vacation

[snakehunter]

i will be on vacation for about a week, and i was wondering what you guys do to secure your herps.

i was going to get some one to come in every now and then and check on them, but the few people with herps in my area are horrible people, and keepers.

i was also going to try and just not feed them a week befor i left, that way they would poop, and me not be there. does that sound cruel to you.

i dont know what to do, wny help would be great
thanx\
-Jacob

[daver676]

I would think they'd be fine for a week. Just give them an extra large water dish. I would call a friend in the area few times during the week, just to make sure there were no power outages or anything.

[Vengeance]

I have the same delima. I'm giveing my guy an extra big rat the day before I leave and getting my Dad to come up to my place every couple days just to change water. If you can get him to eat just before you leave finding someone to just change the water and lock the lid shouldn't be too hard.

[mykee]

It's really hard to find someone that you trust to look in on your snakes. Luckily, I have found a person (not a herp-owner, or even a herp-lover really) but for the right price and some gentle coaxing, she even cleaned out any poop or pee if needed. Snake hooks are wonderful. Good luck finding someone, it's tough. If you can't find anyone, they should be fine for only a week though.

[jfmoore]

I’m assuming when you say “herps”, you don’t have anything that normally needs to be fed daily. Your snakes will be thrilled (so to speak) not to have to interact with a human for a week. As long as you’re sure your temperatures will remain stable, think of it as a vacation for THEM, too. I always try to cut off food for all but tiny colubrid hatchlings for about two weeks before I leave so I have the best chance to leave my snakes with clean cages that will stay relatively clean while I’m gone. I know that some people feed right before they leave. But I don’t like the scenario of the animals crawling through feces, or drinking from possibly filthy water bowls in the following days. Bear in mind that these are animals that are programmed to survive (and thrive) for weeks and weeks without any food OR water.

It is nice if you are able to schedule visits by someone just to make sure no major disaster has happened. This doesn’t even have to be someone with any herp experience. And can be as minor as “stick your head in the door, take a quick look around, sniff to see if there are any really awful odors, make sure the heat (or air conditioning) is functioning, and be on your way.” You can make arrangements with, and leave the phone number for, someone who DOES have herp experience, on whom the non-experienced person can call if a major problem arises. This could be something like a giant python breaking out of the front of its homemade cage (happened to me), or a circuit breaker tripping which causes the chest freezer with rats, mice, rabbits and chickens to defrost in the summer (happened to me), or….never mind, there’s more, but I’ve learned from my mistakes over the years!

-Joan

[Boid_22]

Too bad your in the states or i'd do it for ya, I guess ur only hope is duct tape.......LOL No really.....I always secure with duct tape when i know i'm gonna be away for any amount of time more then a couple of days.....

Regards.....Ed