Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone have experience wintering their snakes in wine fridges? Looking for an alternative to the garage or a closet because it stays too hot where I live and the snakes tend to remain active too far into the winter season. I'd like to put all of the yearlings and older snakes down from about now through mid February or so.

How do you provide proper ventilation in those wine cellars? The ones I've seen have glass doors and seal as snug as any other refrigerator with the door closed which allows for zero air flow. Last thing I want is to lose any snakes to insufficient oxygen. Otherwise, they seem like a viable alternative.

Suggestions? Opinions? Personal Experience?

Thanks!
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"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

i know alot of people use the wine friges to cool their animals. they just open the doors once a day.

my problem is i would need several wine coolers and i doubt my one female would even fit in one.

I used one for the first time last year. It worked well. As for ventilation all I did was open the door once or twice a week. And when ever I checked the water bowls. The one I bought worked great but All I could fit inside was 2 six foot black pines. But Im sure there are some larger models out there.

Thanks guys! Sounds like a possible solution for me. Thinking about picking up some snake bags to limit their mobility inside of the fridge. With the shelving those units have (and with some wood or foam augmentation), I can get most of my snakes into one or two units that way. Sure will solve some winter snake storage issues for me.
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"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

If you put the snakes in bags to limit their mobility then how will they get a drink of water when they want it?
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Good question! The only snake that I have that routinely drinks water during the active season is my Cal King. I may have to provide water periodically to meet his needs. Otherwise, the water in with the Pits just evaporates in their bowls.
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"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

Food will dry out in the refrigerator, so I would think that the snakes may dehydrate as well, if not able to drink or crawl through a water source at will.

My pyros and pits all drink all winter even in brumation. Although this year it has been so warm, a wonderful Indian summer here, that I have not put them into the brumation tubs yet, and in fact am still offering food, with a few takers still yet.

I am feeding the baby bulls and their mama a lot and will likely do so all winter, so no brumation for them.

The baby bulls yesterday. They come out and "wave" at me when they are hungry, which is every few days. Please excuse fuzzy pic.

I would like to get my baby pyros into brumation now, but just have to wait for the weather. As soon as the temperatures drop the snakes go on the floor of the cabin in tubs covered with quilts for the winter.

Outdoors there are about a zillion fence lizards and other little reptile creatures still out and about.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

All of these discussions and questions have been good. Those wine cellars come with wire racks upon which (or in place of) I would add thin pieces of wood shelving to form a series of horizontal chambers. Peg board would be ideal since it has plenty of holes for ventilation between the chambers. Within each, I would place a hide with a water source either on top of or next to the hide. I would likely house my two Sonorans and my two San Diegos together which I have done in the past. Ahnuld gets one large chamber with a hide that he can fit into and a water source. Think I can winter all of my snakes with two such units and put them down sooner.

All of my adults and yearlings stop feeding sometime in August every year and all they do is burn reserves until mid December or so when it finally cools down here.

How are your striped Pacifics doing these days? Post some pics.

Thanks!
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"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

Sounds like you have got a good design planned.
I wish I could brumate my snakes now, too, since many have stopped eating several weeks ago but the weather is so warm. I have turned off all the UTHs for the non eaters. I am not too worried about them, though, as the wild snakes would be facing the same conditions and they seem to do fine. Nearly every day I catch a lizard for my pyros, but they aren't eating so the lizards go in a big outdoor tub. This means I still am breeding gobs of crickets! LOL!

Alas, I sold my striped Pacifics to a friend, but now am sorry I did that. He still owes me a bunch of money for them and mice and other stuff, so maybe I will see if he will just return them and reduce his debt. He sells snakes for a living but the feeble economy has put the kibosh on his income big time. He really wanted the Pacifics but I miss them.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Sorry to hear about you losing your striped Pacifics. Hope you can get them back. Had the opportunity to see one in the wild for the first time this past May. The person that hosted that outing shared several photos of others that he has found that had vivid head to tail striping with no hint of mottling. Some day I hope to get one of those as a neonate along with a nice nominant (blotched) individual. Not into stuff from the breeders anymore since it's so difficult to know for sure what may have been back-crossed with it along the way.
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"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

not sure about your setting but I understand the challenges of getting cool enough in the desert....

with our night time temps dropping you might try opening windows in a dedicated brumation room and then closing them during the day. Limit traffic in and out of that room. Or if you own your house and have a north facing outside wall closet you could construct a simple duct to the outside and again vent in night air and avoid opening the door and toss a towel at the base of the door. Putting a hole into an exterior wall might be a hard sell to the wife but my experience is that simpler is better.

stack as many rubbermaid tubs (with aspen, water bowls, and a hide into the space, toss on a big rug or blanket and shut the door.

In my experience here in AZ is that generally garages don't work so well because they warm up mid day..

In fact if you can keep your #s down you may be able to shop around and find a friend or co-worker that has the ideal space..... small, north or north east facing with the ability to vent in night air. I have found that there is little need to do this venting after 2-3 weeks into November.....

My herp Veterinarian, Dr. Jarchow indicated that darkness i.e. photo period is more important than temp in many cases....

The reality is that Pituophis are really forgiving and can deal with some down time on feeding and temp fluctuations without much stress...

let us know what the landscape looks like when the dust settles!

Hey John,

We do own a fairly substantial house but there is no such thing as a low traffic area within when the boys come home for Christmas break. This place becomes a 24/7 hub of activity during the best cool down period and gets very loud at times.

The walls are a foot thick, the exterior of which is slump block filled with vermiculite for insulation. For the past several years, I've used the garage as a hibernacula but one of my son's bedrooms is off the back of that and there are the lights on all night, the cars coming and going, etc.

Going to try the coolers this year with some custom shelving and very close scrutiny. Have a couple of moving blankets that I can throw over them to buffer the effects of light and noise. Will post some pics of the arrangement when I get everything in place, probably the latter part of next weekend.

Thanks!
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"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

Thanks for some really useful info on photo period. Because of not being on the grid, I use very little electricity, so my cabin reflects the natural day/night photo period of the outdoors. Once it gets really cold they all go on the floor of my bedroom with quilts over the cages.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

It's about time1 A constructive post with REAL information! Praise the lord!

I called my friend who has my stripes and said please return them to me, and you wont owe me any money, either. He paused then admitted the male has escaped into the snake room! I sure hope he finds him! This is all my fault so if I ever get them both back it will be be a miracle. Argh!

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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.