A Winter issue to take into serious consideration, at least for those of us that live in cold weather regions of the world, is what to do in case of an extended power outage.

You are kinda limited on what you can do. There are generators, both mobile and stationary. They are expensive and out of the price range for most people. Then you can look into a UPS, the kind they make for computers in case the power goes out. They too are kinda pricey and only last a few hours. There are heat packs. Like the ones they use when shipping reptiles. They are cheap and you can buy ones last up to 72 hours.

If I could afford it I would have a large capacity generator installed at my home. No questions asked that is the best way to go. But unrealistic for most of us due to the cost. Roughly $4000 minimum.

I keep 60 hour heat packs around. They are a must for every herpers toolbox in my opinion. I keep them around for emergencies, when traveling to herp shows in cold weather, shipping roaches in cooler temps and shipping reptiles. They are cheap (about $2 each) and work well for emergencies.

The Winter before this one I also went and bought an $800 portable home standby generator. It runs up to 6500 watts. Which means it can easily run space heaters and all my reptile heating devices with no problems, not to mention a couple other vital appliances in my home. It has a 4 gallon tank on it that will literally last 2 days if I am only using 2000 watts at a time. I keep 20 gallons of gas on hand in the garage every winter for it. If I dont use the gas over the Winter is just gets used up by the lawn mower, weed eater and blower over the Summer.

Those are the 3 main ways I know of to supply heat for your reptile in case of power outages during Winter. Don't wait until it is too late and you are in the middle of a serious snow/ice storm. Now is the time to prepare. If you cant afford a generator I suggest you have enough snake bags/deli containers for each animal and a cooler big enough to fit them all in. Or multiple coolers. And plenty of 60 or 72 hour heat packs to place inside the cooler with the reptiles.

If anyone else has any ideas they would like to share on this topic, please share.

Thanks for the tips. I live in a cold climate and worry about power outages. I don't have anything set up for an emergency plan yet, but I know I really should be prepared- I live in Michigan, after all.
Thanks for reminding me that I need to get my a$$ in gear.

how do you use the heat pads do you put your rep ontop of them?

last winter we had a big wind storm peopple lost power from days to wks i had no power 3-4 days. ryu was not happy LOL i dident think of that....
-mel

Dragon_Girl wrote:how do you use the heat pads do you put your rep ontop of them?

last winter we had a big wind storm peopple lost power from days to wks i had no power 3-4 days. ryu was not happy LOL i dident think of that....
-mel

There are two ways to use the heat packs. One is if the temps are not too cold in your house you can just leave your critters in their enclosures and use the heat packs like a UTH.

If it is REAL cold in your house then you will need to temporarily prepare your reptile like you are traveling with it. Which in that case you would need an appropriate sized snake bag, deli cup or plastic tub to put your reptile in. Then place that into a insulated box or cooler. Tape the heat pack inside the insulated box or cooler in a place where the container with your critter in it does not come into direct contact with the heat pack, because the heat pack will get too hot for your reptile to come into direct contact with it. I usually tape them to the inside top of the box or cooler.

From there you can simply place a probe from an indoor/outdoor digital thermometer inside the box. That way you can easily monitor the temps inside the box/cooler.

Well you guys colud move to florida with me.

sounds good shrap ill keep this in mind

varnyard wrote:Well you guys colud move to florida with me.

trust me, im planning on doing so

and i don't have any backup planns but then again we don't have any major storms either, the onley way i would be out of power for more then a day is if a country is a war with us and drops an EMP or if a meteor strikes. and i think my reptiles are not my first worrys in these situations

You'll all be happy to know that I bought some hot packs this morning.
So now I have a back-up plan.
:)

My back up plan is called a "gasoline generator". They are pretty rare, but I heard you can find them at... um... what's that place called? HOME DEPOT, that's it. LOL.

ApriliaRufo wrote:My back up plan is called a "gasoline generator". They are pretty rare, but I heard you can find them at... um... what's that place called? HOME DEPOT, that's it. LOL.

Yep, I own one. But not everyone can afford one. That is why we are looking at other options as well.

I can't afford one either. I grabbed a busted one at a dump and rebuilt it. LOL. I'm the king of being poor. So I can hook u up with my ghetto skills.

I'd just like to add that I was happy I had gotten the heat packs.
Our power blipped on and off about 5 times yesterday afternoon due to a huge snow storm we're going through.
It didn't stay off long enough to have any negitive effect but I felt a little more secure knowing I had a back up plan.

So, thanks.

No thanks needed Ashton. That is what we are all here for. To help one another become better keepers.

A lot of us had to learn the hard way about many aspects of keeping herps. Hopefully as a community we can all share our experiences and minimize learning the hard way. It is what being a community is all about.

varnyard wrote:Well you guys colud move to florida with me.

I'm already in Florida and to be honest I wish I lived up north because it's an even bigger pain in the butt to pack everyone up and fit them all in my car to evacuate than to keep them warm if the power goes out because of a snow storm. Traveling with 40 animals is never to be considered fun and I think I've done it a total of about 4 or 5 times now. Who knows I lost track after that one year we had like 10 of them.

I love Florida!
I live in paridise!