, the only times I have been bitten I was doing something I already knew I shouldn't and trying to save time by bending the rules.

I'm keeping emeralds now (the ones with the really big teeth) and my hook is my best friend.
 
Complacency (laziness) and allowing yourself to get distracted are reasons I would think folks would get bit.

I came close one time to taking a hit. It was a spazztic neonate southern copperhead of all things. Needless to say when I finally got his head pinned, we had a talk.

Almost forgot to add...my crotalus atrox the other week thought he was a spitting cobra. Good thing I was already wearing safety glasses. I had 2 drops of venom. 1 on my cheek and one on my chin.
 
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