Beat the Heat

Well it topped 90*F this week so it's been a little on the warm side around here. Not many houses have A/C here so I pulled out the fans but for the furry ones it's not that easy. So I went and bought some left over tile cuts from Home Depot and brought them home and put them in the deep freeze for a few hours. Took them out and put them in all the cages and on the floor for my cats. Now everyone's got a nice chilly place to relax. lol

Good for you. I'm sure your bunnies appreciate it. It might be a good idea to pop some large soda bottles filled with water into the freezer, just in case a rabbit starts to show signs of heat stroke.

Must be hard to cope with that kind of heat when it's not the usual thing. It's been hot here, but not that hot, thank goodness. Hope your heat wave ends very soon.

We've been doing the 2-liter bottles of ice for our buns, and they love it. We don't put them out there until it is at least over 85*, because they need to last into the evening, when it finally goes back below the high 80s.

They go nuts over them. Some of them dig at it, lick it, play with it. Others just lie down next to it. Thumper lies down with his forehead against it, after he licks it to death first like a giant popsicle.

Once, Ilovebunnies found Thumper breathing fast, and he was somewhat listless, rather than looking for attention (we had forgotten to put the ice bottles out for them). She remembered something she had read in a book, and got him out, sat him in her lap, and held ice cubes to the insides of his ears. Since the ears are the way the rabbit gets rid of excess heat, ice held to the ears is a very direct way to cool the blood and therefore the body. He just sat there and took it, though I can't say it would be that easy with every rabbit. Shortly afterward, he was back to himself again.

I told Ilovebunnies she probably saved Thumper's life, and that I was really proud of her.

I have heard of freezing tiles before, and I bet the buns love that too! I don't know how quickly they warm up compared to the ice bottles.

Miss M":1p71vyk8 said:

I have heard of freezing tiles before, and I bet the buns love that too! I don't know how quickly they warm up compared to the ice bottles.

Click to expand...

I was going to ask the same thing. I have a chest freezer dedicated to bunny bottles, but I have so many of them that they don't freeze solid by the time I need them. I could put a whole lot of tiles in there! I've also heard that you can soak the terra cotta tiles in water before freezing them. I wonder if that would keep them cool longer.

pfaubush":2g9kf1v3 said:

I was going to ask the same thing. I have a chest freezer dedicated to bunny bottles, but I have so many of them that they don't freeze solid by the time I need them. I could put a whole lot of tiles in there! I've also heard that you can soak the terra cotta tiles in water before freezing them. I wonder if that would keep them cool longer.

Click to expand...

Terra cotta does absorb water, so I don't see why that wouldn't help. I would just drain them for a moment and dry the surfaces before freezing them, in hopes they wouldn't stick together.

I don't have much extra freezer space... so I have two sets of bottles. When one leaves the freezer, the other goes in. I can't have them both in at the same time.

I use terra cotta water jars in front of the fans which acts somewhat like air conditioning. It works for me too.

I do have the frozen water bottles out but the chinchillas don't like to get wet so they don't make use of the bottles the way the others do so the tiles work great for them.