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Overheated snake room

So sorry you had such a disaster! Most long term keepers seem to get hit with a heating disaster sooner or later. At least you caught it before even worse damage was done. I always wanted to look into an exhaust fan that would come on if the temp hits 90 or so. That would help a lot.

Hope your damaged snake can recover. The regurgers should be fine if you follow the regurge protocol and bring them back to normal very slowly.

Good luck!
 
Sorry to hear about your loss. :(

I too had a problem with a heater overheating my walk-in closet 2 years ago where I kept some of our snakes at the time. I lost 6 snakes that day and it broke my heart as it was my fault due to not resetting the heater correctly (it was a new heater and I wasn't used to it's interface). The sad thing is that it only took 15-20 minutes for things to go bad because shortly after, I had gone back in the closet just to do a few things when I realized what had happened. If I hadn't gone back in there, I would have lost everything in that closet which was around 20 snakes.

Unfortunately these things do happen, like Kathy said, and I guess that the best thing you can do is to learn from it, try to come up with a fail safe procedure and inform as many people as you can so that someone else might be able to learn from your mistakes (which is obviously what you are doing now).

All the best to all of those snakes that survived, especially the one that seems a bit off. I'm just glad for you that you didn't lose everything as it could have been so much worse.
 
Sorry to hear this Becky.. same thing almost happened to me. last week i was pairing up breeders, cleaning ect. I left the room and came back a little over an hour later. I glanced over at one thermometer and saw it was reading 87 I was a bit confused as I have my Johnson controller set for 82 and it has been extremely reliable..
I glance over at the Johnson controller and it is reading 78* and powered on!! I was thinking what the.heck!? ... then I realized, i must have knocked the probe and it was lying on the floor!!! I was extremely lucky to have reentered the snake room by chance otherwise,... i probably would have lost everything.
I learned from the experience though, The probe is know securely fastened in place and I also installed a fan to circulate the air in the room so it is pretty consistent at floor and ceiling level. Also, I purchased a couple of meat thermometers at Target, they have an alarm that you can set to go off at any temp you would like. I placed two of these in my snake room and set the alarm temp to 86* I tested it out and it works great. I also got a baby monitor and place it in my snake room and I have the monitor in our family room. My snake room is on another level of the house so this set up will alert us promptly.
I am also going to do the same with my incubator which is in our basement.
Again I am sorry for your loss, thankfully though you did not suffer more loss.
 
Thanks every one. It's nice to have so much support in times like these. I'm really thankful the girls hadn't laid eggs yet because I incubate the eggs in that room. It was only a couple weeks ago that a female, had just bred her, was found dead in her water bowl. Absolutely nothing wrong with her. Only explanation we could possibly come up with was she drown. Before her there was a hypo sunkissed that got overheated in shipping and was found dead in his tote about 2 months later. Like I said, Murphy is picking on me badly this year. He is testing my will. I'll have to admit he came close to having me yesterday. But it was nothing that a few tears and comfort from friends couldn't fix. :)



stephen said:
Sorry to hear that, keep your chin up old gal......
Click to expand...

And did you just call me old? :poke::)
 
I am -really- sorry for you and the animals...
The weather here thankfully allows me to use ordinary heat cables which if adjusted right do not need any sort of climate control... and as they only heat 1/3 of the viv or so... the snakes always have a place to retreat to...

Losing animals is never easy... but it was human error, and not the result of negligence.

I hope this breeding season will be kind to you and break the streak of unfortunate events.

Oren.

PS. I don't want to make matters worse, but overheating can cause kidney damage... especially as far as Boas are concerned, colubrids are a bit less sensitive, but it all boils down to how long they endured the temperature... I had a friend whose Boa died 4 days after being exposed to 45 degrees C for a few hours.
You may want to mist them a bit and make sure they are hydrated....

Best of luck
 
What a disaster. It is always hard to loose a pet but this is awful. Hope the rest of them make it.
 
Oh Becky, I am so sorry. That is one of my biggest nightmares....
I hope the ones that survived turn out to be fine, and I am so sorry for the ones you lost.
 
Oh Becky, I'm so sorry for your loss. It's never easy, but you'll get thru this. I'm sure the new hatchling will be fantastic.
 
Becky- I'm so sorry to hear this!! What bad luck....I'm sorry for the loss of some snakes and I hope things improve for you in the future. Stay away Murphy- Becky & her lovely family certainly don't deserve this!!! :mad:
 
Becky, I am so sorry! This is one of my recurrent nightmares, that it will happen to me. I hope all the survivors do OK. I know you will give them the best possible care.
 
Occasionally I agree with Susan.. :cool:

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. I've lost quite a few snakes to heating malfunctions over the years so know what you are going through. The ones that regurged will probably be okay with a little TLC, but I am concerned about the one showing neurological symptoms.
Click to expand...

Kathy also had some good advice about the regurge protocal..

I lost about 15 of my 09's this past week due to the same reason, I was not expecting the ambiant house temps to be so warm, and didn;t double check things like I was supposed to.. They got a little to warm and I didn't catch it in time.. I can totally relate and then some.. Unfortunatly, this is not the first time Murphy's heating bug has got me as well..

Regards.. Tim of T and J
 
So sorry to hear about this Becky, It scares me so much to think about this kind of thing happening - after reading this thread I had to go double check my temps and sure enough one of my probes was kind of coming loose and it was a bit too warm. What a horrible thing to happen and I'm glad it wasn't worse. I hope the regurgers will be just fine with a little TLC. That other one with the neurological symptoms doesn't sound too good. I hope he makes it too though.
 
Thanks guys. I've been looking at a couple different options to hopefully avoid this type of situation in the future. One of which includes buying a control that would shut down the heat/air if temps are what they should be. We have plans to acuire an out building, finishing it with insulation, paneling, lots of outlets, a thermostat like I mentioned above and a generator for those just in case moments. It wont stop all disasters from happening but it will help.
 
Oh Becky, that stinks and I know it hit you hard. You are a good herper! Hang in there and I know you will find a way to make sure this never happens again. Heat always has me worried. I am afraid to use the A/C in the summer, not that last summer even warranted using one, but now I am more worried.

Climate control is very important in this hobby!

Hugs!
PJ
 
An outbuilding COULD be even more problematical. You tend to not notice things as much when they are in a separate building, because you are not poking your head in for a minute as you go from one end of the house to another. Also, if you use some kind of alarm right in the room - not hooked up to a phone or siren, or just an exhaust fan turning on automatically, you might not hear it as well as if it was right inside your house.

When we had a "small" heater disaster (only lost a few snakes on the top row when a small heater thermostat let it overheat), it was in a separate building. Had it been in the house, I might have checked more often and noticed it right away - who knows?

Just additional things to think about when you make a new room or building.
 
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