Venom defender gloves

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Venom defender gloves

Postby Sjuul Verhaegh » Thu Oct 20, 2011 3:07 pm

Hi all,

I was wondering if people here use the Venom defender gloves? http://snakeprofessional.com/venom-defender-gloves.html

This year I helped with some adder research in NL, wherefore the adders needed to be caught. I used welding gloves, but I didn't trust these ones. I heard several stories of adders biting true it, especially when you see the next video, I also used a double glove, but the feeling when catching and handling the snake is in my opinion not good.



So I started thinking of buying the Venom defender gloves witch are tested on several species like Gaboon vipers, mamba's, rattlesnakes and also on the snake with the highest bite presure, the king cobra and al tests seemed to be good. But the price of the gloves is very high, 240 € for one pair.

If you look at http://snakeprofessional.com/about-venom-defender-gloves.html I see a lot of positive reactions from all over the world. But that are probably selected and only positive reactions.

Now I was wondering if people here use these gloves for fieldherping? Or what the thoughts about this product are?

Sjuul
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Re: Venom defender gloves

Postby Liam Russell » Thu Oct 20, 2011 3:53 pm

I've always used welding gloves with adders and never had any problems.
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Re: Venom defender gloves

Postby Pierre-Yves Vaucher » Fri Oct 21, 2011 2:33 am

I use Venom Defender Gloves and with aspis, berus and ammodytes = safe.
One friend used it with Macrovipera lebetina obtusa of about 100cm => he was bitten at one finger = safe
I cannot say more
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Re: Venom defender gloves

Postby Wolfgang Wüster » Fri Oct 21, 2011 11:51 am

I often use them for small vipers, and have not had a problem with them.
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Re: Venom defender gloves

Postby Gabriel Martínez » Fri Oct 21, 2011 11:56 am

One of my friend use normal gloves with Vipera seoanei of all sizes and they bite him and the venom doesn´t touch his skin. But I think this is the lottery, and I decided to get the venom deffender gloves. They are expensive, yes, but the felling of catch a viper without fear hasn´t price, specially if you sometimes visit the field alone. I usually handle hightly venomous snakes (Echis, Cerastes, Daboia...) but also to simply genus Vipera is necessary to get a good prevention.The venom effects depend on the weight, the size, the health, genetic and many things so I recomend to get a good gloves. I read also Venom defender gloves failed with a Naja anytime, but it´s one fail of many times. So my advice is: 1. Be carefull and avoid bites and 2. Because you could be bitten, you should wear the best gloves as possible... ;)
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Re: Venom defender gloves

Postby Sjuul Verhaegh » Fri Oct 21, 2011 12:31 pm

Gabriel Martínez wrote:I read also Venom defender gloves failed with a Naja anytime, but it´s one fail of many times. So my advice is: 1. Be carefull and avoid bites and 2. Because you could be bitten, you should wear the best gloves as possible... ;)


I am also a terrarium hobbyist, and I know the story of the failure with the Naja, and I can tell you it wasn't true. It seemed that the guy who was 'biten' was under the influence of drugs at the moment of testing and tried to get some money out if it. Further more I heard several stories of the 'biten' guy who should be a pathological liar..

Thanks for the replies so far!
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Re: Venom defender gloves

Postby Pierre-Yves Vaucher » Sat Oct 22, 2011 3:31 am

The feeling of some "scratchy bite" is not good when ammodytes bite.... I use these gloves but I have the same attitude if I had no gloves.
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Re: Venom defender gloves

Postby Tim Leerschool » Sat Oct 22, 2011 6:19 pm

I've used welding gloves for almost 4 years now to handle Vipera berus for monitoring purposes. In total 2 big females bit trough my glove. Only by pulling away my finger I escaped a bite. I can speak for some other biologists who have been working with Vipera berus for over 40 years that they doubt the strength of a welding glove when Vipera berus bites, let alone other bigger and more venomous Vipera species!

I have started to believe that welding gloves do not give enough protection and therefore plan to buy them.

When handling other venomous snakes, even in Europe, a bite from a Vipera-species is potentially dangerous. It won't always kill you but you're in for a lot of trouble. For example, I would not risk handling V. ammodytes with welding gloves. Bigger and more venomous species are, as I believe, not worth the risk.

Although gloves, and even the venom defender gloves, are not 100% bite-proof I would be far more comfortable handling all kinds of venomous species with the venom defender gloves.

Hope I make sense ;)

Tim
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Re: Venom defender gloves

Postby Jeroen Speybroeck » Sat Oct 29, 2011 10:31 am

Can these gloves resist flipping rocks etc.? I know I use gloves to dive into stuff, so if these expensive ones wear down, they seem not worth the buy. So: never worn out, or only if you use them to handle animals and nothing else?
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Re: Venom defender gloves

Postby Wolfgang Wüster » Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:55 pm

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Can these gloves resist flipping rocks etc.? I know I use gloves to dive into stuff, so if these expensive ones wear down, they seem not worth the buy. So: never worn out, or only if you use them to handle animals and nothing else?


I would not use them for flipping heavy rocks etc. They rely on the position of layers of hexagonal plates on top of heach other, and I could imagine that that would be easy to damage with excessive tear forces.
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