Power Cut

Just out of interest, what happens if there is a substantial power cut in your area? How long can your reps last without a heat source? what alternative heat source can be used without moving them?

If a power cut happens in the summer months I rarely worry - often the oputside temperature is mild and so because the inside-outside heat gradient is small, my snake room loses heat quite slowly. Actually, I have a door in my animal room ajar for most of the summer as it can get too warm in there!

In the winter, though, action is needed as the room can cool down much faster and so I've laid a few things in place to cope with power cuts (we get 2-3 a year most years).....

I have a good-sized flat stone in each of my vivs, this not only helps the snake when shedding as it provides a rough surface to crawl along and help pull the old skin off, but it also retains heat really well - so when a power cut happens (and it has several times here) the rocks retain the heat for a few hours and if the snakes are cooling down too much they will use them for 'basking'.

I also have my snakes in an insulated room so if there is a power cut I make sure that all viv doors are kept closed (to retain heat) and there is minimal access into the animal room, so as much heat is retained in there as possible.

If all else fails and the power cut lasts beyond 7-8 hours (which is very rare - once in 20 years in my case) then I have a generator that can power a small heater, and I can use this to heat the snake room up to temperature (around 23C).

Its worth remembering 2 things.....
1. The 'recommended' temps we keep our animals at are often a tad higher than the animals prefer - hence why most of my snakes lie at the cool end of their viv unless they have just fed / its a cold winters day outside;
2. Excess heat will kill an animal much sooner than excess cold - temps much above 35C for a few hours will cook most reptiles (a few desert lizards and snakes can cope with it) but temps down to 18C for a few hours do no harm at all.

Its important to get the temps inside your vivs, at the warm end, during a power cut as this will tell you the highest temps your snakes have access to; measuring the ambient / outside temps will let you know the temperature difference and from that you can estimate how fast the vivs / room will lose heat.

Nice one Karl. Il have to get a few flat stones, great idea.

Power cuts are very, very common in our area. Soon as there's a little bit of wind, it's gone. snakes are generally fine for a short period of time -the rep room retains heat for quite a while. We usually have a supply of reptile heat packs in house which can come in handy, esp in cases where temp is important, such as gravid females.
The main concern for me is incubators! Our power went a bunch of times in early spring this yr, when we had lots of leo eggs in the incubator. I was pretty worried about temperature variations. Luckily all was well, but I'm not sure eggs from other species would fare so well.
So a generator is on the cards for the large incubator in the shed this winter, that's for sure. Our power supply is extremely unreliable, and if all goes well i will have eggs in there I don't want to risk anything happening to!

Never heard of reptile heat packs Lisa. how much are they? and where do u get them?

words out of my mouth
They're very handy, you just rub them between your hands, they heat up and it lasts for close on 24 hrs. We bought in loads last yr when transporting snakes back from germany, and find they're ultra handy

to be honest i rarely get powercuts and some of the ones i got were like on/off , like on 10mins then go out for 1min then back on

also in the summer i plug out a few tanks as the room temp can very between 75* to 90* so the bulds i use arnt that strong so the tanks temps are bout 85* its just the big tanks that have bulbs in at the min alot easier on electric because of my huge window

i can get you some heat packs if you ever need them

I've read this as each post has gone up and am amazed some of you guys loose power so often. We had a cut, when I was about 15, which lasted for like an hour but that was due to a massive fire at the sub station, anything else is always a tripped switch, but im so prepared for all manner of things all Im missing is a fall out shelter