The Power Behind KING BROWN Venom | Venom Diaries

[00:00:00]Oh, look at that venom. That's a day ruiner.

[00:00:02]Woo, look at the size of him.

[00:00:04]>> [laughter] >> He is a beast. They will not actively go out of their way, chase you down while you're driving your car trying to attack you.

[00:00:11]All right you guys, welcome back to Venom Dairies. Today's going to be a fun one. We're going to be milking my favorite Australian snake, the king brown. And we're going to tell you some facts about him and we're going to look at breeding king brown. So, we're in the middle of winter. I've been cooling them the last couple of months. It's now mid-July, so they've got probably another 6 weeks of cooling to do and then we're going to start to bring the temps back up. But I'll tell you all about that soon, okay? To start off with, I'm going to milk one. So, let's go. All right, so in here I've got Lucky. I thought he'd finished shedding his skin. He's up there, but he's still got a bit to come off, so I'm going to leave him.

[00:00:47]Uh, I'll go straight to Brando, who we named after Gifo.

[00:00:53]All right, so we'll get him out. Hello you.

[00:00:58]So, this snake's a bit of a character.

[00:01:00]Hence why we named him after Brando. All right, so he's very lively.

[00:01:07]Um he's not huge for a king brown.

[00:01:13]Um, but yeah, he he uh definitely full of a bit of a bit of character this bloke.

[00:01:20]So with the king browns, I can't remember the last time I actually milked a king brown on Venom Dairies. I probably told you in the past, but we have to use a thicker plastic because their bite is so strong. They've got really thick teeth and that comes down to in the wild they mainly feed on reptiles, right? Oh, look at that venom.

[00:01:42]Have a go at that.

[00:01:44]Look at that's a day ruiner. Still going, too. They mainly feed on reptiles. They'll pretty much feed on anything. Like they're absolute pigs of the snake world, but they really really feed on reptiles, especially all the snakes and monitor lizards. So, because of that, they're they're obviously biting prey that are built like them. So, they've got these really thick fangs that don't snap easy or bust off when they're they're biting.

[00:02:12]So, they're about 6 mm length.

[00:02:14]But, they're like twice as thick as most other Australian snake fangs.

[00:02:19]We are in the middle of school holidays, so I've got a massive crowd out here. I'm just going to show them what I'm doing.

[00:02:25]Just going to readjust here. Give them a good look at that big yield right there. In fact, one of our lovely employees is out there, Hayley, who's in on her day off with her family [laughter] watching a snake milking. But, yeah, have a go at that, would you?

[00:02:43]Isn't that wild? That like that much venom.

[00:02:46]But, and and anyone new to the channel, you might not have seen me releasing these, yeah? They just Like look at this, he's just auto milking these. He's not even letting go. So, it's a big problem with black snakes is when they bite and they mean business, they hold on.

[00:03:00]Um so, like if you were to be bitten by this snake in the wild and he was holding on like you were like you'd be up for a a hard time trying to actually get him to let go. And more often than not, I hold him like this until I feel like his jaws relax enough that I can let go like that. Cuz I can't just pull the vial out of the mouth like I can with a lot of other snakes. All right.

[00:03:25]And have a go at that.

[00:03:28]Isn't that crazy? A lot of venom. But, still even with that much, we've got to do 25 milkings for them to have enough venom to produce one vial of antivenom.

[00:03:39]All right. So, I've just milked that king brown. Have a go at that. See, I've got venom all over my finger. And so, the bite was that hard the vial like he had the whole vial in his mouth and it's come out underneath the plastic. It's It's so thick king brown it's like a it's like a syrup and it's all over that finger and most people probably looking at that right now and going far out why are you so relaxed about that? The molecules in venom are so big they're not able to be ingested through your skin like poison molecules are really small and that's why they're absorbed through your skins and pores and so on really easy. Well, this isn't so I wouldn't leave that on my finger. I'm going to wash it off and if I had a fresh open cut that could be disastrous for me but I I'm very careful before I do snake milking. I always check my fingers and make sure I'm not bleeding anywhere like if that was on the other side of my hand even though it's a few days old I probably would have put a glove on um even that but I never really get the venom across there.

[00:04:35]So, I just literally just wash it off a bit of water.

[00:04:39]I've already milked a fair few this morning um and I was doing a bit of training with Logan earlier on cuz he's in training for king brown milking at the moment.

[00:04:49]Um but got another big fella in here.

[00:04:57]It's got a very big head on in this boat.

[00:05:00]So, he's not that long but get him on there slide that.

[00:05:12]Like that and mate All righty, so the majority of the king browns are milked are from the top end.

[00:05:24]So, places like Darwin Kununurra and the Kimberley.

[00:05:30]Um like Kununurra is sort of on the edge of the Kimberley I guess eastern Kimberley.

[00:05:35]Um and then I milk a few from far western New South Wales and sort of central Queensland. They're like a reddish color. So, the king browns I might actually be able to get this fella of the or not.

[00:05:49]The king brown's actually very heaps in color. The name is a shocking name, right? Cuz most of like this guy's more of a caramel color than a brown, to be honest, but they can be literally like bright red.

[00:06:02]Um black, almost white. There's ones north of Perth that are like a olive green sort of a color.

[00:06:08]Um So, they're also known as the mulga snake.

[00:06:14]Um which a lot of people only refer to them as mulga snakes. I like the name king brown. I just like the name. But yeah, they change heaps in color.

[00:06:21]They're not something you're going to see in Sydney. All righty, a lot of people think they always tell me when they come to park here. I was seeing a big king brown in Sydney or the Blue Mountains or Coffs Harbour or Southeast Queensland. Like in New South Wales, you've got to go about at least 6 hours west before you start to get king browns. And Queensland, it's the same sort of thing until you get right up in the final Queensland. Like I guess like Rockhampton and north you can start getting king browns towards the coast coast on there Townsville. You get them literally almost literally almost in town there. And they're the most widely distributed snake in Australia. Okay? So, they're found in pretty well every state and territory bar Victoria and Tasmania. All right?

[00:07:03]Cuz who wants to live there, really?

[00:07:05]>> [laughter] >> I've got family in Tassie.

[00:07:09]No, so they just prefer those drier regions. They're not built for wet weather, put it that way.

[00:07:16]They can handle the monsoon seasons across the top end, but that cold, wet, damp, cooler weather, they're not they're not built for that. All right?

[00:07:23]I'm feeling this guy might be in shed as well. But I'll show you. Like I can tell like if you come over here with the camera.

[00:07:31]I can tell this guy's in shed purely from that pale look along the edge of his belly there. And then I betcha as soon as I look at his eyes, see they're blue? Can see that on the camera? Yeah.

[00:07:43]>> He's releasing an oil between the old skin and the new skin and the whole process is called ecdysis.

[00:07:52]>> Ecdysis?

[00:07:53]>> Yeah, ecdysis.

[00:07:54]>> And when they when they actually shed their skin?

[00:07:56]>> So the the oil helps them slide out of that that that old skin.

[00:08:00]>> All right. And And when they when they shed, they feel really not really fresh almost. Um like they've been using essential oils.

[00:08:07]I um I turned 40 this year and my wife got me for my birthday um anti-aging cream.

[00:08:17]I thought I look pretty young for my age.

[00:08:19]Apparently not. And I thought she was like having a joke. And she's like, "Yeah, I thought you could start using that." I was like, "Uh what are you trying to say, mate?"

[00:08:30]Thanks, Shavon.

[00:08:36]All right.

[00:08:37]Another big fella.

[00:08:39]That's kids in the window going berserk, are they? Pumped up for school holidays?

[00:08:43]All right, kiddos. We are going to milk a snake for you.

[00:08:48]That was me one day a long, long time ago and that is what in inspired me to be exactly where I am right now.

[00:08:57]A little bit of venom in there, guys.

[00:08:59]Not a huge yield from him.

[00:09:01]Actually really clear for a king I've never seen a king brown produce venom that light. Got a bit of a yellow color to it.

[00:09:08]>> That'll just come down to probably a protein.

[00:09:13]I'm not a scientist.

[00:09:14]But it'll just it'll come down to what a particular protein's done during forming that that venom. I'd say it's still highly toxic.

[00:09:22]Um but for some reason it's thrown like a uh it's not as yellow as you can see. We look at underneath there like it's not rich yellow, but it's still got that yellow tinge to it. There you go, kiddos.

[00:09:35]Oh, this guy's well and truly holding on as well.

[00:09:44]Any minute there, mate.

[00:09:46]Hello.

[00:09:50]He's going absolutely ham on this. He's chewing.

[00:09:55]It's like tug-of-war with a king brown.

[00:09:57]Oh, it's It's actually yellower than I thought. It might have been the lighting.

[00:10:00]It's not as yellow, but you can still see it's got that that tinge.

[00:10:09]Come on, you.

[00:10:11]We use the different localities with these guys is because these top enders are way more toxic than those like western New South Wales ones and the central Queensland ones.

[00:10:26]They're like too toxic for the production of antivenom if we use just their antivenom. It um the horses don't have a very good reaction. We use So, um man, this guy does not want to bite.

[00:10:41]Come on, mate.

[00:10:43]There we go. Oh, there he does.

[00:10:46]Yeah, so we we use the different localities and that helps produce a really high-quality antivenom. Look at that. Far out, once he bit, wow, he meant business.

[00:10:58]What a yield. And look, you can see on here when he compresses every time he bites, there you can He did it again. See that?

[00:11:06]So, that's the venom glands compressing as it There There we go. Injected more venom. So, that's the wild thing with black snakes cuz they just have such big yields, they can just keep going and going and going. And that's like he's giving me Are you going to let go? Ripper.

[00:11:25]He's giving me probably 350 mg of venom there. It's wild. And he's still got Look Look how big those venom glands still are.

[00:11:34]Hold on.

[00:11:36]Look at the size of them still. They're still massive.

[00:11:39]Still Look, that's probably not even 50% 15% of what he had. So, if if I was to milk him again now, I don't think he'd really give me that much because like he knows he's just given me a a more than enough to kill me.

[00:11:55]How's I get this like white lip these top enders?

[00:12:00]Really cool.

[00:12:02]Looks like there's been a bit of spray pattern just like missed the lip line.

[00:12:08]All right, mate. We'll get you back in.

[00:12:15]Hey, mate.

[00:12:17]Air unit.

[00:12:19]Woo! Look at the size of him.

[00:12:22]>> [laughter] >> He is a beast. So, they're Australia's biggest venomous snake.

[00:12:27]The mighty king brown or the mighty mulga. I actually find them really easy to work with.

[00:12:35]And even the wild ones I don't find them too bad. Look at the size of this bloke. So, he's well over 2 m now.

[00:12:42]They can get to 3 m.

[00:12:46]Being Australia's biggest venomous snake, but they also have probably the worst reputation of any Australian snake for like you know, chasing down people. Oh, look at that. Attacking people.

[00:13:01]Um where I just I've had people tell me yarns, literally, they've been chased for like 300 m by a snake like this, which Well, I got to admit I find that pretty unbelievable. Um I have caught thousands of snakes. I have never been chased.

[00:13:19]I've never been attacked. I have had plenty of snakes rear up and you You once they realize that I'm trying to catch them or something and I they think I'm a a major threat and they act defensive and so on.

[00:13:31]Fair enough, but I've never actually had them go out of their way and try and chase me down and attack me and >> [snorts] >> all that, but I've had lots of people tell me about it and you know, every single person in Outback Australia seems to have a story of a king brown chasing them and or attacking them or or so on. So, until I see it on camera, I believe it. All right, that's cuz >> [laughter] >> they definitely defensive. All right, like if you would walk up to a king brown in the bush and and act like you're going to try and hurt it or harm it or something, they will flatten their neck out and carry on, but they will not actively go out of their way, chase you down while you're driving your car trying to attack you. There's some of the story. Someone told me that they're in a Land Cruiser ute in Western Queensland and they were doing 100 km an hour when one of these things was trying to attack them. I'm not joking. They said they'd pulled up next to it on the road and then it started trying to attack his ute and then he took off and he said he looked in the rear vision mirror and he could just see this king brown peeling down the track. The highway patrol got him. I was like, "Wow, that's pretty extreme." So, >> [laughter] >> I don't know what he had for breakfast that day, but anyway, we'll um yeah, that's another story. He's not letting go. Typical. Hey, mate.

[00:14:45]Thanks, buddy.

[00:14:46]All right. So, I got a bunch of king browns over here that I've been cooling since sort of mid-May.

[00:14:54]Um So, with the girls, so it's more important I find for the girls anyway they go through this cooling period if you want to breed.

[00:15:02]Um because they do like their follicle development as they go through that cooling period.

[00:15:13]And then when they're ready coming into spring they ovulate and I swell up um down their lower abdomen, and that's like a really good indication that she's ready to mate, and I'll put in a male. Normally with the king browns, I'll actually combat them.

[00:15:33]I'll put two of the boys together, and they'll wrestle and carry on.

[00:15:37]They don't really bite each other and they don't hurt each other, and I'm obviously there to watch it. And then I'll pull the the winner out, put him in with the girl, and they pretty well know what to do. They They're like an 18-year-old at the pub for the first time, you know what I mean? They wrap their tails around each other. The mating can last for hours and hours and hours and multiple days of it. Um and then, you know, about maybe 4 or 5 weeks later, she will shed her skin. That's called a pre-lay shed. And then about maybe 25 days after that, she'll lay a clutch of eggs. All right, so that's what I'm hoping for this this year. Um you'll see straight up, the girls are a lot smaller than the boys, and they've got really small heads.

[00:16:22]Um but she's still a decent-sized snake, and a bite from her would 100% ruin your day, but she looks in great condition. Um so I'm not going to annoy her too much. I'm just going to get her back in here, cuz it's when I'm putting them through the cooling period, like I lower their temps. I pretty much match what it's doing in Darwin.

[00:16:43]So, new thermostats these days, it's all digital. I can control literally from me phone and just set it. So, they'll they'll have like a nighttime temp, so it'll get down to like maybe 16°.

[00:16:55]Sometimes cooler, and then I'll bring it up to about maybe 23 or 24 in the daytime.

[00:17:00]And then I'll keep the humidity nice and high, cuz generally in the wild, when they are going through this cooling period, they're down in like burrows, where it's a bit humid. Um it's cold, but but humid, and that sort of helps them avoid like respiratory infection.

[00:17:13]And then And they they won't eat for like 4 months. All right, and I'll do the same with the boys. And yeah, so I've cooled three girls this season, two boys, and I'm hoping they can work their magic. It'll be [snorts] somewhere about somewhere between like the 10th and 20th of September.

[00:17:30]They will I'll be like, swell, boom, put the boys in, and we'll play a bit of special music for them.

[00:17:37]Maybe dim the lights.

[00:17:39]We'll see what happens.

[00:17:40]We're also cooling the death adders, or two of them anyway, this season.

[00:17:45]I've got them together though. See you coming here. I got the girl right there.

[00:17:50]And then the boy. So, this exhibit's getting down to about 15° at night, and then coming up to about 23° in the daytime.

[00:18:00]And what should happen, hopefully, mid-October to early November, we'll get these summertime storms, and that's real triggering for the death adders. We will if if we don't get those storms for some reason, I'll like mock them up. I'll literally play thunder in here and make it rain in that in that exhibit. And that can be very triggering for the for the death adders. Like, if I want to go and look for death adders in the wild, like on the coast here, those nights are like the go-to nights for going to find adders.

[00:18:35]Um so, she's much bigger than him, but yeah, I don't do this with most species.

[00:18:39]I don't keep them paired together through the the cooling period. I'm just doing that because A, they tolerate each other really well.

[00:18:45]They're not going to eat each other.

[00:18:46]Um and B, I can get this exhibit um fairly cool, cuz you really These guys are like Central Coast, it's freezing cold. Like, it's been 4° every morning this week. So, I'm not going to put them in a 4° cuz I don't need to, but down to that sort of 16, 15, 14's been getting to a a few nights. Um is definitely enough to to to to put them through that cooling period to trigger that breeding response, especially for for the girl. And again, they're not eating. They're just literally boom doing their thing. The when Clyde was walking here, they were literally nose to nose. Like look like they were kissing. Um he was sitting on top of the other day.

[00:19:26]So they're very very tolerant of each other. Beautiful snakes.

[00:19:30]All righty, hope you enjoyed that. Bit of milking, bit of looking to breeding snakes. Um so something a bit different for yous. Got any ideas for future episodes? Drop in the comments. And like I said before, if you got any ideas for the names of some of those king browns, drop them in the comments, all right?

[00:19:44]Boys and girl names, all righty?

[00:19:46]Um anyway, that's going to be it for this episode. Hope you liked it. You know the drill. Like, share, subscribe, and I'll see you all for the next one.