Dear Ronin;

While I don't keep BPs myself, I'm BP-friendly and I'm around people who have successfully kept and bred them ... and all while living North of the NY and MT states! Please find following an item that I had written some time ago for OARA's Chorus and Kingsnake.com's Cold Blooded Chronicles. Hopefully, it will give you some modest and inexpensive ideas of what to do during a short term cold snap and power loss.

Purchasing a generator is a major step up ... and the best solution ... if you have the $$! Please note however, that since most generators have to be run outside, we discovered during the last ice storm that you had to post a 24-guard over your generator or else it got nicked by the budgie-warming people!

It is brilliant that you're doing your planning now! I envy you the foresight.

Cheers

Wes

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Heat During the Cold Snap OARA Chorus Dec 05 Wes von Papineäu

During the ole ‘Great Winter Storm of 98’, a lot of Quebec and Ontario lost power for about three days, and in some places for longer.

Unfortunately, most of our herps are warm, if not actually hot, weather friends, and unlike us, cannot bundle up in extra layers for warmth. They rely on external heat, warmth that during a power failure, may be hard to come by in the big city.

Your first priority is to preserve and best utilise the heat already in your home to care for your scaled kids. The hope at this time is that the loss of electricity is only for a couple of hours, maybe a day at most. For short periods, you don’t have to buy any special equipment, but you should know where your herp ’first-aid’ heating items are.

Your first option for temperate animals could be to pop them into pillow slips/canvas snake bags (depending on their size) and slip them into the water bed under the coverlet … the heat there is good for a day or two. You … you sleep on the floor.

Second. You have a days worth of hot water in your hot-water tank in the basement of your home or apartment complex. Fill hot water bottles or food jars (with good seals) with hot/warm water of the appropriate temperature. Wrap the bottles in a towel (not too thick or the heat won’t get out), and tuck them into a small box along side your herp. You can pack the box with extra clothes to give appropriate padding and insulation. Change the bottles as necessary as hot water is available. (If you have gas/propane-heated water tanks, you’ll be fine for days).

Third, and a bit more extreme. Tuck the kids into smaller, padded boxes, and set them next to the car heater as close as you’re comfortable with. This option is more difficult to monitor temperature-wise and you’ll have to keep a sharp eye out for ‘hotspots’ developing, but if you’re desperate, it’ll keep the kids warm for at least a while.

Last, a short-term solution for one or two smaller snakes is for you to wear a thick, preferably long sweater (or maybe even a jacket) that you can tuck into your pants or secure with a tight belt. Place your slithery one into a pillow slip/canvas bag … tuck in your sweater … and then drop the pillowslip down your front! Your herp will slither about for a while, but will settle down warm against your belly. Your only problem is to remember that they’re there after a couple of hours. For the ladies, go for the ‘very’ pregnant look and play the sympathy card – let people feel your little one ‘kick’! Then ask for sheets … and more hot water!

If the worst happens and the outage goes on for any length of time, use your outdoor BBQ/camp stove/hibachi stove to heat water while you’re cooking meals on the back deck ... or on your apartment patio … and use this water in your herp hot water bottles. If you have an indoor fireplace, you should think now of what metal pot you’re going to sacrifice to heat water in …. it will probably end up sooty and charred for a while (Don’t waste water trying to wash pots between heatings)

The best bet as long-term heating insurance is to purchase a small propane heater ($60 at Canadian Tire) and a couple of those small camp stove propane tanks (two for $7). Set the heater in the smallest room possible so that you’re not heating ‘wasted space’; the bathroom might be best, and stack your kids in smaller boxes away from the heaters’ radiant faceplate. There may be some ‘fume’ and fresh air circulation issues, so you’ll have to check the warm room from time-to-time to ensure that fumes don’t build up. A small room will warm up quickly, and if you keep the door closed, it will stay that way for a while after the propane heater is shut off.

To sum up. Get your herps into smaller, more easily heated/or heat-retentive containers, and keep those containers in the warmest room in the house. Remember, your priority is to heat your ‘herp’ during this emergency, not the herp’s room or environment. Last, don’t keep opening the containers to check on the kids … you’re losing heat every time you do. Even if they ‘mess’, it’s only for a (hopefully) short while … and it will be a warm ‘mess’. For small collections ‘you’ can be the source of heat … not quite tropical, but at least liveable for a day or so. And besides, it could be a real bonding process between you and your snake!

I encourage you to get up right now … walk around your place and identify the box you’ll need (it can be full of other stuff, you’re just looking for options right now), the padding/insulation, possible hot water bottles and pots that will be needed and where you put that horrible thick purple sweater that Aunt Bethula knit you four years ago. You don’t have to set anything aside right now, just know where everything is. It’s important to know where things are now; you might not be home when the emergency hits and you’ll have to talk someone else in the house through the ‘save Snuffy the snake’ process.

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