Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone, i was doing some preparatory thinking today, and ran into an interesting question. I am in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and it gets pretty cold here. If my power were to go out for an extended period, what should i do? How do i keep my reptiles warm? n e ideas? Thanks

Geoff

There are heat packs you can buy for reptile shipping I believe that will keep them warm, they're not too expensive. Assuming your waters still running during the outage, you could wrap hot water bottles and leave them in the tank for extra warmth.
-----
---
0.0.1 Bearded Dragon (Zeo)
0.2.0 Leopard Geckos (Vienna, Chomps)
1.0.0 Golden Retriever, Rocky, 10 years young

have a few, put them in your pockets or anywhere else (girls know what I mean) that is near your body for warmth.

The 20, 30 , 40 and 60 hour heat packs are a great backup for them and for yourself too. Wear a hat(60% of body heat is lost through the head) tuck the heat packs near your chest area and you will stay warm and toasty ( we use this at ball games, if no heatpacks, hot pretzels work too under your arms too bought from the concession stands..... and you thought they were to eat!

Gads, why do I know this stuff!
-----
www.reptilerooms.com

n/p
-----
TheClassyLizard

I had the back up heat packs last year, we are in upstate NY and do have power outtages in bad weather, when reptile number l0 hit my house my hubby insisted I get a generator...

it was around 750.00 at the home depot..............

sue
-----
Life is what happens when you are making other plans.......

since the last power outage i've had my lights plugged into my power supply backup for my computer

np

I put Merlin in a 10 gallon tank on top of a basking banch with a thermometer for regulation. It worked well...but I guess not everyone has a woodburning stove.

Hi there,

With my herp "house", it is not connected to my house's existing heating system. I am up here in NY, so I know the dangers of winter power outtages. Along with all of my heating elements per cage, I have installed a propane powered house heater for nightime, when all of my halogen lamps go off. These heaters are not too expensive, and you will end up saving money compared to utilizing costly electric space heaters. The thing that I love about my propane heater, is that I decided to use it because of the threat of ice storms knocking out the power. I remember winters prior to my herp collecting days, where the power had been off for a couple of days, and the family had to sleep together in the living room, where we hadd a nice fire going in the fireplace. You might say, propane? isn't that dangerous??. I looked into that, and it is very safe. The tanks and supply hoses are kept outside, along with vented biproducts. you can use your standard 10gallon bbq tanks or you can go with larger 50 gallon commercial tanks. I have a guage that switches the supply over from tank to tank in the situation where one tank runs out, without me catching it.. It is rigged up with a thermostat and I have not experienced any problems yet!! I would totally recommend this to anybody who fears that fears that nasty "winter freeze". Hope this helps,

bob mendyk