Question about bites

[jclaiborne]

Hey everyone this may be a stupid question, but here it goes. I have zero experience with big snakes, other than holding a Berm in a store once, but to me that isn't experience. I see all the posts about BP bites and have been tagged by smaller snakes myself. So it got me wondering, with the larger snakes if they just tag and let go how much damage is actually done? I have seen the pics on here of the 14ft retic that got an artery, and that looked terrible, but it seemed like that was on the extreme side of things. I was wondering more in general would it be comparable to? Say a dog bite?

[patientz3ro]

If you're talking about the retic bite I'm thinking of, I believe it bit and held. I think it got two arteries also. That bite could very easily have been lethal. If it had gotten a good solid grip with a few coils, he very well could have bled out. As it was, he lost a LOT of blood. As far as a comparison to dogs, dogs will usually do WAY more damage, just because of a greater bite force. I had a patient a year or so ago who had been SLAMMED by a police dog. It bit him on the calf and tore at least a pound of muscle out of it.

It's really a matter of differences in how they feed. Snakes have sharper teeth that are designed to grab something and hold it while they kill it. Since they eat their prey whole, there's no need for them to rip or tear. Dogs, on the others hand, don't usually eat their prey whole, so they need the jaw strength to tear into muscle and bite off chunks.

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[jclaiborne]

If you're talking about the retic bite I'm thinking of, I believe it bit and held. I think it got two arteries also. That bite could very easily have been lethal. If it had gotten a good solid grip with a few coils, he very well could have bled out. As it was, he lost a LOT of blood. As far as a comparison to dogs, dogs will usually do WAY more damage, just because of a greater bite force. I had a patient a year or so ago who had been SLAMMED by a police dog. It bit him on the calf and tore at least a pound of muscle out of it.

It's really a matter of differences in how they feed. Snakes have sharper teeth that are designed to grab something and hold it while they kill it. Since they eat their prey whole, there's no need for them to rip or tear. Dogs, on the others hand, don't usually eat their prey whole, so they need the jaw strength to tear into muscle and bite off chunks.

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Makes sense, my wolf/shepherd mix latched onto my arm right after we rescued him, it was my fault, he had no trust at all and I approched him too fast, anyway luckily he didnt shake he just clamped down, so no flesh was torn. The pressure and the felling of his teeth sinking in was incredibly painful had massive bruising and some puncture holes. So that being said a tag type of bite from a big snake wouldn't be anywhere near the same pain level?

[patientz3ro]

I wouldn't think so. Think of snakes and dogs as knives for a second. With a REALLY sharp knife (snake) you can sever nerves without doing too much damage to the severed ends of the nerve. That's why it's not very painful to cut yourself with one. With a dull knife (dog) you end up with crushed, torn, and mangled nerves. And THAT hurts very much bad.

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[reptileexperts]

Reticulated Pythons have slight serrations on their teeth and are recurved fangs. This enables them to easy cut into and grab food that they are puling into their body. A bite from a large snake can be an extremely dangerous situation. While ball pythons may be a joke and give a little blood, an adult retic is a matter of how YOU handle the bite. When a bite occurs you must remain calm and not pull away. If you jerk back there is a great chance that you will 1) tear the flesh wide open, 2) break teeth off into your bite area potentially getting lodged and causing infection or need for surgery to remove later on (Shane Castello just had a retic tooth removed surgically from a smaller male bite). The image of the 14' bite, while sever, is not worst case scenario. Had he jerked his arm back in the bite, it would've wound up even worse. Everytime I open a giants cage I remind myself mentally, if you get bit, stay calm and grab the head. Do not jerk back!!!

[patientz3ro]

Reticulated Pythons have slight serrations on their teeth and are recurved fangs. This enables them to easy cut into and grab food that they are puling into their body. A bite from a large snake can be an extremely dangerous situation. While ball pythons may be a joke and give a little blood, an adult retic is a matter of how YOU handle the bite. When a bite occurs you must remain calm and not pull away. If you jerk back there is a great chance that you will 1) tear the flesh wide open, 2) break teeth off into your bite area potentially getting lodged and causing infection or need for surgery to remove later on (Shane Castello just had a retic tooth removed surgically from a smaller male bite). The image of the 14' bite, while sever, is not worst case scenario. Had he jerked his arm back in the bite, it would've wound up even worse. Everytime I open a giants cage I remind myself mentally, if you get bit, stay calm and grab the head. Do not jerk back!!!

I completely overlooked the potential for ending up with a foreign object imbedded in a wound. That's an excellent point. Your point about the 14ft retic being worse had he jerked back is also interesting. Not jerking back from a bite is a good idea with ANY snake, but I've always thought of it in terms of preventing the snake from being injured.

When I said that the retic bite could easily have been lethal, I was looking at it from the perspective that had the snake held on long enough, it could have prevented him from getting pressure on the wound to slow the bleeding. Bleeding out from a severed artery can happen VERY rapidly. Yet another reason to always maintain a healthy level of respect for these big guys.

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[jclaiborne]

Reticulated Pythons have slight serrations on their teeth and are recurved fangs. This enables them to easy cut into and grab food that they are puling into their body. A bite from a large snake can be an extremely dangerous situation. While ball pythons may be a joke and give a little blood, an adult retic is a matter of how YOU handle the bite. When a bite occurs you must remain calm and not pull away. If you jerk back there is a great chance that you will 1) tear the flesh wide open, 2) break teeth off into your bite area potentially getting lodged and causing infection or need for surgery to remove later on (Shane Castello just had a retic tooth removed surgically from a smaller male bite). The image of the 14' bite, while sever, is not worst case scenario. Had he jerked his arm back in the bite, it would've wound up even worse. Everytime I open a giants cage I remind myself mentally, if you get bit, stay calm and grab the head. Do not jerk back!!!

Thank you for all that info, I do have a few more questions now, all that being said does the same go for a Burm, can they do just as much damage? For both snakes at what size does just a tag from them become dangerous, the reason I ask is I got to hold an 8ft burm and was suprised at how small the head actually was, I know that it wasn't full grown, but it just got me thinking. Also what about SD retics, and dwarf burms when they max out in size can they still do quite a bit of damage? Thanks again.

[reptileexperts]

they still have a powerful bite and a large number of teeth. This added with their stregnth and speed does make it a potential issue. As long as you exercise caution you are fine unless you are bit in an unfortunate spot.

SD / Dwarfs can still have massive heads. My Dwarf Purple who is 2 years old this March has a head that is as large as my hand and she's about 12-13' currently feeding on 4 pound rabbits. This is still large enough to cause a serious issue - again more so if you "jerk" back as a reaction.

Dwarf Burmese - true dwarf - do not get that large. I have seen some females on eggs at 6' in length. It really looked like a funky ball python with a little extra size! But still, smart to excersise care and respect. Heck, I've taken a bite from a 3' retic that got infected and had pretty good tears in the skin from such a small snake because it bit and pulled himself back.

[jclaiborne]

they still have a powerful bite and a large number of teeth. This added with their stregnth and speed does make it a potential issue. As long as you exercise caution you are fine unless you are bit in an unfortunate spot.

SD / Dwarfs can still have massive heads. My Dwarf Purple who is 2 years old this March has a head that is as large as my hand and she's about 12-13' currently feeding on 4 pound rabbits. This is still large enough to cause a serious issue - again more so if you "jerk" back as a reaction.

Dwarf Burmese - true dwarf - do not get that large. I have seen some females on eggs at 6' in length. It really looked like a funky ball python with a little extra size! But still, smart to excersise care and respect. Heck, I've taken a bite from a 3' retic that got infected and had pretty good tears in the skin from such a small snake because it bit and pulled himself back.

Thank you again. I love and respect the bigger snakes, but I know I am no where near able to keep them, which is why the dwarf burm intrigues me, I have never owned anything bigger than a bp, so maybe the next logical step is something more along the lines of an IJ carpet although if a true dwarf burm stays in the 5-6 foot range that seems managable as well.

[reptileexperts]

true dwarf's do, finding a true dwarf is not exactly easy, extremely hard in fact because of the lacey act for certain states. In Texas, not too bad, I know 3 breeders that have access to them. But outside of Texas, you are quite limited, and prices will match demand.