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trueviper_UK CaptiveBred Addict!
Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 692 Location: Warminster, Wiltshire
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:04 am Post subject: |
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Those horrific photos definately show you what can happen if you get bitten by a venomous snake!
However, try to keep in mind that the victim was bitten by a native hot while resting after a hike, and he never saw the snake before it bit him.
This wasn't a captive Rattler in a controlled enviroment, it was an unfortunate accident.
It is by no means proof of what will definately happen if you keep hot snakes.
Keeping DWA species requires a more serious and responsible approach of husbandry and if done properly there is no need to have to endure such injuries. _________________ You can't trust the snake......but you can always trust the snake to be a snake. |
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Drymarchon32 Key Member
Joined: 06 Nov 2006 Posts: 271
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 3:24 am Post subject: |
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I have to agree with Just a Beginner
I would also add - Carry out every conceivable medical check
I've been trying to find the right way to express this opinion for a while without sounding harsh or hypocritical. I guess it's down to why you keep snakes in the first place. I'm lucky that I look after a non-venomous species no one else keeps,(to my knowledge) and the challenge of keeping, breeding, and raising these animals well, is more enjoyable and rewarding than keeping a species that is common as muck, easy to keep, and breed, just because its venomous.( btw, I have the utmost respect for private keepers of hots, the majority of which have amazing knowledge and skills with their animals and keep them to a higher standard than anyone, I'm assuming they are not going to take offense here ).
I love venomous and work with them every day and have been obsessed with them for over 20 years, and I think you need to perfect the art of herpetoculture just as J.A.B. stated, before getting hots.
There are certain skills associated with keeping snakes that can only be properly learned after years of keeping a variety of species, you certainly don't want to have to carry out your very first medical check or procedure on a venomous animal, and in my opinion if you have to ask someone else to sort your animals because you don't have the experience or confidence to do it yourself then you should not be keeping them. Why should I risk my life and limb because someone doesn't know how to look after what they have a responsibility for? It's like buying a house and asking someone else to pay the mortgage
There are so many "little" skills in handling and working around snakes, that may mean the "big" difference when working with venomous, trial and error, just make sure you make the errors when it doesn't matter and then have the sense to learn from them. I got tabbed by a hot because one finger was a few millimeters out of position, I would have been in a lot more trouble with a different species. I ask myself if I would have made the same mistake with something serious, but don't like the answer.
Keep a varied collection, read, learn, practice time and again, be like the karate kid and get a Mr Miyagi
Quote: | However, try to keep in mind that the victim was bitten by a native hot while resting after a hike, and he never saw the snake before it bit him.
This wasn't a captive Rattler in a controlled environment, it was an unfortunate accident.
It is by no means proof of what will definitely happen if you keep hot snakes.
Keeping DWA species requires a more serious and responsible approach of husbandry and if done properly there is no need to have to endure such injuries. |
And....?
A wild rattler can get out of the way, and if he had been observant then I'm betting he wouldn't have put his hand in striking range. Accidents happen but if you choose to put yourself at risk without the proper knowledge, skills and precautions, then it's called a mistake and there really isn't room for mistakes. I started messing around with hots before I was old enough to know better, now I am older I realise how lucky I was to get away with it.
I want to keep red spitters, west african green mambas, and any of the bush vipers, but would be just as happy keeping and breeding challenging non-venomous.
Al _________________ Complacency killed the keeper |
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Just A Beginner Contributing Member
Joined: 30 Nov 2006 Posts: 89 Location: Warwickshire
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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Si86 wrote: | why breed adult snakes and incubate eggs? im not saying its not true of course, because I have very little knowlege compared to some of you guys, I just dont see how thats gonna prepare you any more than not doing it, I agree about having a bitey snake though I have seen few people recomend that advice, and I would love to help out at a reptile centre or zoo or something like that its just finding one and the time to do it, maybe one day |
Because to keep hot snakes properly and safely, you need hot snake experience/knowledge PLUS general snake experience/knowledge. Just because it is hot doesn't take away the fact that it is a snake and is prone to all of the problems associated with snakes in general.
I'm winging it a little here as I do not have alot of hot-specific knowledge, but I'm pretty sure that if you keep any female oviparous snake on her own, there is the risk of her producing a clutch anyway, and infertile eggs aren't passed as easily as fertile ones (infertiles are squishy and slimy, giving the girl less to get a push on). She might have been kept with a male before so she could start cooking up some fertile ones, in which case she's not likely to reabsorb them. You'd need to be able to spot an ovulating or gravid hot snake primarily by visuals alone, which isn't easy (I can do it by touch but I don't have enough skills to spot it by eye). If you fail to provide a nestbox, then you will have one eggbound, pissy, grumpy, venemous snake, plus the need to get up close and personal to irtfor the sake of medical and veterinary attention.
My first female snake was actually gravid when I bought her. I was a novice but I had bought her for the sake of breeding her, so all the info was fresh in my mind. However I lacked the experience to spot her gravid state, mistakenly putting her lack of interest in food down to the new environment. There was nowhere suitable for her to lay her eggs so she scattered them all over the viv, I panicked, I disturbed her as I tried to get the eggs out, she retained the last of her 31 eggs, I left her to lay it on her own too long, by the time I took her to the vets oxytocin was useless. She ended up needing full blown invasive surgery to remove the calcified egg (which had become stuck to the lining of her oviduct, so part of her oviduct was removed, plus part of one of her ovaries needed removing), and for about two weeks afterwards she needed daily baytril administered orally.
Luckily she was a very healthy corn snake, so she bounced back to health well, wasn't aggressive during treatment, didn't get dangerously stressed and I still have the old girl upstairs (corns are the ultimate starter snake, I always recommend them for their ability to bounce back from newbie keeper's mistakes).
What if this happened to a newbie DWA holder with their first female hot? Administering baytril orally for the first time on a really grumpy venemous snake anybody? Not very clever...
I could go on and on (I kinda have...), but if you look on youtube for wagleri videos, there is a guy who pipette-waters sick wagler's (temple vipers). I used to have a boss who owned a couple of yellow-faced mangrove snakes that refuse to feed themselves and need force feeding. I'd rather exhaust all the tricks I have up my sleeves for persueding a hot to eat on its wn before trying to stuff a mouse down it's throat by hand! You learn the all the little tricks best with practise.
The more you already know the more you can reduce the risks. _________________
http://www.geocities.com/crayon_conservationist/ |
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HerpCrazy!!! Key Member
Joined: 23 Aug 2006 Posts: 421 Location: Jersey, Channel Islands
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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Agree wholehartedly with Drymarchon32. This guy really knows his stuff. It is far more rewarding keeping a species (whether hot or not) which has specific or demanding needs, is incredibly rare or simply has not been documented very well yet. Being able to provide the perfect care of a species, let alone breed it would give me far more satisfaction than simply keeping hots because they are 'hardcore'.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of hots I would love to keep but if given the choice between some of them and maybe say a Jamaican Boa, I'd sooner plump for the rarity, with which I get the satisfaction of (possibly) contributing to conservation of a species.
Anyways, painkillers are really kicking in now
:p _________________ Licking this cane toad was the worst flippin idea you.............whoa man that penguin just put something in your pocket. |
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Drymarchon32 Key Member
Joined: 06 Nov 2006 Posts: 271
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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How's the nose HC?
A _________________ Complacency killed the keeper |
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HerpCrazy!!! Key Member
Joined: 23 Aug 2006 Posts: 421 Location: Jersey, Channel Islands
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Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:13 am Post subject: |
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am in hospital right now. had it cauterised, set and packed with yards of special bandge for 48hrs!!!!! still hurts but they should discharge me tomorrow got a tv/internet screen by my bed tho (expensive!) but i been here since saturday! hows you? _________________ Licking this cane toad was the worst flippin idea you.............whoa man that penguin just put something in your pocket. |
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christophermchale CaptiveBred Addict!
Joined: 30 Apr 2007 Posts: 588 Location: cheapest viagra on the internet!
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Posted: Sun May 13, 2007 11:28 pm Post subject: |
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heres my suggestion.
if you want venomous heres what you do...
buy or make a large arboreal viv (i dont care what anyone says, making a viv is more difficult than keeping most snakes haha)
something about 4 feet wide, 6 feet tall, and 2 feet deep.
deck it out on the inside with lots of climbing branches and whatnot.
get the temperature up to about 82-86 and humidity to 25-40%.
and get a pair of 6 foot long merauke scrub pythons.
keep them for about 6 months.
then you may be ready for a copperhead. _________________ cardboard city. |
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