Well, not the way we foreseen 2022 beginning, but we will keep on. My wife and I have been building and buying ball pythons for over 8 yrs now. We’ve raised the majority from babies to adults and started our own projects the past 3 yrs. I’m a full time worker, doing our animals as a hobby. We’ve recently came home to an absolutely devastated nightmare. Due to extreme cold weather, we had lost power for several days and were completely unaware. Needless to say, we lost well over 40k worth of animals. We absolutely love ball pythons. And as sad as I am, I’m going to keep pushing on.
God bless, and thank you to all the people who Iv bought from over the yrs. we will recoup, with time and prayers
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I am so so sorry for your loss, I can’t imagine how difficult this must be. Our animals definitely become part of the family
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That’s terrible, I’m very sorry that happened to you and of course, to the snakes. This has been something I have been thinking of recently as my collection grows; the possibility of a catastrophic event. I wonder if anyone has experience with insuring their snakes. While it can’t replace the lives of our animals and years of hard work raising them, it’s something to consider for at least some peace of mind for the financial side of the loss.
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@nextdayreptiles and @hsashton
I am not really understanding how you can say that. By reading the op’s original post, it is apparent that they were away for some time either on vacation or something like that. In the event of losing power, it wouldn’t have mattered even if they were home. If the power was lost for days, even heating the animals with spare heat packs wouldn’t have been ideal. The only thing besides them being home when they lost power and taking all of the snakes somewhere with power would have been if they had a backup generator. Most people don’t have backup generators anyways, not one that could run a collection that size.
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So sorry for your loss. I’ve been considering investing in a backup generator and your story certainly pushes me further in that direction. This could easily happen to me here in Indy. Again, so sorry.
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I will ask first that you keep this CIVIL.
There is no need for your negative and assuming comments when someone has just lost their animals. You are spouting nonsense also and assuming they left their animals unattended and simply that they don’t care.
I nor anyone else would respond so unkindly if it were you who lost an animal you loved.
Oh this forum we don’t need nor tolerate messages like this which is why your previous comment was removed.
So think before you speak please.
They’ve just lost their loved pets. Think about how they feel right now and how you’d feel if in their shoes.
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Sorry to hear that. I hope everything goes well on the road to rebuilding your collection
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My heart goes out to you and your family 
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@nextdayreptiles It is okay to disagree, but understand that things such as this are completely out of the owner’s control. Almost everything can be avoided, but nobody is perfect and therefore many things go unseen until hindsight.
Do not assume that someone is asking for free snakes. It is up to anyone else to sympathize with and support someone who has just lost tens of thousands of dollars of something they love to something out of their control.
@micahnjess I have experienced this in a much smaller scale, but nothing anywhere close to this caliber. Our prayers will go out to you and your wife. 
We are so sorry for your loss.
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There is no need to make someone feel worse about an already bad situation.
You can make a million arguments about what could have been done differently but hindsight is always 20/20.
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I’m so sorry. No one should have to come home to a situation like that.
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@madelines_morphs I totally agree. An event like this is truly devastating.
@nextdayreptiles Please try to sympathize with this person and their circumstances.
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You would need a business policy and the snakes would be insured as standard business inventory.
@nextdayreptiles and @hsashton consider this a warning. It’s easy to be a keyboard warrior on a forum, but don’t act like you’ve never done something “wrong” inside the industry and haven’t had to learn from a mistake. They lost power. The end. There is nothing you can say that can change that. “Attacking” them by saying they should have contingency plans is laughable. Did you say the same thing last year when Texas was without power for 3 weeks? Not everyone can afford contingency plans, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t keep animals. That’s almost the equivalent to saying you shouldn’t drink water if you’re thirsty. If you have nothing “nice” to say then just move on. Being a mare on here isn’t going to get you anywhere. You weren’t there and don’t know the whole story. The end.
Edit; This is coming from the autistic person who can’t emotionally sympathize with anything, but understands that what you two said was out of line.
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@akmorphs I couldn’t have said it better. Something like this is not to be tossed around lightly. $40k really is a lot of money, plus the time, love, and connection you had with each snake. I lost just over $1k and that was devastating. I couldn’t fathom losing this. Absolutely catastrophic.
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Chiming in as a breeder in Texas who was affected by the power outages last year - even with contingency plans, accidents happen. We cannot be everywhere at once. I was lucky in that while I lost power for 3 days last year, I did have gas, which meant I was able to heat water on the stove for hot water bottles for my collection, and build a fire in the fireplace, which was able to keep my collection alive. Some people weren’t so lucky. An acquaintance lived in a condo that lost power for 7 days, with no gas or water for the full duration. She had a generator, but after running for 3 days nonstop, it was out of fuel and because the roads were completely shut down, she couldn’t go anywhere to get more. Even if she had been able to, another breeder friend was unable to find fuel ANYWHERE locally, so even if she had been able to leave, it wouldn’t have helped. She lost her entire collection (around 20 animals).
Another breeder friend who lived close to me was out of town with his family, and because the power was out, he was unable to monitor his snake room temperatures like he normally can. The family who had the spare key to his house was also out of town, only an hour or so away, but roads were completely inaccessible. I had to break into his house via a back window and returned multiple times for a couple of days to turn his indoor heater on, monitor it, turn it back off to conserve the fuel, and then return a few hours later to do the same thing over again. While I did this, I was lucky enough to have family who could continue heating water for my reptiles - I would have been screwed, or he would have been, if that wasn’t the case. We both could have lost thousands of dollars in animals, and we also both know people who did, despite contingency plans.
It seems the original comments have been deleted and I’m glad, but anyone who believes that accidents like this are in any way a keeper’s fault or is always preventable is fooling themselves. Sometimes horrible things happens, even when we do our absolute best to prepare. Not everyone has the money for expensive contingency plans. Not everyone has the family or friend support to be able to get through something like this. If you have that, you are lucky - that’s all. Not better, not more prepared, just lucky.
To OP, I’m very sorry for your loss. I have lost animals due to unavoidable environmental conditions despite preparation on my part (last year in the Texas freeze, and again during my two-day move from Texas to Illinois). It sucks and my thoughts are with you.
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Absolutely heartbreaking, we are so sorry to hear about your tragedy.
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I’m very sorry about your loss! I’m glad that you’re still planning to stay in the hobby.
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I would like to start by saying I am truely sorry for what has happened with your animals. It is a devastating event when something like that happens. Hope you are able to rebuild and continue this “hobby” we all enjoy.
Now that I have that out of the way I would like to say this is a lesson for us all. If you live in an area that gets cold have a back up plan. You never know when you can have a power outage. You do not need a high end generator to keep your ball pythons alive. The first year of owning ball pythons I had a nasty ice storm that knocked our power out for close to a week. I used hand warmers on top of a sterilite container. Kept the container at 75-80 for 4 days when the house was only 50-55 degrees. Had to change them every 24 hours. Saved my snakes life. If you use this method do not place the tub on top of the hand warmers. They will be to hot. Place the hand warmers across the top of the tub lid. Check them often. You may need to cover them and the tub with a thin towel to hold heat in. After I experienced that storm and then the storm in Texas happened and I decided to get a Mr buddy heater for my snake room. I make sure I have a few days worth of propane on site always. I also make sure I have a box of hand warmers as back up. I do plan on getting a generator but for now this has worked for me.
The other thing I cannot stress enough is having someone check your collection when you are gone for more than a day.
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micahnjess, I am so very sorry for your loss. You are walking through a true disaster. It is not your fault. No contingency plan can address every possible issue, and sometimes the contingencies have contingencies which are completely out of our control. It is pure hubris to think otherwise. I live in hurricane country. We do all the storm prep and then some, but we know too many people who had the food, had the water, had the animal supplies, had the generators and the fuel, and it all washed out into Gulf with the rest of their home when Katrina’s 30’ storm surge came.
I’m a passionate hobby breeder myself, and I understand the challenges and joys of building a collection and developing projects. Please know that those of us who have experienced a disaster truly sympathize. It doesn’t take away your pain, but we care.
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Iv heard all the positive and negative things ppl say. We’re a Christian family and give our hearts to our animals just as we do each other. We have decided to install a backup generator bc going thru this ever again isn’t an option. We do appreciate all the support and love from everyone in the community. And to clarify, we never asked anyone in any way to give us anything in any way. Just if anyone knows of deals, or possibly ppl wanting to get out of the hobby to let us know. We work full time, so it’ll take yrs to fully recoup and that’s ok Money I can care less about. It’s the animals Iv spent so many yrs with, seeing them gone is what’s hard to get past. God bless you all this née yr
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