- Today, we're gonna find out
what it's like to get bitten by a rattlesnake,
but I'm not actually gonna take a bite.
What I'm gonna do is find out
what the venom does to my blood.
Timber rattlesnakes have a neurotoxin in the Southern range
and more of a hemotoxin in the Northern range.
We really want the hemotoxin
because that's what creates clogging
and other necrotic things to blood.
And because we wanna have a really good experiment here
we actually have a Western diamondback as well.
So this is definitely being the necrotic type of venom.
We're gonna go ahead and milk both of these.
- Next.
- But before we actually get to milking, first off we have.
- Bite protocol
- And we have Lindsey, the registered nurse here on staff
just in case anything goes wrong.
You say we get into it
(snake slithering)
- [Bruce] Now. Yep, you got it, got it.
- Okay. So now I have the timber rattlesnake here.
What we wanna do is get a bite on this
and get some venom extraction.
There's about 7 to 8,000 venomous snake bites
in the country per year,
timber rattlesnakes and diamondbacks
that count for a small portion but they are ambush hunters.
We just got a little bit of venom out of this guy,
not that much.
We're gonna go ahead and let him give one more bite.
Let him back off for a second,
I can see some venom right there in his teeth.
There he goes, there it is.
I can see a little bit more coming out right now.
Not a big venom yield but normally timber rattlesnakes
have a pretty large venom yield.
Okay, now I'm gonna put it back.
Dangerous part, Bruce I'm gonna set down.
- [Bruce] Yes, sir.
- [Brian] I'm gonna tell you to go.
- [Bruce] Ready?
- And clear and that's how you do it.
We've got enough venom I think to actually do this,
just a few drops is all it's gonna take.
(snake slithering)
As you can see,
this is definitely a lot more hyper of a snake
than the timber rattlesnake.
So it's a little bit more difficult.
I'm just trying to get his head position
to where I can actually grab it.
It's about patience.
You don't wanna to rush this at all.
Not giving me a lot of options here.
Nope, I've gotta have that neck.
If I don't have that neck, I can't grab him.
(snake slithering)
- [Bruce] Ready.
- Here we go.
Oh, he's, look at the venom yield on this one.
We definitely have a lot more venom yield for this guy.
There's no doubt about that.
Whoo Look at the venom that this one pumped out,
definitely about 10 times the venom yield that
that timber rattlesnake does.
This is gonna be a great thing to see
what it does to the blood.
That's enough venom right there, certainly to kill someone.
Now, the fact is if you're actually getting
medical treatment, about 99.5% of cases are treatable.
So it's important to get treatment
within the first two hours.
Whoo doggy, I wouldn't want that in my blood but guess what?
It's about to go there.
- [Bruce] That's good bit there.
- So what we basically have is a control Petri dish
that my blood is gonna go into.
Then two other Petri dishes that my blood's gonna go into.
One that timber rattlesnake venom which we didn't get much
is gonna go in.
And then this big venom yield
for the diamondback rattle snake.
And we're gonna find out what happens when this venom
hits my blood.
I'm gonna be totally honest with you guys,
Lindsey's here to draw blood from me
and I would rather work with a venomous snake
than get my blood drawn.
So I'm gonna put my life in her hands.
Hopefully I don't pass out.
- Where are they?
- Maybe I'm nervous.
Got some performance issues.
I'm pretty nervous about this.
Please do me a favor, smash that like button,
hit the subscription bell.
I'm literally bleeding for this video.
This is blood, sweat and tears 'cause I'm sweating too.
Got cotton mouth.
Tell me when it's over.
(suspenseful music)
Tell me that was all.
Is blood coming out?
I'm feeling wheezy.
I'm gonna just look at the venom.
All right this is the easy part.
Actually, Lindsey you're really good at this.
- [Lindsey] Thank you.
- We're gonna have Jay the entertainer do it,
but he had never were done it before,
so we thought a registered nurse was a good idea.
Oh no, the blood's flowing.
Can we get a popsicle at least?
I should definitely get a lollipop for that.
- Yep.
- Okay great, good job.
This is something that can be very dangerous.
I've milked black mambas in Africa.
I've done coastal taipans in Australia,
tiger snakes and even brown snakes.
But trust me, it can be very dangerous
and I don't want anyone to make any mistakes out there
based on this video.
I'm doing this because I'm really curious.
I've seen this before in videos.
I've never seen it in person.
And I wanna see what this venom will do to my blood.
So this is the control group here.
I'm just gonna put a little blood in here.
This will be the timber rattlesnake blood here
and then this is gonna be the Western diamondback.
So there's not a lot of venom here
with that timber rattlesnake,
just didn't have very much venom yield.
So what I'm gonna have to do is be very careful
and not waste any of this, but it doesn't take much.
I'm gonna just put it right in here like this
and see how it starts to react.
I'm gonna cover the control group
and now I'm gonna cover the timber rattlesnake.
Now there wasn't a tremendous amount of venom
going on there.
So I don't know if there's gonna be a lot of reaction there
but with this one, there's a ton of venom.
Now I'm gonna use about half of this venom in this blood
and what I'm gonna do with the other half,
I think it's going to be interesting
'cause I'm gonna inject it into a piece of meat
just to see if there's any tissue breakdown with the venom.
There you go.
That's enough venom to definitely put a hurting on somebody.
Now I'm gonna take a piece of meat and again
inject this right into the meat
to see if there's any tissue breakdown.
Shots anyone?
Okay so I'm gonna inject right here all the venom in.
This will simulate a bite
and we'll see if it actually breaks down the tissue.
Ugh, guys that gives me chills.
I don't want to be on the end of that tooth at all.
And Lindsey is not only a registered nurse
but she's also a reptile lover.
She came here to help me out with this kind of experiment
but she also brought me a gift.
What did you bring me?
- I brought you a Baron's Racer.
- A Baron's Racer, now this is a snake
that is definitely a dream snake of mine.
We actually saw some down at Lizard Land
when we were down in North Carolina.
They were absolutely wonderful.
So when Lindsey said she was gonna bring me this,
I was over the top.
Now these are a rear faint venomous snake too
but a very mild venom.
But look at how cool that snake is right there.
Of course it's got that little appendage on the end,
almost a little bit like a rhino ratsnake.
And sometimes these guys can come in actually
a blue phase too, which is a locality
but they are amazing little animals.
I am so happy that Lindsey brought it to me.
They're really curious, really amazing snake.
This will be an amazing animal ambassador
here at The Reptarium.
Not only testing the blood for venom
but getting a really cool snake at the same time.
Even after just 20 minutes
you can definitely see the Western diamondback blood,
it's starting to extremely thin out and stretch
and you can see that kind of lightness in the center
is spreading out further and further in the edge.
This is what's gonna happen to your blood
if you ever get bitten by a venomous snake
that is hemotoxic like a Western diamondback.
And take a look at the color of the meat
where I injected it with the venom.
It's actually starting to turn a little bit more brown.
Like the venom is actually breaking down the tissue
and actually rotting it, a process that's called necrosis.
And in that short of a period of time,
you wouldn't even have gotten to a hospital most likely,
let alone them starting to administer antivenom.
And if you didn't see the fangs enough
when we were actually getting the venom,
Bruce brought us some stuff.
Tell me about these.
- So I get little rewards every now and then.
So when I clean up some of the poop,
I actually do find the occasional shed fangs.
I mean this is like
nine timber rattlesnake fangs right here.
I get them all cleaned up and I just sort of save them.
And I just think that it's just kind of my little gold
that I get from my animals.
- So that's a timber rattlesnake and yes
rattlesnakes will shed their teeth.
Actually all snakes will shed their teeth.
So it's not uncommon for that to happen.
And you brought the Western diamondback as well.
- The Western.
So the cool thing is if you're really trying to take a look
at the two, like they almost look exactly the same,
but the snakes are so much different inside.
So that really tells you that
Western could truly pack a punch
when it's at its full size versus the timber
- Westerns are gonna get much, much larger.
That's amazing.
And then in here it's really cool.
So this is the timber rattlesnake's buttons
and they actually shake around, right?
They're using this to warn you don't come around me, right?
This is what they use.
And they'll actually, every time they shed,
they'll get a new button
and occasionally they'll actually break off the button.
You saw the timber rattlesnake had a lot of buttons.
Could you imagine
if it would've had all these buttons on it as well?
You know, they can only get so long
but that's amazing to see.
So like I'd mentioned that Lindsey had reached out to me
and told me she was gonna be bringing this little monkey up.
So we actually set up an enclosure just for him.
These guys love to climb.
They're very arboreal and they're very inquisitive.
So I think he's gonna absolutely love this enclosure
for the short term.
Eventually he has get into a large enclosure
'cause it's gonna get like seven foot long,
pretty wide body.
Take about this big a round or so.
But I think it's gonna be amazing.
Look at how he's gonna be able to climb around
and really check the place out.
I tell it, I cannot wait to show people
when we're open here at The Reptarium.
Of course we could leave this blood here
for the next few hours but it's been about an hour.
This is the normal blood.
And when I actually go like this,
look at how it kind of goes like that right?
Coagulates in the middle here.
Now this is the timber rattlesnake
that just has a little bit of venom in the end
but look at how much more loose that is.
Is that crazy?
Look at the difference.
A little drop of venom made the blood
completely not coagulate.
And then this is the real one here with all of that venom.
Let's take a look at what happens.
Oh my gosh!
Just look at that.
Dripping like that, like nothing.
I mean again what happens in that venom is
it's gonna just make your blood slowly deteriorate
and the viscosity of your blood is gonna be really loose.
That is amazing.
After just one hour, we saw those effects on the blood.
You can imagine that in your system for hour after hour,
after hour, you pump through with your heart.
Oh my gosh, this gives me a new appreciation.
I've seen this online
but I've never seen it with my own eyes.
Look at this, that one drop of timber rattlesnake blood.
- Holy crap.
Holy moly.
That was like nothing.
- Look at the color difference too.
(Bruce laughs)
- Oh my God it's like clear on the outside
and like just wiping the blood from the.
Oh my God.
That's oh, I get chills.
That is chilly.
- You can already see the discoloration where that venom is.
Let's see what happens after 12 hours.
(screen bleeping)
You can see kind of it's translucent
in the area where the venom is.
You can even see a little sinuet right here.
Definitely see some decomposition of the meat.
Really interesting to see this kind of thing.
I was blown away at the small amount of venom
from that timber rattlesnake that changed the blood
but this is pretty interesting too.
You could only imagine
if it was pumping through your veins with that venom.
Oh my God.
Wow guys, that was absolutely incredible.
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Have a wonderful day reptile army.
Remember, be kind to someone and I promise.
Oh shit I just dropped it.