Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Whatching Animal Planets "Venom ER" tonight and couldnt believe how low anti vemon supplies there are! So just thinking maybe I could help out. I have some Great Basin Rattlesnakes. Why not make some helpful use of them? Anyone know where to get venom milking supplies, any info on "how to" and who to go thru to give the venom to and all that legal junk? I have a permit to have the snakes but dont know what else is needed or who to contact about selling the venom to be turned into anti venom...or even how to do that myself???
Any help appreciated.
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"The Critters"

lol that was frome like 2 years ago no need to be scared.

Didnt know it was that old..Still want to know though. Still want to do it.
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http://photos.yahoo.com/gwas79
"The Critters"

There's no market for raw venom. You'll need at the least, a good centrifuge & probably a lyophylizing machine. Big bucks.

~~Greg~~

Not even to people that have the equipment????
Personally If I had teh equiptment I would take the venom and make the anti venom, sell it and split the profit with the person giving it to me.
But that's just me.
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http://photos.yahoo.com/gwas79
"The Critters"

The market for antivenin is pretty slim...i believe there are only a handful of labs supplying all the raw venom to the company (forgot the name) that creates Crofab, the most used antivenin for n. american pitvipers. The old Wyeth polyvalent is sometimes used, but not that often. The requirements for submission of venom are pretty stringent, and you would need A LOT of snakes to produce any viable amount of venom for resale. Plus, there are only 4 sp. of crotalids milked for the antivenin to combat all n. american pitviper bites. Someone please correct me if i'm wrong about this info, but I believe this to be the case.

Abhishek

The Southern Pacific, the Mojave Green.....and what are the other two venoms used???
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http://photos.yahoo.com/gwas79
"The Critters"

good question, i can only think of scutalatus and helleri as well...anybody know?

maybe c.tigris since there venom is more potent then c.scutalitus.
zac

Eastern diamondback, western diamondback, mojave, and cottonmouth.

i knew there had to be agkistrodon in the mix