Vote for BP.Net for the 2013 Forum of the Year! Click here for more info.

» Site Navigation

» Home
 > FAQ

» Online Users: 617

1 members and 616 guests
Most users ever online was 47,180, 07-16-2025 at 05:30 PM.

» Today's Birthdays

None

» Stats

Members: 75,915
Threads: 249,118
Posts: 2,572,196
Top Poster: JLC (31,651)
Welcome to our newest member, KBFalconer
Results 1 to 7 of 7

Thread: The wind blows

Threaded View

  1. #2
    BPnet Lifer Bogertophis's Avatar
    Join Date
    04-28-2018
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    20,803
    Thanks
    29,385
    Thanked 20,577 Times in 12,296 Posts
    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.
    Last edited by Bogertophis; 10-26-2018 at 12:49 PM.

  2. The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to Bogertophis For This Useful Post:

    bcr229 (10-26-2018),Damselle (10-26-2018),distaff (10-26-2018),JRLongton (10-26-2018)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Powered by vBadvanced CMPS v4.2.1