Reptile & Amphibian Forums

As you all know the fires in California were devastating. I just wanted to give a friendly reminder that we all should have a plan on what to do in case of a disaster with our reptiles and pets.
After being evacuated here in Lake Arrowhead for nearly 12 days my snakes are just today now returning to my home. It was a nightmare evacuating them all (only 65 not nearly the amount of most breeders).
I thought that I had planned this out in my head a thousand times but when it came time to actually having to do it....it wasn't pretty! Your plan should consist of the safest and fastest way possible to remove your reptiles to safety. Something that my plan lacked was time frame. I didn't count on the fact that I would only be given 10 minutes to get out of the house!
The worst part is now putting all of them back together again. All pet owners especially breeders with large amounts of animals should really think about this and have a plan. My plan backfired big time and sorting them all out is ugly business! Just thought that I would send a reminder of this so others won't go through this horrible mess without a better plan than mine!!!

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Steve Garrett

info@serpentireali.com
www.serpentireali.com

I'm just curious what your plan was and how you plan to change it in the event you need to get out again in the future?

And how did you house them while evacuated?

Glad all is well now.

Our plan was originally to keep each snake in its own tub and just lid it and attach the ID card. Since we had other personal belongings to take with us we had to change this at last moment to conserve space in the pickup. We ended up keeping all breeding adults in their own enclosures with lids and IDs. All hets went 4 or 5 to their respective tubs. All others were lumped 4 or 5 per tub. It seemed like a pretty good idea at the time. Even condensing and moving as fast as possible it still took us nearly 20 minutes to do this, WAY TOO LONG for a quick evacuation!
As for keeping them while evacuated, we anticipated the fires here this year and we went ahead and purchased extra 50' of 3" heat tape and a thermostat to keep on hand just for this. We just stacked the tubs and ran heat tape through all the tubs and attached the thermostat. That part worked great!
In all actuality it wasn't too bad. We did not lose any snakes and my frustrations are stemming from the fact that now because I lumped so many snakes per tub I have to re-weigh, re-establish new id cards, decipher which hets are the males and females etc. etc. I was very frustrated last night when posting and now have calmed down. Nothing too damaging but it is time consuming and thankfully I do have all my snakes.
I haven't really decided how to manage this better next time..Now that I can think more clearly I will be trying to figure out a better solution if any..... any suggestions? Clearly insurance plans are my next target of action!!!!! Does anyone know of a good place or insurance??
Hopefully all will stay well and I can get back to the breeding.. I am looking forward to a great season. Gool luck to everyone!

Thanks

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Steve Garrett

info@serpentireali.com
www.serpentireali.com

I'd be interested to know if anyone has insurance recommendations as well.

I currently only have to worry about my puppy and 1 BP. So for now my plan is leash the dog and put the BP in a pillow case then in a cooler (which I keep under the cage). My plans are to eventually get to keeping at least 3-6 more snakes, a lizard and turtle. For the snakes I figure all those individual coolers might be a pain. So I've been wondering if there is anyway to take one of those long coolers, add dividers with latching tops and airholes for each section (and ventalate the cooler as well). Then I can just plop each snake it its compartment and carry out in one trip. To take it further I'm wondering how to turn that cooler into a temporary home (by adding the possibility for a thermal gradient) for the snakes until I can return to my house, etc.

I don't live anywhere were such fires are a problem/possibility as where you are, but I just worry about emergencies in general.

Heck you might end up with a whole mess of eggs from their close quarters
Glad everyone is ok (even the mammals)
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Elizabeth (ecb)

Make this world a better and more beautiful place that You have been in it
*Edward W Bok*

Thanks for the public service announcement. We all think we have plans like that until we have to actually use them. I know if I had 10 minutes, I'd be scrambling.
One thing I'd suggest for everybody, especially in cases like this: Have picture IDs. I use feeding cards and on each feeding card is the picture of the snake. Those pictures are also saved off onto my hard drive and also stored on CD. There are times when this isn't the best way (I had a litter of rosy boas this year that ALL looked the same), but ball pythons in particular have distinguishing markings and with some work, you should be able to get them all sorted out.
Thanks again for reminding us all about this,
Jason @ Jason's Jungle