As we are riding out a particularly rough storm up here in the northeast, I’m curious as to what others do when y’all have to bug out.
Compared to most of you, we have a small collection of reptiles. I’m also no stranger to putting our beardies on me under a sweatshirt during outages. I’ve also got sticky hand warmers to help with heat for outside enclosures.
I guess the main question is, what do you guys use to transport if needed? I know pillow cases for snakes, but do you have any boxes to recommend? Tips and tricks?
When we take our reptiles out to do our classes, we just use plastic tubs with latching lids. Inside we use shredded paper. Once we get to the classroom we have an old electric blanket and a towel to keep them warm. Works pretty well in a cool class. Not sure what to do in a bad storm. Last winter when it froze all to hell here in Texas we moved everyone and all the critters into the dining room, and used the fireplace to keep us all warm.
We also have a wood burning stove here, so if the power goes out for an extended period (rare here in Indy) then I can move the ones that still need heat into the living room. You can also invest in a generator if you feel the need and don’t have the ability to put a fireplace/wood burning stove in.
I’ve only ever brought one of the beardies to schools, and he’s got his own carrier.I think trying to find the perfect bins is going to be the tough part.
A room of reptiles near a fire place? That actually sounds super cozy!
We live in a fairly old apartment, and I wish I could put a fireplace in.
I think for longer outages, we would be okay, since my parents have a generator 20 minutes north. It’s just trying to get from point a to point b at that point without anyone getting to stressed out and keeping them safe.
During previous outages, we pile upstairs where it’s the warmest.
I have a plastic tub with drilled holes for each snake, a heat blanket and a cheap thermostat for an emergency evacuation, and in the winter keep several large coolers and at least one 72hr uni-heat pack per snake in the even of power loss.
I mostly just use sterilite. They work great. You can also use the Target brand bins. Basically any bin works, as long as it’s secure enough. You are gonna want to use bins with a latching top to make sure the animals don’t get out. Other than that, almost anything will do. Also, sorry for the late reply
I’m on my desktop right now, so I don’t have a picture (I’ll try and add one later), but I recently traveled across the USA with my entire leopard gecko collection.
I purchased the 120 hour Uni-Heat heat packs and wrapped them loosely in newspaper, so that oxygen can reach them & the reaction to heat can occur. I contacted the manufacturer and they verified that the longer the heat pack lasts, the slightly lower (and thus safer) peak temperature.
I took a sterilite tub (forget the size) and drilled holes in all the sides and the top, so there would be some oxygen flow while still retaining the heat. Then I placed each of my geckos in one of those pre-made meal containers often used for bento after drilling holes in those as well. They have a solid black bottom, to give the leos some security, but are clear on the top, so I can see them.
I lined the bottom and sides of their individual containers with paper towel or, in the case of my 2 very delicate geckos, I also added felt below the paper towel. I brought 1mL oral syringes so that I could give them some water by hand halfway through the trip.
Having made the trip, I have kept the big tub handy, along with the unused heat packs I purchased as back-up and each gecko’s individual transportation tub. Because I’m not 100% sure I could tell all of my geckos apart, each container is labeled with their name and sex, just in case.
In the event where I literally have less than 5 minutes, I have a plastic ‘gecko-mobile’ that I use when I take several geckos to the vet at once (for example, when my gecko Pablo had surgery, I brought in my geckos Edward & Harvey as blood donors). I would just grab it and do my best to keep only one male per section (as male leos will fight to the death). They’d probably all lose their tails, but it’s better than passing away.
Here’s a picture looking down, with only a few of the geckos in place. I rearranged them a bit after everyone was in, to create spaces into which I could put the heat packs, so that each gecko had at least one side towards a heat pack.
Marla! You’re amazing! I was curious as to how you made the cross country trip with your whole fam!
I hadn’t thought about the black-bottom meal prep boxes! I like that for the security. They make me feel better than the deli cups. My mom also has a million of them at home in varying sizes, so that would definitely work for Evy (our sole Leo) as well as the beardies (both males.)
The felt idea is also genius. I don’t have any delicate babies, but I love that idea!
You also made me think about putting a 20ml syringe in the box as well since we have a few still in packages. I might also throw a few insulin syringes in there as well.
I am loving the gecko tub, I’m gonna have to put together my own now for my snakes. But since my collection has grown rapidly, my previous method of moving everyone has had to change… before, I had a latching lid sterelite bin for both of my geckos (a leo and crestie), and I would transport my balls in their tubs since this was pre-rack times for me. For now, the gecko tubs have stayed the same but I am looking at moving 6 ball pythons by simply pulling their tubs out of the racks and sticking a lid on it which… isn’t the best option. I’ll have to look into getting another larger tub so I can deli cup/bag everyone with a heat pack if needed. So far Michigan weather has been good to me but an upcoming move is looming over my head so I’m quite glad you’ve got me thinking about this now!
I live in the land of wildfires (California), so this is definitely something I’ve thought about. Currently I just make sure that I have a plastic storage tub with latching lid and air holes that could accommodate each of my reptiles. I have a few spare small heat mats to go with them and would probably just unplug and grab a thermostat or two since I don’t currently have any spares (I have one that has two probes and outlets, so that’s probably the one I’d grab, since I could use it for two separate tubs at once, which is all I’d require for the time being). I also keep some heat packs on hand to deal with any power outages. Fortunately it doesn’t tend to get all that cold where I live, but it can get down to the low 40s or even mid to high 30s (freezing is rare but not unheard of) on some winter nights, so I feel better knowing I have the heat packs just in case.
