Reptiles and Power Outages
1. Do not feed your reptile. If your area is expected to lose power, you’ve got some advance notice. Reptiles NEED heat to digest their food; without that heat, that food is just going to rot.
2. Continue to offer water.
3. Know your reptile’s requirements. What’s life-threatening for one critter might only be a mild nuisance to another.
4. If you still have hot water, you can fill up some jugs with hot water and put these in your reptile tanks. Cover your reptile tanks with tin foil to conserve heat.
5. You can make small space heaters with a tea light, a pot, and something to elevate the pot by a few centimeters. Light the tea light and put the pot over it, making sure there’s a gap at the bottom so oxygen can still reach the candle. This produces more heat than you’d expect.
6. You can pack up your reptiles in reptile shipping boxes. These are insulated cardboard boxes. You can also use styrofoam containers. Line the bottom of the box with crumpled newspaper. You take your reptile, put them in a small container—-like a deli cup with holes poked into it or a critter keeper or something similar—-and put them on top of the newspaper, and kinda nestle some extra paper around it loosely. Insert a handwarmer between the box and paper layer, so it’s NEAR the deli cup but not in direct contact with it. Finally, cover them with more loosely crumpled paper to help conserve the heat.
It’s VERY important that your reptile does NOT come into direct contact with the handwarmer. These get VERY hot. They also consume oxygen, so airflow is essential.
You can also use reptile shipping packs. These tend to last longer (40 hour packs are the most common, but they can last as long as 72 hours).
7. Wood stoves are super helpful! Bring all your reptiles into one room and close the door. The goal is to keep one room cozy at this point.
You probably won’t be able to maintain the ideal temperatures for your animals, but don’t worry too much about that. These animals are hardier than that. Keep warm and keep safe!
If your r.ats and m.ice thaw out in the freezer, throw them out. They’re no longer safe for your reptile.
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