Disclaimer:Handling venomous snakes is a high risk activity, and a mistake can maim you for life or kill you.
It should best be left to professionals and very serious private collectors who are willing to devote a significant percentage of their time, energy and money to the safe maintenance of their collections. This is not a hobby to dabble in casually or lightly, but one that many of us are committed to because of our fascination for these beautiful and highly evolved creatures. It is a serious commitment and a major responsibility, because of the very real danger involved not only for the keeper, but those around him or her.
Heresy I: Handling Hots Is Easy
You've already read the disclaimer. Now here's the heresy, which also happens to be the truth. Handling many kinds of venomous snakes is actually very easy. Anyone can do it, and most people will get away with it for quite awhile even if they do stupid things. Snakes are basically good natured creatures and much more interested in running away if they get upset than in biting. Even if you pluck them up by the tail or mess about with them on hooks, most snakes aren't prone to biting except as a last resort. There are a few exceptions by individual and by species, but this is a basic truth.
Heresy II: It's Safe To Be Around Venomous Snakes
Evolution did not design small, elongated, fragile-boned creatures to voluntarily tangle with larger animals that can kill them with a moderately hard stomp. Biting a larger, non prey animal may cost a snake dearly. It can get stepped on and fatally injured. A snake's teeth are easily damaged, and its precious venom supply is needed to obtain food. It will risk a bite to save its life, but it would rather not. A bite does not necessarily save the snake's life in any case; venom takes time to act, and in that time, the annoyed and hurting animal is likely to have succeeded in killing the snake anyway.
Snakes don't want to bite people; they want you to go away and leave them alone. That's why they hiss, puff, rattle, hood or stridulate. They are advertising that attacking them is a no-win scenario, rather like mutually assured destruction in nuclear war, and they have the weapons to back up their bluff if necessary. But they would really rather not use them at all. Unless you force a snake into that no-win scenario on purpose or by accident, you are generally quite safe even if you are in close proximity to a venomous snake.
There are a few notable exceptions, specifically cottonmouths (which may approach humans willingly out of curiosity) and some mambas and cobras which may be territorial and may actually decide to kill a large animal that invades its space. But as a rule, it's actually safe to be around venomous snakes as long as they aren't cornered, blundered into, grabbed or otherwise threatened. Stay alert and keep your distance, and chances are excellent that they will keep theirs.
If you were to walk into a room where some unwise person had dumped a dozen assorted free-roaming cobras and rattlesnakes, you could relax, put your feet up and read a novel, and watch them all try to hide miserably in the corners. If they get to feeling really confident after a few hours, they might start to feed on one another. It is doubtful that they would much bother you as long as you didn't do too much stomping around to upset them. Just don't relax too much and go to sleep, or some might snuggle up to you for warmth and comfort, and then you are in their immediate strike range with no good way out of it in a hurry. Here's why this can be a problem, even if the snake really doesn't want to bite you.

Heresy III: You Can Get Away With Stupid Handling Tricks (for awhile)
Most of the time, you can get away with taking some pretty extreme liberties with the person of a venomous snake. You can get inside its strike range where it is physically capable of biting you, and nothing will happen. This fact often encourages people who have gotten away with this a few times to continue doing it, confident that nothing will ever happen. Maybe you will get away with it a hundred times. The tragedy happens when the odds catch up to you the hundred and first time, and the snake that never bit you before reacts unpredictably and does what it was perfectly capable of doing all along. If you are physically within its strike range and something unexpectedly triggers a defensive or feeding reaction, you will be bitten.
A lot of things can trigger a defensive or feeding strike. Your body heat can do the trick for a pit viper. The scent of anything resembling food can also do it, even if that scent is just wafting along on the breeze. If you move "wrong", either like prey or like a predator looming over the snake, you may be bitten. You really don't know what the snake might suddenly decide to do, or what kind of behaviour some unknown stimulus might trigger. So it's much smarter not to give a snake the physical ability to bite you in the first place, even if you believe that it is unlikely to try to bite.
The consequences of a venomous snakebite are absolutely horrible. Huge hospital bills, agonizingly painful loss of a hand or finger as your flesh slowly melts off the bone in necrosis, long term health impairment, loss of renal functions, dialysis, internal haemorrhaging and of course death. These are the things you are risking when you put your hands in a position where a venomous snake is physically capable of biting them. This is really a very poor risk, so it's a good idea to take the extra minute to take more stringent safety precautions than you might think you need. A truly determined and motivated snake can accomplish some amazingly acrobatic feats, and you don't really know what might suddenly motivate it.
Heresy IV: Snakes Have Mood Swings
Experienced keepers can mitigate the risk by being very aware of the behaviour and habits of the species of snake they are handling, or of the individual snake they are handling. A "good" snake shows its nervousness and stress clearly in its body language, with signals that you can read. A "bad" snake may appear calm, but then strike hard and fast and repeatedly without warning. It is actually easier to deal with a cobra that is hooding and telling you clearly that it wants to bite, and where it plans to strike, than a Gaboon viper that sits motionless like a fat rock until it explodes into a powerful and deadly strike that it can launch anywhere around its body.
We can make very good guesses, but the fact is that we don't know why a snake might suddenly decide to bite. A snake's perception is different from a human's. They "hear" and smell things that we may not be aware of. Is there a mouse nesting in the wall that might trigger a feeding response? Did the vibrations of a jackhammer from a nearby construction site stress out this animal last night? Is it in pain from internal or external parasites or disease you haven't detected yet? Is this snake just plain having a "bad scale day", did it get up on the wrong side of its hide box this morning? The fact is that you don't know; there may always be behavioural factors outside your knowledge or control.
You can't really apply human standards to your snake, of course, but you should be aware that there are factors you might not be aware of that can affect its behaviour. When the consequences of unpredictable behaviour in your snake can mean hospitalisation or death for you, it's a good idea to stay alert - and not to give a snake a chance to bite, even if you think it won't.
Heresy V: All Snakes Are Not Created Equal
Many types of venomous snakes are easy to handle. You can get away with doing all kinds of things to them and not get bitten. If you try those same handling techniques on some types of venomous snakes, you will be bitten faster than you can say, "Expensive hospital bills".
Great prowess in handling rattlesnakes will actually land you in trouble with cobras, because those good instincts you have developed with rattlers will be telling you where this new snake's strike range and physical limitations are, and you will be dead wrong. The same applies the other way around; cobras telegraph a strike fairly well and rattlesnakes do not, so even though their physical abilities are more limited in many ways, their strikes can be less predictable and just as fast.
Other species present their own problems. Aussie elapids and arboreal elapids can fly off a hook and squirt around a room like greased spaghetti, Gaboon vipers explode into somersaulting strikes over their own tails and cottonmouths wind up on you for sideways snaps that are hard to see coming. Individual snakes also have their quirks and surprises.
Temperature matters. A lot. A snake at 90 degrees is literally not the same snake that you knew at a comfortable 82. They can get more squirrelly and aggressive at an exponential rate with every degree the temperature goes up. If you try to assess and predict a snake's behaviour at a higher temperature based on its known reactions to you at a lower temperature, you can get into deep and serious trouble.

Heresy VI: There Are Six Kinds Of Venomous Snakes (as far as a handler is concerned)
There are six basic handling categories that most venomous snakes fit into. Don't take this as absolute gospel or a snake in one category will surprise you by doing something completely different, but these are good general guidelines.
1. Small to midrange ground vipers and small ground elapids
Examples: Agkistrodon (cottons and coppers), most rattlesnakes, shieldnose cobras, coral snakes, Cerastes and Pseudocerastes, death adders (Acanthopis)
These are the snakes most likely to be predictable in their habits and reasonably docile or at least manageable because of their size and limited physical abilities. Useful handling tools are hook and bucket, haemostats and restraint/examination tubes. Handle them over a bucket or the bathtub, and if you lose control and drop them, there is no disaster if your container is tall enough that they cannot climb out. Keep alert and focused, but there is no need to panic. If you need breathing room to think and plan, that is what the tall bucket is for. These are good snakes to learn on.
The bigger ones (4' plus) can be tailed, but it's wise to also keep a hook laid around the head and over the neck to keep them from striking back at your hand, which they are all fully capable of doing. Keep the tail elevated and at an angle and the head close to the ground, so they are slowed down by gravity from reaching your hand on their tail. A lot of these snakes (especially the ground viperids) are paranoid about being lifted, and they must be firmly supported or they may panic and thrash. If they do panic, drop them in the bucket and try again. Many of these snakes will accept a ride on one or two hooks with minimal fuss, so you never actually have to lay hands on them.
There are exceptions, but these snakes are not usually too bad about being tubed. Stick the open end on the snake's face, and usually it won't give you too much hassle about crawling on inside. Tongs and long haemostats can be used to move things around in their cage, offer food items, etc, but are not really recommended to use directly on the snake because of the risk of injury. A hook climber can be discouraged by a gentle hook and pull around the neck from a second hook, or a gentle tap on the nose. Either technique may cause the snake to fall back into the bucket, which isn't a bad thing if you've kept it low to the ground.
Another good technique for small (under 5') snakes in this category is the plastic bowl. Attach a long handle to the bottom or side of a plastic bowl, and use it to simply cover the snake while you are working around it in its cage. You can also slip a flat sheet of plastic or metal under the lip of the bowl and lift the contained snake out. This is basically a mobile shift box or trap box, a handling tool that is optional for snakes in this category but absolutely essential when you get into the more nervous and fast moving venomous snakes. A standard shift box is a solid construction of plastic or wood with a sliding door that you can trip shut with hook or tongs from outside the cage. Left inside the cage, a snake will tend to spend a lot of time inside where he feels secure. A shift box can be constructed that is transparent on the inside on one or more walls, with an opaque covering that lets the snake feel safe in a small, dark place.
These snakes are easy to handle. Consequently, do not underestimate them. Even though a moment of inattention with these slower, less mobile snakes is less likely to result in a bite, make an effort to discipline yourself and to stay alert and focused. Overconfidence can literally kill you.
2. Arboreal viperids
Examples: eyelash vipers, Wagler's, Pope's, Atheris species
Some are docile, some are nasty little tree snappers, but what they all share in common is being harder to get off a hook than on one. Despite some elaborate husbandry necessities with these guys that can mean increased hands-on time for the keeper, these are relatively easy snakes to handle and some of them can be good for beginners. If you want to successfully keep arboreal hots, you should have husbandry experience (or a good source of advice) with other delicate, finicky arboreal snakes.
A bucket with a lid and a straight perch (like a bird perch) will keep these guys happy while you are cage cleaning. Getting them into a tube can be a pain as they knot themselves into pretzels on branches or on your hook, but some deft maneuvering with two hooks often does the trick. They are much happier about going in a tube if you can deposit them in a bare bucket or bathtub first. Often arboreals will climb hooks, but they are usually slow and deliberate enough about it that you can keep them under control with two hooks or by rotating one hook to keep them off balance and away from your fingers. There are some arboreals that can give you a real workout on a pair of hooks; learn to play cat's cradle with them and keep them wound up so they can't come up at you.
Arboreal vipers are beautiful but can be real stress puppies and husbandry nightmares, so handling them as little as possible is a good idea. These snakes can show dramatic changes in colour when they are unhappy about something in their environment, so if you notice unusual darkening or dulling, it's time to figure out what is making them unhappy. It might be you; the less they see of their keepers, generally the better they do. Consider investing in one-way mirrored glass coating, and don't get too enthusiastic about playing with your arboreal hots, even if it is fun and relatively easy with a well behaved specimen.
Don't forget that many arboreal hots survive in the wild by catching birds on the wing. They can shoot out a surprisingly long ways from a tight coil with those venomous little fangs pointing at your tender flesh. Your reflexes are not faster than a hummingbird's, so have plenty of respect for your arboreal hots and keep your fingers at the long end of the hook.
3. Quirky Gits
Examples: Baby Gaboons, rhino vipers, Hoplocephalus and Tropidechis (small but aggressive Australian elapids), some large and bad tempered arboreals, Vipera nikolskii (by one keeper's account), coral cobras (A. lubricus), many individual snakes from listed species with particular temperments and athletic ability
Snakes can surprise you, but some snakes tend to surprise you more than others. There are a few species that appear to be small and manageable or even docile at first glance, but they are no fun at all to deal with. They may wiggle, squirm, fight, fly off hooks, climb the hooks, strike without warning, charge straight at you or have other nasty habits that cause their keepers to want to use strong tools and stronger language. Their only saving grace is that you can probably muster enough brute force to argue with them head-on and win. These fellows aren't nearly as dangerous as their bigger cousins, but they are very annoying.
Your very best friends in a situation like this are Plexiglas shields, hoop nets, capture tubes, trap boxes and buckets taller than the snake is long. Hooks can be used, but these scaly little terrorists are just as likely to explode off of them without warning, so you might as well start by using less escape-prone tactics and save yourself the stress. There are better ways to get your exercise than chasing a psychotic little toe-nipper around the room, or running from it.

4. Midrange to large ground elapids, some particularly fast and aggressive viperids
Examples: Most true cobras, many Australian elapids, some of the more aggressive Vipera
What's long, strong, wiry, supple snappier than a rawhide bullwhip and slipperier than greased spaghetti? Oh, and it can kill you, and it probably has a nervous, high-strung temper. Welcome to the wonderful world of elapids, I hope your insurance is paid up and you know where the antivenin is stocked. Just as importantly, you should know the species' traits and preferably the individual quirks of the snake you're handling. They differ a lot, but here are a few good general guidelines.
Cobras like to telegraph their strikes, and throw a lot of bluff strikes at you even if you are well out of range. If you can keep their attention while they are angrily biting out at the air in your direction, at least you know where the danger zone is. Some cobras don't give you that courtesy, and will just go right for you and try to nail you. These are the "bad snakes" that nobody likes to handle. Treat these miserable bastards like category 6 elapids and leave them in their nice comfy trap boxes where they can't kill people. Keep in mind that on a bad scale day, any cobra can act like this. Some just do it more habitually than others.
Cobras often like to take a few bluff strikes, then turn around and fly right off the hook to go hide under your heaviest python cages, so it's almost a necessity to tail them. Some people use tongs, if they have a delicate enough touch and can manoeuvre them to prevent injury to the snake. Tongs can definitely reduce the likelihood of injury to you, but they are more hazardous for the snake.
Essential tools for messing around with these guys include hooks, tongs, a bag net, shift boxes, restraint tubes and a large garbage can with a lid. If you lose control of one for a moment, there is no respite and no second chance unless you jump back into the fray immediately. You can dump them into a garbage can, but you should be ready to slam the lid on fast lest they come launching right back out like a SCUD missile. You will have more laundry to do but less garbage can escapees if you leave a bunch of crumpled up pillowcases on the bottom of the can. This provides an instant hiding zone that some nervous snakes will be attracted to, so they will burrow down rather than shoot back up.
It is critical to have a large, open and relatively empty space to be able to work with large, fast elapids. In a small space, you may not be able to move out of the way fast enough to avoid being bitten by one of these lunging, striking snakes. Clutter in your snake room is bad, since it blocks you off from manoeuvring and gives the snake more places to hide or climb.
These animals are not recommended for beginners. Please have some years of handling experience under your belt before you play with cobras, unless you really feel the need to put all four of your doctor's kids through college. They are fast, they are tricky, and they are not one bit forgiving of a moment's inattention or a mistake.


5. Giant ground vipers
Examples: Adult gaboons, large Bothrops (terciopelo), bushmasters, some of the large, aggressive rattlesnakes (Eastern diamondback, Neotropical, Canebrake), extremely large cottonmouths (5')
Don't underestimate these guys. The combination of raw muscle power, short range speed, wide strike range, unpredictable strikes and massive venom delivery make them among the most lethal snakes on the planet. Tangling with one is a tough battle and you can lose, even if you have the right tools. They have a lot of muscle power to back up their arguments if they don't want to do whatever it is you want them to do. Physically handling or restraining one is definitely a two person job, both to protect you and the snake. They can easily injure or kill themselves if they are inadequately restrained and they are allowed to thrash.
Useful tools for these guys are long, heavy hooks, shift boxes, Plexiglas shields, tongs, Plexiglas or padded restraint boards, heavy duty bagging nets, and a lot of patience. They can usually be persuaded in a slow, comfortable manner to see things your way and urged to crawl into a latching shift box for transport or examination. Often they will take a ride on two hooks without much fuss.
A skilled keeper with good luck and good health may never need to argue directly with one or have to restrain it, and this is definitely for the better. Some of these large ground viperids can be tailed, but gaboons especially are stronger and faster than they look, and such a snake can certainly nail any target on or near its tail. They get even stronger and faster as the temperature rises, so it's really best not to lay hands on these snakes at all if you can help it.
If you must lay hands on one at all, it is best to do it quickly and decisively, and go for a really good pin with the help of an assistant or a padded board to restrain the body so the snake cannot thrash. At a minimum, you need two padded pinning hooks. Normal, unrestrained handling with these snakes can result in real disaster, as they are strong enough to physically overpower a casual, inattentive handler very quickly. They are frighteningly good at throwing off a neck pin, flying off the hook and in some cases bodily slamming their way out of less than perfectly sturdy enclosures when they are sufficiently upset. These large viperids can shatter glass with their strikes, or snap the plastic closure on a garbage can lid. They are the sumo wrestlers of the snake world - they may look fat and sluggish, but they are incredibly powerful, deceptively fast and capable of truly devastating moves.
It is clear that the Bitis species are physically capable of exerting sufficient strength and speed to pull up and bite any target on or near their tails, making any attempt at tailing them an extremely bad risk. Other very strong and muscular ground vipers include Bothrops atrox (tercipelo or fer-de-lance), some other large Bothrops (alternatus, jararasccu) and Russell's vipers. A few extremely large and aggressive cottonmouths can also demonstrate formidable musculature, particularly A. p. piscovorus and leucostoma. Respect their capabilities and don't underestimate the terrible power and speed of which they are capable.
6. Arboreal elapids and opistoglyphs, some large ground elapids
Examples: Mambas, tree cobras (Pseudohaje), boomslangs, adult forest cobras, O. hannah (king cobra), adult Pseudonaja, taipans
There is a reason that a black mamba's head looks like a coffin. It can easily put you in one. Arboreal elapids are fast, alert, nervous and can sometimes be dangerously aggressive. Critical tools for keeping these snakes include a shift box, long tongs and a long hook. Your set-up should be designed in such a way that you can completely avoid having to hook out or handle the snake. Waiting until the animal is in the trap box and latching it shut with a hook should be sufficient to allow safe cage maintenance, transport and if necessary medical examination if your trap box has one or more internal transparent walls. A "habitrail" inspired set-up that allows you to plug a tube into the trap box might be helpful if you need to medicate or examine the snake hands-on.
Boomslangs and twig snakes should also be put into this handling category. Although their individual temperaments can vary widely, they have many of the same physical capabilities and similar behaviour. If you are bitten, boomslangs require specific monovalent antivenin that is not readily available, and the consequences of a bite can be fatal if you don't have immediate access to this antivenin. There is no antivenin available for the bite of a Twig snake. Even though these snakes are rear fanged and usually reluctant to bite, they should not be underestimated. A large, wild caught boomslang can be extremely challenging and dangerous to handle. Captive bred and long term acclimated specimens may be quite docile.
Other arboreal rear-fanged snakes can be agile, particularly Boiga species (mangrove snakes), but do not present the same handling challenge or have a comparable venom. Some particularly aggressive or fast and nervous large ground elapids such as the king cobra, the inland taipan and the Australian Brown snake also belong in this category.
Arboreal elapids are horribly fast, and if they are removed from their cages, they are very difficult to control. They are fast, alert snakes that can fly with surprising speed up walls, over cages, up your hooks and all over you. Grabbing them by the tail is extremely dangerous because they are long, strong and fast enough to turn around and bite before you can adequately control their heads with a hook. If they are over 7' in length, even a long hook may not be adequate to keep them out of strike range. A garbage can is of some use, but they are more likely to seek escape out the top of it than go voluntarily down inside to hide as many snakes will.
Handling these snakes should be left to the experts, and even the experts can get bitten. Keep plenty of antivenin in stock if you keep these species, and take the time to design an intelligent set-up that minimizes or eliminates the necessity of handling them.
Heresy VII: How Not To Handle Your Venomous Snake - safer daily maintenance routines
Self discipline is an important part of venomous snake keeping. Sure, its fun to handle your hot herps - but you can have that fun spread out over a much longer and healthier period of time if you restrain yourself to the minimum amount of hands-on time necessary to maintain your collection. Most "handling" does not need to involve your hands at all. Don't forget that every time you put your tender body parts within reach of the sharp pointy end of a venomous snake, you are at risk of extremely severe consequences. Are they worth saving a little time? A good keeper has many specialized tools that help him or her minimize the risks and the stress, both to the keeper and to the snake. It's smart to use them. Anything that helps put distance between you and snake fangs is generally a good thing, even if it takes some extra time and patience to use.
Taking unnecessary risks is not the mark of a skilled handler. It more closely resembles the kind of careless, abusive and macho behaviour seen at rattlesnake roundups. It might look exciting in front of your audience, but it does not do the snake's stress level any good. Or yours, either.
A skilled keeper will be able to set up his or her collection so that day to day maintenance routines such as feeding, cage cleaning and watering can be done with minimal risk and stress to either the keeper or the snake.

Heresy VIII: How Definitely Not To Handle Your Venomous Snake:

Heresy IX: Heresies and Holy Commandments of Herpetoculture
In the great time honoured tradition of the CYA (that's Cover Your Ass), most pages on keeping and handling venomous reptiles have a tendency to assume the reader is a lay person, a child or an idiot and issue strong parental warnings that this is an unsafe thing to be doing. This may in most cases be a correct assumption, but I would rather not proceed that way. I hereby assume that you, the reader, is a sane and mature adult who is competent to understand on your own that venomous snakes are in fact venomous and can hurt or kill you. Proceed with them at your own risk.
Here are a list of the standard Holy Commandments of herpetoculture, and my heretical revisions on them.
Holy Commandment: Venomous snakes are dangerous. We do not recommend than anyone handles them or keep them, especially laypeople.
Heresy: Venomous snakes are beautiful, fascinating and majestic creatures. Keeping them can be quite a challenge, requiring a significant investment of your time, money and emotional energy - but it can be done, and some species are actually fairly easy to maintain safely in captivity. No words of caution or carefully written disclaimers are going to stop anyone from keeping who is really determined to do so. While there will always be individuals who make the Darwin Awards by doing something foolish with their "pet" venomous snakes, the majority of venomous keepers are responsible and sober individuals who are successful with their hobby. Responsible private collectors and breeders have contributed significantly to science and to the conservation of rare species, and they should be encouraged.
Holy Commandment: Telling people how to handle venomous snakes properly would encourage them to try it, so we should restrict information to discourage them. Only the Sacred Priesthood of zoological professionals should have this information. Let's not talk about it in public.
Heresy: "Just say no" is not a good strategy. This is akin to suggesting that we should deny people information about birth control so they will stay celibate, or not to talk about drugs so people won't take them. It doesn't work. It is better to make clear and concise information freely available so that when people do have sex (or handle venomous snakes), they will be able to do so in a safer way. Adults must be allowed to freely assume their own risks, and should be clearly and truthfully informed of exactly what those risks are and how to mitigate them.
Feeding the public a simplistic party line about how terrible all drugs are, or how dangerous all venomous snakes are, eventually backfires in a big way when people do experiment and find out that the Establishment is not being completely honest. The fact is that there some kinds of venomous snakes and some kinds of drugs which are significantly more dangerous than others, and some which are much less harmful. If the community is not forthcoming with the true facts about which kinds are less dangerous than others and how to use them in a safer way, and instead tries to lay down a thick and uniform blanket of prohibition in the hopes that no one will take any of these risks at all, the results are not generally good.
The free spread of truthful information is a good thing, and it benefits all of us. There are plenty of dumb macho idiots who are talking about how to handle venomous snakes, and most of what they say is dangerous misinformation. If that's all the information that people ever see, it's bad for the novice snake handler who might believe it, and it's bad for the experienced snake handler, surrounded by people who think all snake handlers are such dangerous idiots.
Holy Commandment: Only the Sacred Priesthood of professionals should aspire to handling or keeping venomous snakes. Amateurs and hobbyists should be discouraged or outlawed.
Heresy: Most people agree that there is a necessity for serious professionals (zookeepers, scientists, venom extractors, etc) to handle venomous reptiles. They are The Sacred Priesthood, and allowed to do things that mere mortals should never even aspire to or think about. What most people don't understand is that this priesthood is not immaculately conceived. They did not spring from Poseidon's brow or hatch from particularly weird snake eggs. We all started out as laypeople who were interested in venomous snakes. There is a clear process of learning and studying before "ordination", but it is an ongoing process, not a Secret Unfathomable Mystery. If you completely discourage all amateurs and laypeople from participating in the learning process, where do you expect the next generation of professionals to come from?
Holy Commandments We Can Live With
Holy Commandment: You should never handle a venomous snake if you have been drinking or are under the influence of drugs.
No Heresy Here: Nothing to disagree with, several things to add. If you handle a hot snake while you are under the influence of anything that impairs your reflexes, judgement or perception, you are bucking for a Darwin award and great posthumous embarrassment. "Anything" includes not only recreational substances, but lack of sleep, illness, emotional stress or personal trauma. Don't forget prescription and over the counter drugs can also cause impairment. If you are too impaired to drive, you are much too impaired to handle snakes.
Holy Commandment: Always house venomous snakes in secure cages and keep them under lock and key.
No Heresy Here: It's not good to let your hots escape, not only because it's dangerous and expensive, but because it is highly stressful to the snake and it may get injured or killed. You can invest a few extra pounds in good solid cages with locks. Most hardware stores sell under-door guards, which are stiff black sheets of rubber that screw on solidly and press flush against the floor. These may be sold as insect guards or weather-stripping, so that's what to ask for. They are an essential piece of equipment for your snake room. Don't forget to pick up some metal screening mesh to install over any vents, and some caulking or expanding foam to close off cracks in the walls or under baseboards. It's a good idea to crawl your snake room on your belly, poking your littlest finger in every potential crack and crevice, until you are absolutely certain that there are no possible places for a snake to escape into.
Holy Commandment: Don't show your hot snakes off to friends, or let your friends in to play with your snakes.
No Heresy Here: Another fine way to rack up a Darwin Award is to be paying more attention to impressing somebody than to controlling a snake. Doing more risky things so that you can show off how skilled a handler you are is not only foolish and dangerous, but more stressful to the snake. Mostly you end up giving the impression that you aren't a very experienced or very smart keeper if you do too much risky showing off. This includes on-camera stunts, and this is the reason that certain well known television personalities attract some annoyance from the serious herpetological community.
There is no material difference between showing off your venomous snakes to impress your friends, and showing off risky handling techniques in front of the media, except that you have the opportunity to make an ass of yourself in front of a great many more people. A skilled handler can get the same results and elicit the same desired behaviour for the camera without taking unnecessary risks. There is a fine line between educating people and showing off, and it is mostly defined by whether or not you are cutting corners on safety procedures in order to make it look more exciting or entertaining to your audience.
A snake room needs to be clear and uncluttered so that you can keep control of the snake. You don't want it to be able to hide under things and you don't want to be tripping over things if you have to move quickly to contain it. Clearing the room of clutter means clearing it of unnecessary people as well, even if they are also experienced handlers. Add inexperienced people into the equation, and it can cause even more trouble. Two people can work a snake together, but more than two people on the same snake are likely to run afoul of each other and cause accidents. Working more than one snake in the same physical space at the same time is also a potential disaster in the making, so a good general rule is two handlers in the snake room and no more.
Holy Commandment: Know what to do in case you are bitten. Know where the nearest supply of antivenin is, and have written snakebite protocols ready in your snake room. Keep a phone nearby so you can call for emergency help.
No Heresy Here: Print them out and keep them in your snake room. Take them with you to the hospital. The Central Florida Zoo keeps tags on each snake cage, which a keeper must remove and pin to his or her pocket before opening the cage. In the case a keeper is found unconscious, the species of the snake that bit him or her can be immediately determined. This is a good protocol, but an even better one is not to work alone, and to make sure your partner knows what to do in the event of a bite.
It is very smart to do research the clinical effects and case histories of envenomations for every species of snake you keep. The accounts of badly botched bite treatments that keep coming across on the medical herpetology forums clearly indicate that you cannot trust a random doctor to treat you properly for snakebite. This goes double for exotic species. It is wise to go over these protocols with your doctor before an accident happens, and to be your own best advocate in insisting that you receive proper treatment for your bite. If you are unconscious, there should be someone who can advocate for you.
Although antivenin is demonstrably the best treatment for envenomation, many doctors are reluctant to give it or to give it in sufficient quantities. Contributing factors include the early (in my belief, stupidly, unnecessarily, unjustifiable early) official expiration dates on antivenin and the possibility of anaphylactic or allergic reactions to the serum. Because there are rarely any official, "by the book" protocols for snakebite even in major hospitals, physicians are more reluctant to administer drugs they do not understand and have no experience with. Because of the lack of official protocols, they may feel that they are more likely to be liable in case of a lawsuit if they use this unfamiliar, unapproved drug. Imported antivenins are not officially approved by the FDA, even though they are proven effective in their country of origin. This can cause you serious problems if you are bitten and the doctor in charge of your case does not wish to risk using antivenin.
I don't want to be sued either, so I won't tell you what to do , instead have a read on the net and consult experts.


These heresies came from America but I think most work for the U.K too. Whoever the person was who wrote them I thank them and urge you to take note.

I thought it'd be best to give the author some credit so here's the website that i found all that information from:

Venomous Snake Handling Heresies

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Trice..
Conform to my beliefs and ideas or thou shalt be spanked for not being a RFUK-Bot! For i art a Nazi German! (or so i have been told)
My Reptiles
0.1.0 Amel Corn Snake (Elaphe guttata guttata)
1.0.0 Snow Corn Snake(Elaphe guttata guttata)
0.1.0 Colombian Rainbow Boa(Epicrates cenchria maurus)
0.1.0 Honduras Boa
0.1.0 Blizzard Leopard Gecko(Eublepharis Macularius)
1.1.0 Dwarf Sand Gecko (Stendoactylus Sthenodactylus)
1.1.0 Bearded Dragons (Adults)(Pogona vitticeps)
0.0.1 Bearded Dragons (Hatchlings)(Pogona vitticeps)
0.0.2 Bearded Pygmy Chameleons
0.0.2 European Tree Frogs
0.0.1 Horsfield Tortoise (Testudo horsfieldii)


I am super noodles.

the stuff above has been adapted for use in the uk, as it refers to somethings we dont do and dont use, in the uk, but its still a great document

Just read all of it and alot of it is good stuff which far overshadows the one or two "discrepencys" i may have.

Thanks Pete.

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I agree. Elaborate on those "discrepencies".

p.s who's Darwid? *points to sig* *cough* DARWIN* *cough*

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If you don't like my decisions visit here then do this


My current collection1.0 Purple phase albino retic0.1 Malaysian blood python0.1 Macklott's python1.1 Royal pythons0.1 Texas Ratsnake het T+ albino0.1 Argentine black & white tegu1.0 Nile monitor (common)

LOL i copyed and pasted from MSN...wasnt me

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