Hey Texas friends! As a Canadian I'm a pro at handling blackouts in winter with reptiles, so here's a helpful thread on how to keep your cold blooded friends warm, this pic is from our power outage a few days ago.

For starters, reptile emergency heat packs aren't available here so an alternative is hand heat packs - WARNING: THEY ARE VERY DANGEROUS. They get way too hot for your babies so I recommend wrapping them in a towel and monitoring the heat closely with any means necessary.

The method I'm using in the picture is a very classic one, put your reptiles in a plastic tub with airholes and tuck them under blankets with you. They can't generate their own body heat so give them some of yours. Skin to skin contact WILL NOT WORK, the tub will trap in heat.

Headache heat packs are a godsend, the ones that crack to heat up and you can boil to reset, they last a couple hours and if you have means to make fire then you have means to reset them for more heating even though it will take forever to boil water

Any form of disposable heat packs for muscle pain are good to use as well, again plz wrap them in a towel before using them around your reptile

This one is pretty obvious, but a warm car will work wonders, take your babies out in towel/blanket wrapped tubs and stay in the car with them for a bit.

If you have a fireplace put your babies in front of them in towel wrapped tubs, please be careful about smoke inhalation

IF YOU TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM THIS THREAD LET IT BE THIS: small plastic tubs wrapped in towels or blankets are the BEST thing at retaining heat, they are small and dark and will keep your pet safe and warm.

Do not feel guilty should your reptile develop an RI from these blackouts, there's only so much you can do right now, but use this as a learning experience to better prepare yourself in the future!

The method I stand by the most is the blanket method, I just want to mention again that skin to skin contact is not going to work because you need the tub to trap in heat. The more blankets the better. I wish everyone and their reptiles well, stay safe everyone.

Adding another one: if you can boil water (even with a candle), take the water off of the heat and allow the steam to rise to the tub your reptile is in, BUT BE CAREFUL WITH THIS and any other unusual heating methods, use a meat thermometer if you have to!