Traveling with bp

I’m making a presentation in my genetics class on the evolution of snakes and i’m bringing in my bp, PJ. The class is 3 hours long and its a half hour ride. So he’ll be out of his tank for at least 4 hours. does anyone have any thoughts on what i should put him in to make him most comfortable. I have a snake bag, would that be sufficient for that length of time? I also have a portable heating pad (it looks like a frisbee) that I could bring as well.
thanks for any advice!
azure

maybe use an insulated box and a heat pack or the portable thing you have.


vaughn

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Originally Posted by kavmon

maybe use an insulated box and a heat pack or the portable thing you have.


vaughn

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late post bro? ... playin hookey tomorrow? :D

-adam

nah! just waiting for the chip! lol it's past my bedtime.


vaughn

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Originally Posted by kavmon

nah! just waiting for the chip! lol it's past my bedtime.


vaughn

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Damn, I was going to bribe you to come up for feeding day!! :P .... Feeding all those babies $UCK$!!

Someone needs to lay the CHiP down ASAP!! ... The lunatics are losing control of the asylum!!

-adam

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kavmon

maybe use an insulated box and a heat pack or the portable thing you have.


vaughn

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thats what i was gonna say, put the snake in the snake bag but tie it at the top of the bag so he can move on and off the heat thing while still in the bag. and i would use an icechest as an "insulated box."

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Originally Posted by mr~python

thats what i was gonna say, put the snake in the snake bag but tie it at the top of the bag so he can move on and off the heat thing while still in the bag. and i would use an icechest as an "insulated box."

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Have you ever traveled with ball pythons before?

-adam

no, why do you ask? im just telling him what i would do, but one more thing make sure the icechest locks.

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Originally Posted by mr~python

no, why do you ask? im just telling him what i would do, but one more thing make sure the icechest locks.

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I ask because I find it a little uncomfortable to keep reading posts that just repeat what has already been stated on the thread or in other threads.

Giving advice and suggestions from practical experience is an excellent way of sharing information and helping other people out, but if everyone just got on here and regurgitated everything that they've ever read in books or in the internet about about ball pythons, this site would be pretty lame.

-adam

If you have the ability ,use the climate control for your car to heat it up to the right specs for you BP. Also bring your tank if you can (doubt it) and bring a car adaptor for the car.

I brought my bp in to my science class during my senior year of high school. My class was only 50 minutes long but I had to keep her at school all day (about 7 hrs), so I left her in my science teacher's storage closet inside a plastic cat carrier (not the kind with the wire door on front... it's hinged and the whole top flips off) with a towel folded over a cereal box, with a heating pad under half and a thermometer probe inside the box. I just had my teacher check on her throughout the day and everything went fine. Good luck!

Four hours is not an enormous amount of time for your BP to be out & about. You don't need to get real tricky about it. When I travel with my BP (to the vets or when i brought her to class last year) I do so with a golf cooler & a pillow case. Using hand warmers is good. Just put it on one side of the cooler & nuthin on the other side &, as was said earlier, try to make your case big enough so that the BP can move inside of the bag. Like I said, four hours is not, IMHO, an awfully long time for your snake to be out. Just try to leave her alone for a couple days after the trip cuz it will likely stress the BP out.

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Originally Posted by HelicopterPilot

If you have the ability ,use the climate control for your car to heat it up to the right specs for you BP.

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Be there, done that ... makes for a miserable trip for all of the humans in the car. It's really not necessary if you follow some of the other advice in the thread.

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Originally Posted by HelicopterPilot

Also bring your tank if you can (doubt it) and bring a car adaptor for the car.

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Not practical. If the "tank" breaks while you are traveling accidently, you are $crewed.

-adam

Yep and also if you remove your tank or tub from it's set up state in your home, put it in your car, haul it out into another building, haul it back into your car, drag it back into your house....other than the lovely possibility of a wrenched back you have a tank/tub that is likely waaaaaaaaaaay out of normal "specs".

Now your snake that is likely a tad stressed from it's time out, has a home that has gone wonky as far as temps and humidity. (wonky = not quite right, out of sync for you people that don't speak Canadian! ;) )

This is pure speculation on my part as quite honestly if we remove the snakes for a vet visit they travel in seperate lock lid plastic carriers (made em for $4.00 each from my local Dollar Store and our ever handy dandy soldering wand!)


~~Jo~~

During the transportation of a bp in a vehicle, make sure that the container is not in the sunlight coming through the windows of the car. This will definately cause an increase in the temperature in the box although you may not feel it yourself. My reptile vet is 35 minutes away from my home, so everytime I have went, I monitor the temps of the properly packed box including the ball python(s) with a temp gun. In the winter, if you are driving in a heated car w/ sunlight coming through the window, a heat pack may not be necessary because of the temps inside the car so be careful.

When transporting or shipping a reptile, It is always good to do a test run and monitor temps to make sure everything will be ok. If you want to pack you bp up in a box for transporting, I would pack the box like you plan to transport it.....put a digital thermometer w/ a min/max record feature and do a test run. The thermometer will record the range of temps that the animal will experience so you will know if the packaging is acceptable.

You guys don't have a temperature and humidity controlled chamber mounted in your cars for traveling with your snakes? What is this world coming to!? :)

thanks for the advice guys, i really appreciate it. i did the presentation yesterday- it was actually on the evolution on snakes. i learned some really cool things such that pythons and boas are very primitive snakes and that they have vesitigial hip bones/femurs.
what i did was put him in his snake bag, goosenecked it and put a rubberband over the top. i put him in a cat carrier with a portable heating pad i use for puppies, with a towel over it. he stayed nice and warm and put on a fantastic show. he didn't seem to mind a bit and everyone loved it!

thanks again!
azure