Some people clearly do not understand how venom works or how allergies work.



If what Troy suffered was indeed a severe enough allergic reaction to cause the swelling it did, he would have gone into anaphylactic shock. An allergic reaction is putting your immune system into overdrive while it attacks an antigen. Envenoming symptoms are NOT the result of your immune system attacking and antigen. Symptoms of a venomous bite are cause by the proteins, amino acids, peptides, and so on, doing what they were designed to do. That is to immobilize/kill prey and break it down. That is the primary use of snake venom. It is not meant to be used as a defense. This is why the majority of venomous snake bites are dry or in such small doses that AV is not required. They are not going to use venom supply on something that are not going to be able to eat.



Facts....

Hognose snakes have FANGS.

Hognose snakes have VENOM GLANDS.

Hognose snakes have VENOM in those glands.

Not being medically significant does not make them nonvenomous.



If you think the % of reactions is very small, you are mistaken. Hog bites are not very common and just a few years back, not many people kept them. Now that they are getting more popular, we are seeing more bites.



Not giving people that information is irresponsible. Lets say a parent buys a cute little hog for their 10 year old. The ten year old gets bitten and has a reaction like troy. Something like that will cause legislation and regulation much faster than the actual facts of what hogs are capable of. The information is out there for "people looking to destroy our hobby". They do not need to look here for it.



You can take that "hogs are not venomous" pill if you like, but do not force others to take it. They say ignorance is bliss. Wanting to be ignorant is just stupid.

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