Most scary events of your herper career?

People learn not only from their own mistakes but ideally also from those made by their fellow contemporaries (I do all the time). So why not post the most scary events that happened to you during your time as a herpetoculturist? Here's one that happened to me some 10 years ago.

At that time I was routinely using thick leather gloves to handle various elapids of moderate size, such as Aspidelaps. One day, in a hurry, I decided to use them on an adult Naja haje legionis, a snake that was with me for quite some time and of which I was convinced that it was on the more placid side. That turned out to be a bad mistake. The snake hit right through the left index finger glove with both fangs, and in the same moment I sensed a fluid running down my finger and hand. Luckily, the offender had missed my finger and instead injected its venom in the empty space between the glove and my flesh. When I took off the gloves I was even more shocked when I saw how much venom was injected; it must have been about 1 milliliter (one gram of fluid) - certainly several lethal doses. From that time on I gave up competely on using gloves for this business.

Hi Klaus,

Do you keep a store of antivenom on hand for the snakes you keep? If not, readily available are they to you from reseach institutions, zoos, or hospitals? I always wonder how many people that keep venomous snakes, have antivenom on hand especially considering the cost, and if the snakes are in private collections. Glad you dodged a bullet with that missed bite cheers

Hi Kelly

Over here we've got non-profit organization called Serum Depot Berlin/Europe that invites private collectors to become a member (for a fee of currently 150 Euro per year), and that holds in stock and provides if needed, a good collection of approved AVs. The only potential problem is that the stocks are distributed thoughout Germany and individual AVs may reach the person in need only after a couple of hours - no problem with most viperids as they usually have more slowly acting venoms. Bites from taipans and other super-toxic Aussie elapids for instance may require AV treatment in under 4 h though, and helicopter transportation may then easily melt away the savings of some years. So yes, we do have access to AV, but the worst case will most likely be very expensive.

Regards,

Klaus

Wery interesting info Klaus.

I did google this organisation, but all pages that i did found was in Germany language, and i cant handle that. What a pity. Translation pages give some information but too messy.

Can i ask, do you know how wide this organisation do "catch", as a venomous keeperes in your city, and what about a whole country? And does it work anywhere else in Europe?

Hmmm most scary event it would have to be when I was removing my Sistrurus miliarius barbouri from the container. That I got him at the Hot show he more or less went nut's and wouldn't hook for anything and was striking constantly. He makes my Agkistrodon contortrix contortrix look tame......who is also out to lure me into being complacent.....

I had a similar scary event like Klaus Roemer in 1978.
During fieldwork with Vipera ammodytes in Slovenia I caught a big (85 cm. / 33 inches) gravid female. I used special leather gloves that had proved to be safe for bites of even the biggest v. ammodytes. The snake got through the stitch-hole of the seam with one fang and the fang went deep into my thumb. I immediately realized it was a dry bite. We continued to do our routine measuring (length, weight, cloacal-temperature) with her and let her go right away like all others we had checked.
My luck was that, in that population only about 1 out of 10 of the specimens we caught would bite in defence (which I knew from many years of working there) and even most bites that hit the glove were dry too. The bites rather seemed to be something like saying "leave me alone".
Though in comparison to an adult Naja haje legionis, V. ammodytes may be "mild" but a full bite from that female would have been severe as her venom-glands were full and it would have taken us about 2 hours to get to a doctor or hospital with a long way to walk and of course no mobile phone at that time yet.

I took my lesson.

Rainer

Reply to Toni Beckman

Hi Toni

Until recently the Serum Depot Berlin/Europe (SDB) was exclusively a German organization. However, we are about to expand. I'll talk to the relevant individuals to make sure that we'll be represented on the net in English soon. Currently we cannot say for sure which countries in Europe will be covered first; nonetheless, it should be clear that stocks will be hold in the respective countries to assure that the distances to the "customer" will be not too far. The current fee of 150 Euro per person and year is the result of the number of members and the frequency of AV need. If the frequency goes up (more bite cases per year) or the number of members goes down, more costs will have to be shared by the remaining members and consequently, the fee will go up. We (I'm a counseler as well as a regular member of the SDB) are of course striving to keep the costs low and also to gain as many trained and experienced, and therefore hopefully responsible and safe, members as possible. To make herpers trained and experienced, we (through the German Society of Herpetology and Terraristic Studies; DGHT) are offering a training course. Among politicians here in Germany it is currently debated to make SDB membership mandatory for venomous reptile keepers. Personally I think this is a good idea. After all, there still is the threat of a total ban of our exciting hobby.

Best,

Klaus

Thank you Klaus.
I will write shotly with some conversation soon to your PM.
I do have some thougts that i would like to ask your opinion.

But back to business..
I think that my two scariest happenings has been these:
First, when i was somwhere 7-10 years old, with my cousin we did catch regulary wild Vipera berus, and with one individual my neck handeling wasnt good, so the viper did scratch broken top of my thumb skin, and did leave to there small amount of venom.

After that, the most pressure situation has been with my first long term venomous snakes, puffadders. One of them did have bad shedding, and without tubing (i dindt know about those tools in that time) i did take it to my hands, helping prosess with hook pinning, but when sake was pure in my hands, its "deathroll" wasnt nice experience. Whole situation did go well, but again good example what sharing experiece would be, via novice and more professionals.

What tube? What deathroll??
And how to take experience?

The incident that came the closest for me, was testing a 10 foot King Cobra I had acquired from a fellow herper. He told me that he was tame and had put him around his shoulders on occasion.

I did something I generally would never do, and opened the side access door to the 8 foot wide enclosure and touched "King Tut's" tail at the tip. He did not like that at all. King Cobra's are somewhat slow strikers, but not this time.

Tut struck at my hand and I narrowly missed getting tagged. A split second slower by me and it would possibly have caused a fatal envenomation.

I know there are those who allow unrestrained venomous reptiles to move around their body. It is something that should not be done, for any reason.

Years later, Tut had reached 14 foot and was a "little" less defensive and sadly I ended up giving him back to the same herper who gave him to me.

Wooohhh, scary indeed! I had a similar incident once; however, I'm a bit embarrassed to tell because it should be common wisdom in our business to never open and work an enclosure without having located the inhabitant. Well, one day I opened the terrarium of a female boomslang of almost two meters length to remove dirt and was assuming - since I couldn't locate the snake in the twigs where it usually was - that it was inside the trap box. It turned out that the animal was hidden on the ground, under some leaves - untypical for this species. The boomslang immediately struck my hand, but in a way cobras often do - by head banging without actually opening its mouth. Lucky me!

Thanks Klaus. That membership sounds like an awesome resourse. Does anyone know if they have anything like that in other countries, like U.K, the states etc?

Here's another one that happened to me some time ago. (Just in case you guys think I must be a total moron: these are the compiled incidences of more than 30 years of herping).

I usually spray my animals twice a week with warm water. One day I opened the enclosure of a 2 m Papua taipan female to do so. My taipans are nervous at times but mostly not aggressive. This time however the taipan female freaked out when the water droplets hit her. For those of you who don't know how fast taipans can be - believe me: lightning-fast, and that's no exaggeration! Before I realizes what happened the snake had hopped out of her enclosure and was hitting the floor right in front of my feet, hissing loudly and having her mouth slightly opened - a red flagg telling everybody around: leave me alone. I managed to remain cool and wait for her to move a few meters. Her mood made it impossible for me to hook or tail her, so I had to get my sling stick that I otherwise use only exceptionally on the mambas when I have to catch them for some medical treatment for instance. So I caught the taipan with the sling and put her back into her cage, which was quite an unpleasant procedure for both of us. The snake calmed down after a while and I needed a shower.

That is why i stay away from the fast elapids.. Wink

I donated some dried Naja kaouthia venom that I had extracted for display purposes at a reptile exhibit where my friend is the Director of "American International Rattlesnake Museum".

This was the very first time I had attempted to extract venom from any elapid. I put a latex rubber cover onto a glass funnel that was secured tightly to prevent movement. Initially "necking" the animal was uneventful, but that changed.

After getting just a couple of drops started, this adult animal started to wriggle wildly and I almost lost my grip on the neck. Smile

I retracted the fangs away from the rubber/funnel and then inserted the fangs once more. This allowed for a larger amount to be extracted the second time.

I sweated profusely, as this was the "first" venom extraction that I had ever attempted. I rarely extracted venom on other occasions as I really had no need to have venom on hand.

Embarrassingly, over the past 30 years we had a couple of escape cases in our live collection. They eventually all resolved without accident but all were a major pain for us at the time they happened. The last one, a few years ago, was when a Micrurus nigrocinctus took off. One problem, in addition to that this was a small snake of only about 80 cm lenght, was that the escape must have happened several days before I noticed it. Moreover, at the time I noticed the escape my in-laws were about to visit us from Canada and were scheduled to stay in the guest room in the basement of our home where also the snake rooms are (no kiddin'). So my wife (who luckily is a snake afficionado like myself) was not exactly amused (don't blame her). Well, there was no other way than turning everything upside down. It took us almost a whole day, and in the end my wife spotted the snake (it was still in the snake room, hidden behind one of the heaters). One good thing - apart from that nobody got hurt and the lesson the incident taught us - was that during my search I located stuff I'd been looking for for years.

for me it was three years back, i was keepîng my girlfriend boa during the cleanup of their terrariums(Ophionyssus n.) so in my hot room i've put a rubber terrarium to keep them, my girlfriend one day forgot to secure the cage at the closure, the boas escape(of course) and roam in the hot room in search of a safer place...they tried to find their place behind my racks, boa vs racks was a problem even with security on racks so when i came back home(appartement) i entered my hot room facing one of my pallidas, by chance he was very tame so he doesn't spat at me... and there was an apocalypse 15 racks broken and all the snakes hidding in the room! Most of them were arboreal vipers so easy to catch, but the élapids were a very different story...catch me if you can spécially my two mad siamensis...so i was very shocked when i first entered the room, and after all the venomous were catch i've seen one of the boas was bitten and has a big swelling on the left side of the body!
Hopefully everything was fine after that, the boa heal and i've never had an escape!
ps: the only snake still in their open racks were the "quarantined waglers"

Yesterdey I assisted my young adult(1,40+ ) naja kaouthia with her shedding because she spent almost 2 weeks on a heating spot in relatively dry conditions what wasn`t usual for her in pre shedding time. Even soaking on a day before yesterday didnt help much . She shed only eyecaps, tail and few tiny parts from all over her body.
The whole assisted shedding took about ten mintes and the snake was on the top of the container when she uses to go first when she`s free to go. I did whole procedure completely with bare fingers, being very close to her ,without any fear or stress . The snake was relaxed and 100 % passive as always, letting me do what was needed . When everything was done she was happy and thankfull and i was proud shes so well mannered ,wondering why so many people say cobras are aggressive and unpredictable.They are the most tameable venomous snakes in my opinion. This might be a little scary story but i really would be more afraid of touching some unknown hamster than any of my cobras ( i have n.annulifera too, real sweetie..) .

Jack Coldbrum wrote:: Yesterdey I assisted my young adult(1,40+ ) naja kaouthia with her shedding because she spent almost 2 weeks on a heating spot in relatively dry conditions what wasn`t usual for her in pre shedding time. Even soaking on a day before yesterday didnt help much . She shed only eyecaps, tail and few tiny parts from all over her body.
The whole assisted shedding took about ten mintes and the snake was on the top of the container when she uses to go first when she`s free to go. I did whole procedure completely with bare fingers, being very close to her ,without any fear or stress . The snake was relaxed and 100 % passive as always, letting me do what was needed . When everything was done she was happy and thankfull and i was proud shes so well mannered ,wondering why so many people say cobras are aggressive and unpredictable.They are the most tameable venomous snakes in my opinion. This might be a little scary story but i really would be more afraid of touching some unknown hamster than any of my cobras ( i have n.annulifera too, real sweetie..) .

The topic is called: Most scary events of your herper career? (maybe you missed it Wink

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Reply to Bartholin

Thats actually one of my worst nightmares: my racks collapsing.

Reply to Jack

Good to know ones snakes, but don't take chances. I've seen cobras changing mood within a split second.

Guest

Good evening,

My scariest event was by treating an adult Calloselasma rhodostoma (desinfecting) a wound on it's side after a bite. I fixed the animal by pinning it on the table with helping of a bar with foam on it's ending.

I was holding the bar, pinning the head of the Calloselasma on the table, and at the same time, holding it's tail. With a very strong body movement, the Calloselasma took it's head off the pinning, and rushed to my hand who was holding it's tail. I just throwed my hand back, and it really nearly missed. The animal got down on the floor, and I had a few seconds to get my thoughts back after this!

From this moment on, nevermind the size of the animal I'm treating, I always do it with another person, to avoid another risk like this one I could live...

Sometime, you only have a chance to get a lesson from the error you made without any consequences!

Regards
LucasC.