have seen shed fangs in poop, wondering if you can safely clean the venom off for handling and keeping shed fangs
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can you clean venom off fangs?
aintqytrite
Jun 02, 2003 01:25 AM
Replies (4)
WW
Jun 02, 2003 04:03 AM
>>have seen shed fangs in poop, wondering if you can safely clean the venom off for handling and keeping shed fangs
If they are shed fangs that have gone through the snake, then they should be safe already - the venom is a protein, which will have been washed out and digested in the snake's gastrointestinal tract.
If you want to be extra safe, soak them in water and wash them through prior to handling - more than likely, it will prevent septicaemia rather than envenoming...
Cheers,
Wolfgang
-----
WW
MsTT
Jun 02, 2003 12:55 PM
A friend of mine got a cantil fang stuck nice and deep in his thumb while he was cleaning fecal matter from the corner of a cage. Of course there was no envenomation because a fang passing through the digestive tract is unlikely to retain even a trace amount of venom. But a sharp hollow needle dipped in snakesh....uh, snake by-product is not really a good thing to have sticking into your skin.
He cleaned the wound thoroughly with disinfectant and there were no medical consequences. I expect if you didn't clean up well enough you could get an infection, but that would be about it.
There is a folktale about some guy who died from a snake biting through his boots, then his son put on the same boots and also died after being scratched by the embedded fangs. Ten years later his grandson put on the boots. Naturally he died as well.
From this evidence I believe I have correctly identified the species that originally left the fangs in the boot. Details can be found here:
guttersnacks
Jun 07, 2003 06:09 PM
Piscifabula? Are you kidding? Loosely translated meaning "great fish", unless I'm waaay off. The BIG one that got away.
Pretty funny!
MsTT
Jun 09, 2003 03:30 PM
Actually piscifabula translates to "fish story". 
Which is basically what you hear every time somebody tells you about a cottonmouth they saw. "It was six feet long and chased us through the woods for an hour!" Etc, etc.
Don't we all wish we could actually get our hands on the snakes that these people like to describe to us, BEFORE they mysteriously shrink to 2' and change into a garter snake. *grumble* I'd very much love to meet these gigantic cottonmouths and diamondbacks, but I think the prerequisite to sighting such specimens involves a lot of beer.
