Power Outages?

Just curious, but around my area they're calling for severe thunderstorms which means power outages most likely and that got me to thinking. How serious of a problem would it be if your corn's viv lost heat for a long period of time (i.e. 12 hours or more)...obviously it depends greatly on the time of year (winter being the worst time for that to happen) but what should you do? Just leave the snake in her tank? Put a warm towl or something under the viv? Take them out to keep warm with your own body heat? Do nothing because the snake will be fine?...etc

DinoNeill said:

Just curious, but around my area they're calling for severe thunderstorms which means power outages most likely and that got me to thinking. How serious of a problem would it be if your corn's viv lost heat for a long period of time (i.e. 12 hours or more)...obviously it depends greatly on the time of year (winter being the worst time for that to happen) but what should you do? Just leave the snake in her tank? Put a warm towl or something under the viv? Take them out to keep warm with your own body heat? Do nothing because the snake will be fine?...etc

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In The Corn Snake Manual, Kathy discusses brumation temperatures of between 45 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit, with occasional dips into the upper 30s. Of course, before brumation a keeper must try to ensure that all food items have been completely digested before beginning brumation. So if they've already been properly prepared for brumation, and the outage occurs during brumation, you probably don't have much to worry about. In the spring/summer/fall , you probably have nothing to worry about. My power went off for 18 hours about a month and a half ago, and most of my snakes' temps dropped to about 70. No problems resulted.

I don't brumate sub-adults or younger, so if this happened in the dead of winter (which isn't that much milder in CT than in Eastern Canada), I'd probably start thinking about chemically activated heating pads, or moving un-brumated animals to locations with alternate heat sources (ugh). I'd have a dozen or more snakes in this situation, and I love them, but I don't think it would be feasible to try and maintain their temps with my body heat!

A long time ago this happened to me in mid-winter, and I didn't do anything about it, despite the fact that I didn't brumate any snakes. They had no heat for about 24 hours, and the ambient temps in my home dropped into the forties. I had just arranged for a local pet store with a back-up generator to house my animals when the power was restored.

It would be interesting to hear from posters from cold climates who've dealt with this issue. But remember, you can't plan for everything, even if you wanted to. (There are meteors, nuclear threats, magnetic pole reversals... too many things to prepare for.)

(A not very) funny story for you Neill! I was terrified of losing my snake during a powercut that lasted longer than 12 hours.

In 2000 certain areas in the north of England were badly flooded. I lived in a flat/appartment overlooking the river and was evacuated like everyone else. The phones and power went out, it was FREEZING cold outside and I was frantic with worry, so I went back (stupid, maybe, but hey).

My snake was still a baby and felt like a small slab of cold meat in my hands. He was also uncharacteristically still. As I had no way to contact an expert I just did whatever I could to keep the temperature up. I put him into a smaller plastic 'sweater box'/'geode'/whatever the hell you call them, with tons of substrate, then wrapped this in blankets and tried to use my own body heat to warm it a little. I later used a candle to thaw out a pinkie using the plastic bag in water method, as I didn't know how long it'd be before the police kicked me out the flat again and he was due a feed the next day! [Bless me, I was 16 and frightened, what can I say?]

When I woke in the morning the power was back on, pinkie had been eaten (!) and the viv was back at the right temperature. No ill-effects suffered at all, he probably enjoyed his little ordeal!


Ta daaa! (lol - it's been ages since I last thought about this, isn't it funny the lengths people go to for their pets?)

I had the power go out for 6 hours this summer. Of course I wasn't worried about the cornsnakes as without airconditioning, the house rapidly warmed up, but I was worried about my Green tree python who requires temps in the upper 80's. I ended up putting her in the garage where it was nice and warm until the power came back on, but I'm thinking of getting some of those chemical heat packs for emergency use if necessary this winter. I just hope the power doesn't go out this winter while I'm at work or something!