Expecting to make money from recreational snake milking is like expecting to make money on Steemit without boobs or programming experience... Not likely.
But that doesn't mean I won't do it for fun.
In my previous post I talked about my plans to go snake hunting in the desert this Saturday night. One of my goals for the trip is to milk the venom from a rattlesnake. I was curious if I would be able to sell the venom or make anything useful with it like homemade anti-venom (which could be useful if I insist on doing stupid stunts like snake milking).
1. Quantity
From what I can tell, rattlesnake venom can be worth just over $200 a gram. Rattlesnakes are usually pretty big and can yield much more venom per milking than most other venomous snakes. Even so, you will have to milk at least two of them to get 1 gram. (by comparison it takes 300 to 400 milkings to get 1 gram of coral snake venom)
Most of the prices for snake venom you find on the Internet are listed as per gram but I doubt that anyone would consider buying such a small quantity from an amateur. You would probably have to start by working your way up to a liter of venom (1000 times more!), by then I guess you wouldn't really be an amateur any more.
2. Quality
How-to sites I've seen recommend gathering up a whole bunch of snakes and keeping them under observation for a couple of weeks before you start milking them. That way you can make sure they are healthy so they can produce quality venom. I don't know how this plays into the TV show Venom Hunters, since those guys are always in exotic locations and claim to be getting rich off of venom. I suspect that show may be overlooking some unglamorous aspects in favor of sensationalism. Many people are saying that reputable buyers wouldn't buy venom from unverified sources. That makes sense. Because really, how would you test snake venom to make sure you're getting what you paid for?
3. Make Your Own Anti-Venom?
Do-it-yourself is one of my favorite ways to spend more time and money than I should. Could homemade anti-venom save you money? Possibly, but only because of the 70 percent markup that happens when the finished product passes through the hands of the medical community (US only, Don't get me started!)
The time and resources commitment on the other hand, may be another story.
*Step one of the process goes back to quantity. From what I can tell you need at least half a liter of venom to have a chance at making useable anti-venom.
*Step two: Freeze-dry your venom to concentrate and preserve it.
*Step three: Find an antibody factory. I've heard of using horses or sheep. You have to administer the venom in small doses to you animal over and over again to allow the beast to build up antibodies. After a couple of months, the antibodies should be strong enough.
*Step four: Harvest the antibodies. This requires drawing out a large amount of blood (careful not to kill your animal), filtering out the antibodies, then concentrating and purifying them with peptides to digest away the bad stuff.
*Step four: Store it. Anti-venom must be kept cold or frozen otherwise all that time and effort will go to waste.
There's also a lot of hits for snake venom wrinkle cream, but I didn't really investigate that much. Seems like a lot of Snake Oil to me.
It doesn't look like I'll be doing anything useful with any venom I might collect this weekend. So should I still do it?
It's not the mountain we conquer,
but ourselves.
-Edmund Hillary
I still plan to milk the biggest Rattlesnake I can find this weekend. Maybe I'll just seal the venom in a vial and keep it as a trophy. It's not about the venom, it's about the adventure!