If power goes out, how do I heat my BP's enclosure?

[queenelvis82]

Hi all!
So springtime is just around the corner and with that, major thunderstorms in my neck of the woods. It is common to have power outages and I have my heat panel connected to a thermostat that is obviously run on household power. I am guessing that there are battery powered thermostats out there, but I am wondering which one is the best for a heat panel pushing 105 F?
If anybody has suggestions, I would love to read them!
Cheers!

[Stewart_Reptiles]

If the power goes out mainly worry about the ambient temp and make sure it is within proper range.

In case of power outage you should have some heat packs (those used for shipping), or a hot water bottle if you only have only one animal, a buddy heater or generator if you have a room full of animals.

[kitedemon]

It is a very justified worry. I am going to elaborate on Deborahs post and suggest a thought process, rather than how to.

The answer is different for everyone, conditions and budget will make great impact.

Think in stages, often power failures fall into three types short term hours not days, a day or two, and then catastrophic.

Short term solutions maybe as simple as placing a good insulator over the enclosure. This may buy you two or three hours of acceptable ambients (74 being the cool end of normal and 70 being tolerable for a short term below starts to get to be a problem.)

After just insulating stars to be an issue I then remove the snake and place the animal in a smaller lower vented container with a warm water bottle (if you still can heat water! I have a Bbq) of a chemical heat pad. (remember they use oxygen so they need more air flow and some get very hot and the snake needs to be protected from the surface) If the smaller container is placed inside something like a stryofoam cooler (with some vent holes) it holds heat longer. That often will buy 24 hours more if you have a handful of chemical heat packs or multiple water bottles.

Over a really long term is where things get quite dicey. You are actually likely to be having serious issues as well. I have spend 7 days with no power and stranded once. It goes from an inconvenience, to a pain, to an serious survival situation fairly fast, the first 72 hours in my case. This is the point where the supplies you need and the snake need start to dwindle. Snake bag and snake kept under your cloths might be the only method. But to in a catastrophic power failure it is quite possible that the animal may not make it, if you are cold and have not eaten in days and can go to a emergency shelter but not take the snake you may well have to leave it behind. Sad but your well being may need to come first. Luckily things rarely get that bad.

Things to I plan, check the weather, if there is a big storm predicted and it is cold outside skip a feeding. Snakes 'empty' tolerate a wider temperature range than 'full' and cope with stresses better. Heat water I actually use a product called a 'snuggle safe' and when a storm starts I heat them in case. Make sure you have things like a little cooler with some vent holes in it, a snake bag, chemical heat pads, what ever else you may need. Do a dry run, take you emergency system somewhere cool (basement or porch someplace.) stick a thermometer with hi low recording inside and you heat method a see what happens so you have a sense of how long it can hold for.

Think in stages, stage one 24 hours most grid issues are repaired inside this. 72 hours the serious storms may slow down the repair process. longer is massive damage and not only the snake may need rescuing you may as well, it is impossible/difficult to plan for.

[bcr229]

Deb's advice is spot on. I would also add that if you have an incubator then you really need a generator.

[ballpythonluvr]

It is a very justified worry. I am going to elaborate on Deborahs post and suggest a thought process, rather than how to.

The answer is different for everyone, conditions and budget will make great impact.

Think in stages, often power failures fall into three types short term hours not days, a day or two, and then catastrophic.

Short term solutions maybe as simple as placing a good insulator over the enclosure. This may buy you two or three hours of acceptable ambients (74 being the cool end of normal and 70 being tolerable for a short term below starts to get to be a problem.)

After just insulating stars to be an issue I then remove the snake and place the animal in a smaller lower vented container with a warm water bottle (if you still can heat water! I have a Bbq) of a chemical heat pad. (remember they use oxygen so they need more air flow and some get very hot and the snake needs to be protected from the surface) If the smaller container is placed inside something like a stryofoam cooler (with some vent holes) it holds heat longer. That often will buy 24 hours more if you have a handful of chemical heat packs or multiple water bottles.

Over a really long term is where things get quite dicey. You are actually likely to be having serious issues as well. I have spend 7 days with no power and stranded once. It goes from an inconvenience, to a pain, to an serious survival situation fairly fast, the first 72 hours in my case. This is the point where the supplies you need and the snake need start to dwindle. Snake bag and snake kept under your cloths might be the only method. But to in a catastrophic power failure it is quite possible that the animal may not make it, if you are cold and have not eaten in days and can go to a emergency shelter but not take the snake you may well have to leave it behind. Sad but your well being may need to come first. Luckily things rarely get that bad.

Things to I plan, check the weather, if there is a big storm predicted and it is cold outside skip a feeding. Snakes 'empty' tolerate a wider temperature range than 'full' and cope with stresses better. Heat water I actually use a product called a 'snuggle safe' and when a storm starts I heat them in case. Make sure you have things like a little cooler with some vent holes in it, a snake bag, chemical heat pads, what ever else you may need. Do a dry run, take you emergency system somewhere cool (basement or porch someplace.) stick a thermometer with hi low recording inside and you heat method a see what happens so you have a sense of how long it can hold for.

Think in stages, stage one 24 hours most grid issues are repaired inside this. 72 hours the serious storms may slow down the repair process. longer is massive damage and not only the snake may need rescuing you may as well, it is impossible/difficult to plan for.

This is all good information. Last February we had a pretty bad ice storm that knocked trees down along with the power wires and we did not have power for four days straight. Luckily I did not have any snakes at the time. We could not get our house temperature above 50 degrees. We had a kerosene heater but it did not do much for the temps. We have electric heat and our water is well water so we didn't even have any water. It was so rough. I have a dog and a cat and it was pretty hard on them as well.

[JennyBP]

Very valid worry.. you've got me thinking now.. i'm just going to buy a generator.. they are less than $200 on amazon for a smaller one.. problem is the gas in an enclosed area..

[bcr229]

Very valid worry.. you've got me thinking now.. i'm just going to buy a generator.. they are less than $200 on amazon for a smaller one.. problem is the gas in an enclosed area..

If you're going to get one, spend a bit and get something in the 5000 watt range. You need to protect not just your snakes, but the contents of your refrigerator/freezer, especially if you have f/t feeders. My generator more than paid for itself when we lost power for four days in July a few years back and the high temperatures topped 100*F every day. My neighbors had to toss hundreds or even thousands of dollars in rotting meat, venison, etc. when the contents of their refrigerators and chest freezers got too warm. We lost nothing.

Make sure you run it outside in a well-ventilated area. Carbon monoxide poisoning is a real danger and it will kill.

Security is another issue. Generators are noisy and my neighborhood had a lot of extra foot and vehicle traffic between midnight and 6:00 a.m. when the power was out for four days. We had to make sure someone was awake at all times to ensure the generator didn't grow legs and walk away...

Also, if you get a more powerful one than you need, you can let your neighbors run an extension cord to it in exchange for helping keep it fueled up, and helping make sure it stays where it's supposed to. Plus, they won't complain about the noise if they're benefitting from it.

Finally, generator power is dirty. Don't plan on running a high-end digital t-stat on it, you're better off just using it to run a space heater to maintain the ambient temp in the snake room. If you have something like an incubator t-stat, make sure it's on a surge protector.

[Sirensong26]

I keep some of those shipping heat packs on hand, and in the case of an emergency and I run out, I also keep mitten warmers on hand just in case. The problem with the latter is that they can get extremely hot (warped the plastic of my feeding tub) soif you use those, insulate them well from the BP.

[D1C]

If its just a few hours or overnight, I've got a portable battery pack for times like that.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

[kitedemon]

I agree on the generators a bigger one is more useful. Proportional stats need pure seine wave inverters I believe honda and yamaha have them but most others do not.

If you have deep pockets http://www.generac.com/for-homeowners/home-backup-power

also are perfect they power everything.