What to do for snakes if power is out?

We are getting ready to have an ice storm the last one we had there was people with out electric for weeks. I have 9 snakes and a bearded dragon does anyone have any suggestions on how to keep them heated if this happens?

Thanks
Rachael

this actually happened to us once we are not ready for it but two of our neighbors are campers so we were able to get a couple of camping heaters... we were just able to keep it around 70... since then we bought some large camping heaters to heat just in case... so far we havent had to use them

Been through 5 ice storms and I'm in your

neck of the woods in Kansas but went through these storms while in the KC and Butler areas of Missouri . I have those heat pacs that they use for shipping that i throw in the cages. Also I have some of those camp propane reflector heaters. They produce some big BTUs for the size they are at around $10 for the reflector and what, $2 or $3 for the small propane bottles. Of course you don't use these in the cages but in the room. The worst storm was when we had our pet store in Grandview Mo. where we were without power for 2 days and we rented those BIG propane heater blowers ( 2 ) that throw out around 25,000 to 50,000 BTUs. We had one in the reptile room and in the area of our parrots. With propane ( in which we use now at our home for heat ) without a flu, you want to crack/open a window just a little bit if it is used in a closed room. Since all of those ice storms we also have those 12 and or 6 volt back-up battery car starters and tire air pumps that we attach a 200 watt ( youn can get more wattage but less time ) converter to run our cage lights ( bulbs ). Instead of the wall outlet you just plug the light bulbs plug into the converter that plugs into the back-up battery. So you can run up to 200 watts for about 12 hours or 100 watts for 24 hours. If it does what they say it's going to do in the next several hours weather wise, heck, I may be using all of those devices.

The Wednesday after Christmas at 11:30 p.m. my electric went off. Called the power Co. and there were electric lines down. She said shouldn't be more than an hour. Luckily I have tons of "hot hands" that are used for hand warmers. At the end of winter Wal-Mart puts them on sale for pennies and I buy about $30 worth every year. Good thing because the power was off for 1 1/2 hours and it was -12° outside! I put several in each snake cage and several in with my 4 baby cockatiels, 12 baby lovebirds and a bunch in my incubator (quail eggs). If the electric had been off any longer, I was going to start my truck and put as many animals as I could get to fit in there. My adult birds were all in their nestboxes so I didn't worry too much about them.

Thanks Mr. Old Guy(LOL), I'm gonna get a couple of those camp propane reflector heaters. I never even thought about them. DUH.

Thanks everyone So far the storm on our end isn't to bad just rain for now. Karen & Old Guy how is the weather where your at?

Back up Generator

This is probably too obvious an answer, but you could use a small generator (2500 to 5000 Watts depending on your emergency power requirements) and a manual transfer switch. You could probably buy the generator, and have an Electrician install the transfer switch for under $1,500.oo this system could handle your herp heat loads plus a few other loads like a furnace, well pump, refrigerator, a lighting circuit etc...

Ophis, yeah, that's too obvious and too easy for me. Just kidding, LOL.

Rachael: I'm in southeastern MO and right now at about 10:30 p.m. it is 38° and raining. It rained hard almost all day and there are flash flood warnings out.

Yah to obvious and to much money I rent my house and it is an older so it would be very expencive I already thought about that. That is why I asked if anyone had any suggestions.

Karen same here lots of rain they said the temp. was going to drop and turn to ice lastnight but nothing yet thank goodness.

Rachael

We bit the big one this time and

I had to fire up the gas generator for heat in the farm home ! We have not had power on since 10:00 pm last night. By the way, I've got 3 space heaters and the puter running on this generator. ( you would think that I could be using something else hooked up to the gen, other than the computer ? LOL ! ). The snake room in the barn is at 45 ( I don't use ANY whole room heat at all ) degrees with internal cage temps at 65. The bird room in the barn is at 70 with the use of a space heater. So my gen. is running about 3.500 watts at this time but capable of another 1,500 watts. It runs for 8 hours at 3,500 watts with 4 gallons of gas. We are mired in with trees and tree branches still falling and they are literally stuck to the ground by 1 and 1/2 inch of ice. All Emporia businesses are closed down. We LOVE this though because i am always PREPARED for something like this ! > < I say to the weather . I always keep at least 40 or so gallons of water, a camp stove, the propane heaters, the heat paks, and have only used the gen 3 times in the past 6 years. Since we live in the country, we don't have those snoopy neighbors hearing the generator running in one of our outbuldings. A side note .>: with anybody considering a generator, you can buy a 4,500 watt gen , for around $400 now. I know that one may only use it like we have but you never know. With any large collection of animals it makes sense ? We just shut the main breaker down and plug a heavy duty extension cord coming from the generator to in the house and plug it in to one ( or more ) of the house outlets. If you don't hook it up this way , it is wise to have a non-reverse switch installed so the electric current doesn't reverse back to the electric source outside of your home so a lineman/electric company doesn't get buzzed. But they always have come knocking before repairs at the pole. But this is the reason you shut off your main box as well so that doesn't even happen. Any body in this " ice storm of the decade " they are calling it now, good luck.

Mike Chambers ( old guy )

trkibbler said:

Thanks everyone So far the storm on our end isn't to bad just rain for now. Karen & Old Guy how is the weather where your at?

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Oh by the way , price on generators

We bought ours at Sams Club for $600 6 years ago. I KNOW that there was a mass amount of generators used and new for sale after the Y2K hype ( remember that folks ? ). BUT the best time to buy one is in the summer, spring, fall and not the WINTER ! LOL !

I know the generators aren't that much, but I was told that you had to have your house wired for it or they didn't work. My Mom has one and I was going to go down and get hers if I needed to but like I said I was told it wouldn't work. That and I don't think that I have any thing to worry about everyone else around us got hit hard we have very little ice just a lot of rain. Good luck Mike with the storm and hope you get power back soon. I hate being with out power if your camping and what not it is ok but when your in your home and you should have it that sucks.


Well while I'm on here does any one know any thing about or know where I can get info on Nicaraguan Boas. I have one and I just wanted to do some more research on them but I can't find any thing.

Thanks again everyone
Rachael

Mike is right about back feeding outlets in your house from a generator. It will work, and I would do it If I wanted a quick, cheap way to get some power, but Its not the definitly not the safest idea, and I couldn't suggest anyone do this unless they knew what they were doing.

Maybe a miss-understanding on hook up to generator

There is no live power running to main switch box if you shut off the main electric power source and if you feel safer , you can pull all of the fuses out but that is time consuming. You are ONLY using the generator as power sorce. The ( maybe this is what you mean poster ) only way it would be an unsafe situation if you hooked the power of the generator to the main electric ultility box and not have that reverse flow switch installed. Actaully the very safest way would be just using the outlets ( mine has 4 ) on the generator itself. But with using a power cord from the generator to a wall outlet, it just makes it a little more convenent. And of course never, ever have a gas generator in the house even in the basement. Outdoors for sure in some enclosed area but ventilated well.

Maybe im wrong,

but in order to be able to plug the cord from the generator into a wall outlet, you have to have a male end on both sides of the cord. This is in and of itself dangerous. You will have power to the panel even if you shut off the main breaker, since power would flow through the outlets you energized, back to the branch circuit breaker, and to the bus bar it is attached too in the panelboard. You would have to shut off the branch circuit breaker to prevent the bus bar from becoming hot. Also you are relying on your memory, not a mechanical device, to isolate the utility power system from your generator. Like I said, It may work for you, and I would feel ok doing it myself, however, I would not reccomend doing this, as someone could get hurt.

I never realized generators were so "cheap". I'm gonna invest in one. Thanks guys for the heads up. At those prices it's really stupid not to have one.

A couple stupid questions here [I'm a girl so don't be too mean] The generator runs on gasoline and sits outside, correct? You run your heavy duty extension cord into the house to power heaters, computer, etc.?
When I started reading about switch boxes and fuses I got lost.

It has been raining hard since my post last night. There are still flash flood warnings out. It's supposed to be 20° tonight so we may be in for some ice. I live above the St. Francis River and I've almost got riverfront property.

Right

You could run a cord into your house with a multiple outlet strip etc.... or have a transfer switch installed at your panel which the cord plugs into. Don't attempt to "back feed" anything unless you know what your doing. Even then its not a great idea.

heating

how about a Karosene heater?

I have one that heats

an enormous room but I consider them very dangerous due to the fuel being highly flammable and the fumes can be overwhelming. Also the cost of kerosene can be REAL expensive. If you have one already ( heater ) and have to use it, make sure you have plenty of ventilation. My recent outage was a conviction to make sure that if one happened again i would be better prepared. Besides just doing the gas generator and using it without trying to back feed or hook up to any of the electric modifications ( I ended up just using it the way all recommended by just plugging in extension cords directly to the generator ), I went out and bought a 5 > ? gallon propane filled tank and a infra-red heater attachment from the hardware store. The infra-red installs right on the propane tank and produces lots of BTUs compared to a electric space heater. Still produces some fumes but not as much as a kerosene heater and I use propane for whole house heat anyway. The cost of the 5 gallon filled tank was $27 ( a re-fill runs $12 ) and the infra-red attachment with parts ran about $24. Depending how much propane flow you allow through, this tank can last between 2 to 4 days. In this last episode of our power outage the stores still had plenty of propane tanks as well as the propane companies. In comparison, I paid $185 on my kerosene heater years ago and 5 gallons of kerosene cost me $17 and I was not allowed to fill a plastic container with kerosene, it had to be a properly marked metal container.

mike chambers

nicholi1120 said:

how about a Karosene heater?

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