The wind blows

[Damselle]

Ok. So my Uniheat small pet shipping warmers have arrived, and just in time, as we're due for a Nor'Easter here over the weekend and tend to lose power every time the wind blows, which is why I got these buggers. So, they do come with instructions, but for shipping. How would anyone suggest I use them to keep my snake warm in his habitat if the power goes out? Would it be safe to just wrap the warmers in towels and place them inside the terrarium?

[Bogertophis]

What I would suggest, having been without power for days after an ice storm (!), is that you have an ice chest or styrofoam shipping box for each of your
herp-pets, or if the boxes/ice chests are larger, they can hold more than one IF the occupants compatible. Obviously, ophiophagus snakes like king snakes
or indigo snakes have to have their "own space", even though bagged securely, as their mere scent will terrorize the "neighbors".

You would not want to keep them in their own enclosures, as the much larger space is impossible to keep warm enough with heat packs. And btw, if you
have a gas hot water heater, you can also do as I did & use large jars* of hot water (1 or more, depending on size of ice chest & the needs of the occupants)
to keep them balmy inside. My ice chests stayed about 80-82* for 8-9 hours, at which point I changed the water. You also want to have a way of measuring
the temperature, either old-fashioned mercury bulb room thermometers (what I have on hand) or a temp. gun, than many here use & swear by.
*If you might want or need to use jars of hot water, now is the time to collect & keep them aside for emergency use. Large pickle jars are great.

You should also have on hand (within reach) appropriate sized snake-bags (or pillow cases) and the means to close them. The "old way" of tying the actual
cloth bag isn't for me: I use a twist-wire to first close the bag, then fold that portion down over itself and rubber-band around that. It's no fun in the midst
of a bad storm with power out to search out these things or find out you're out of rubber bands, so I keep this stuff accessible always.

During the outage I had, I also grouped the ice chests on my couch & padded around them with pillows & such to add insulation. It worked extremely well.
Make sure the bagged reptiles are not on top of each other, & for safety that large heavy ones aren't going to squash tiny ones in the same ice chest. I put
1-3 bagged snakes in each of my large ice chests, depending on their size...my large & heavy BCI had her own, while my rat snakes (etc) of similar body-wts
shared ice chests. They each had room to move within their own bags...don't secure the bags tightly around the snake, leave them some space.

None of my snakes had any ill effects from that outage...all were relaxed thru-out the ordeal, way better than me: I was jealous that I couldn't fit in any of the
"ice" chests, lol. But sadly, I know of other folks that lost many or most of their animals after that terrible ice storm because they weren't prepared.

[Damselle]

What I would suggest, having been without power for days after an ice storm (!), is that you have an ice chest or styrofoam shipping box for each of your
herp-pets, or if the boxes/ice chests are larger, they can hold more than one IF the occupants compatible. Obviously, ophiophagus snakes like king snakes
or indigo snakes have to have their "own space", even though bagged securely, as their mere scent will terrorize the "neighbors".

You would not want to keep them in their own enclosures, as the much larger space is impossible to keep warm enough with heat packs. And btw, if you
have a gas hot water heater, you can also do as I did & use large jars* of hot water (1 or more, depending on size of ice chest & the needs of the occupants)
to keep them balmy inside. My ice chests stayed about 80-82* for 8-9 hours, at which point I changed the water. You also want to have a way of measuring
the temperature, either old-fashioned mercury bulb room thermometers (what I have on hand) or a temp. gun, than many here use & swear by.
*If you might want or need to use jars of hot water, now is the time to collect & keep them aside for emergency use. Large pickle jars are great.

You should also have on hand (within reach) appropriate sized snake-bags (or pillow cases) and the means to close them. The "old way" of tying the actual
cloth bag isn't for me: I use a twist-wire to first close the bag, then fold that portion down over itself and rubber-band around that. It's no fun in the midst
of a bad storm with power out to search out these things or find out you're out of rubber bands, so I keep this stuff accessible always.

During the outage I had, I also grouped the ice chests on my couch & padded around them with pillows & such to add insulation. It worked extremely well.
Make sure the bagged reptiles are not on top of each other, & for safety that large heavy ones aren't going to squash tiny ones in the same ice chest. I put
1-3 bagged snakes in each of my large ice chests, depending on their size...my large & heavy BCI had her own, while my rat snakes (etc) of similar body-wts
shared ice chests. They each had room to move within their own bags...don't secure the bags tightly around the snake, leave them some space.

None of my snakes had any ill effects from that outage...all were relaxed thru-out the ordeal, way better than me: I was jealous that I couldn't fit in any of the
"ice" chests, lol. But sadly, I know of other folks that lost many or most of their animals after that terrible ice storm because they weren't prepared.

god yes, that was an awful storm. I don't have gas heat, but do have a wood burning stove to heat water on. Essential for morning coffee!

So... How did you make sure the critters didn't get burned by the hot water bottles? How did you seperately them from the bottles?

[distaff]

Wrap the hot bottle in a cloth towel
Or, do what I did when we ended up unexpectedly with a hatchling and no extra equipment - treat the water bottles like a baby bottle. I used warm water, not hot, and put my wrist to the bottle. These stayed warm for a few hours, and the hatchling just curled up on top of one of the jars. Not ideal, but that got him through the time it took to ship a herp-stat and UTH. Tub was on the kitchen counter, so I switched out bottles whenever I was in the kitchen.

[Bogertophis]

god yes, that was an awful storm. I don't have gas heat, but do have a wood burning stove to heat water on. Essential for morning coffee!

So... How did you make sure the critters didn't get burned by the hot water bottles? How did you seperately them from the bottles?

I used to have a wood-burning stove, that's very helpful to have (even though they're messy & "needy", lol).

First, the snakes were in pillowcases...and 2nd, the water was hot tap water, not boiling...and there seemed to be no issue at all, though you could rubber-band some
cardboard around the jar if you wanted? None of the snakes tried to lay on or next to the jars when I looked...the jars were in the corners & the snakes stayed relaxed
in their "sleeping bags".

The jars of hot water heated the air in the "coolers", they weren't used as UTH. If you wanted to use them as UTH, you could fill many short jars, put them on
the bottom of the ice chest with a false bottom over them (cardboard? welded wire? etc.) so the heat would rise into the bagged snakes above. Either way would work, but it would be awkward (if using jars for "UTH") when it came time to refill the hot water & the snakes would get chilled meanwhile.

So anyway, IF you run out of heat packs or just want to try hot water anyway, I wouldn't use boiling water, that's all. (-unless you insulate the containers)

[Robyn@SYR]

Placing the heat pack inside of a towel, and that inside the cage, would be a good idea. It will help prolong the duration of use. I would not use more than one.

Keep in mind that in an emergency situation like this, your goal isn't to get the cage hot, or even have ideal temps, but rather to keep it from getting TOO cold. Most all reptile species will be fine for a day or two at just normal "room temperatures". I would be more focused on keeping a portion of the cage at least 60-65F, as opposed to trying to achieve a specific and usable hot spot of 84F, or 90F, or whatever your ideal husbandry goal is.

It is the same philosophy/strategy with shipping the animal overnight. Trying to keep the box warm or "hot" often leads to DOA. The goal is just to prevent the box from getting TOO cold. The animals can handle cool temps much better than they can handle unescapable hot temps.

Super smart to have a handful of heat packs on hand for such an incident, or for a vet trip, or car ride, etc.

And I favor the 72hr heat packs for this. They don't peak as high as the 40's, and last even longer.

[Damselle]

I used to have a wood-burning stove, that's very helpful to have (even though they're messy & "needy", lol).

First, the snakes were in pillowcases...and 2nd, the water was hot tap water, not boiling...and there seemed to be no issue at all, though you could rubber-band some
cardboard around the jar if you wanted? None of the snakes tried to lay on or next to the jars when I looked...the jars were in the corners & the snakes stayed relaxed
in their "sleeping bags".

The jars of hot water heated the air in the "coolers", they weren't used as UTH. If you wanted to use them as UTH, you could fill many short jars, put them on
the bottom of the ice chest with a false bottom over them (cardboard? welded wire? etc.) so the heat would rise into the bagged snakes above. Either way would work, but it would be awkward (if using jars for "UTH") when it came time to refill the hot water & the snakes would get chilled meanwhile.

So anyway, IF you run out of heat packs or just want to try hot water anyway, I wouldn't use boiling water, that's all. (-unless you insulate the containers)

I realized after I posted this that I had kind of a blonde moment here... Lol. It would have to be HOT water... Anyway. I like the idea... It would add humidity too!