Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been looking at wine coolers,mini fridges and soda coolers as brumation chambers for my hogs. I was leaning toward the insignia 48 can cooler from Best Buy. Has anyone used this? Any other suggestions?

Does it have an adjustable thermostat suitable for brumation temps?

Yes,it goes from 34-50 it's a short range. It I wasn't planning on using it for anything else.

If you are knowledgeable with electrical systems, then you may want to use a separate ON/OFF controller to control the temps rather than the internal thermostat.

Many fridges control temperature by ON/OFF switching to a compressor or other mechanism that uses house power. If that is so in yours, then a qualified person can wire a separate t-stat in. The warranty of the fridge will be void at that point, but it will probably work better .

Something like a Johnson Controls or Ranco ON/OFF thermostat that has Cool mode (most have both heat and cool mode settings). These controllers are extremely reliable - more so typically than thermostats that come with small fridges.

You can also use an external controller as a safety. Set that for your absolute lowest temperature, then use the internal controller for what you want. For example, set the fridge controller for 50 deg and set the external Johnson or Ranco ON/OFF thermostat for 48 deg. This way, the animals are safe if the internal thermostat fails ON = cool. I know hoggies are tough snakes and can handle cold temps, but still.

Don't do anything you are not comfortable doing, and all wires/connections must be enclosed. The mentioned thermostats already come in NEMA-rated boxes that meet/exceed home ratings. Please refer to a qualified electrician before attempting any mods. Bad and/or exposed wiring is not a good thing.

I tried to use a refrigerator with a thermostat to cut the power off when unit reached 50 degrees F. When power cut off at 50 F the unit continued to cool for a few minutes and was getting down to 45F before stabilizing and eventually reaching 50F. I do not know if a gradual change of 4 to 5 degrees would be problematic but all the eggs I had were in that unit and I abandoned the project. The refrigerator I was trying to use was a convection type. I built a room 3x6x8 feet well insulated and cooled it with a window style air conditioner. If it had been old style refrigerator with fan blowing air over coils I think it would operate within a closer range.