There are 800 snakes — many of them venomous — hanging around the outskirts of DeLand in Volusia County. It’s a soon-to-open-to-the-public Reptile Discovery Center, but it’s actually been around for a few years. Owner Carl Barden has been making a living milking venom from his snakes.
“We’ll be open four days a week, Thursday to Saturday, and have venom programs twice a day,” Barden said. “There are only two other places in the country, and a half-dozen places in the world you can see venom produced.”
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Some of the venom Medtoxin Venom Laboratories collects goes to create antivenin, and some of it goes to research. Barden said proteins in snake venom are used in cancer research, transplant research, and neurotoxin studies, just to name a few.
Approximately 400 snakes are milked for venom each week at Medtoxin in DeLand.
More information about Medtoxin is here. And a decent video of the milking process accompanies the newspaper article.
