Several years ago while at our campground our air conditioning in our
trailer quit and boy did the heat start rising quickly. We also have a
large screened in front porch so I took the cage with the ferrets on
the porch to get a little relief from the heat in the trailer. Then I
remembered I always kept frozen 20oz water bottles in the freezer for
fear something like this would happen. I also had bought some tube
socks at a thrift store to keep up there ...So I had the makings of a
semi air conditioner to put in their cage!!! What I did was put the
frozen water bottles in the socks leaving both ends of the sock to put
thru the cage wires and then used a large safety pin to pin together. I
did this on 3 sides of the cage. Since the litter box kept me from
putting the water bottle along the floor I just put it above the litter
box and anchored it there with each end of the sock out the cage wire
and pinned. I also did this on the bottom level the same way and since
I had one more bottle left I put that on the inside top of the cage and
pinned that extra tight so it wouldn't fall. I also had an ice cube
tray that makes those tube ice cubes made for the bottle drinks and
added those to their water bottles. I then added a sheet to cover the
whole cage. My cage is a medium size 2 level cage that I separate the
levels to keep 2 sets of ferrets in. Well I have to say....I gave it
about an hour and decided to peak in to see how they were doing ( I
actually checked on them several times before this) ...I lifted the
sheet, opened the cage door and couldn't believe how nice and cool it
was in there...my ferrets were comfy and the water bottles were still
solid!!! I hurried up and closed the sheet up around the cage to keep
the cool air in.... I also had put them by the ceiling fan on the porch
so the air could also cool them thru the sheet and spread the coolness
that was already inside. I only wished I could of crawled into that
cage... My husband had to go all the way home to get the freon to put
in the a/c unit since that was the problem why it didn't work...(my
husband used to do that kind of work so we always had a bottle of this
stuff). All turned out well and we probably could of kept the cage
cooler for a longer period of time but about 6 hours later the a/c was
fixed and everything was back to normal. We could of picked up and went
back home but that is my weekend R&R but if the freon didn't work then
I wouldn't hesitate to pack up and leave. This worked for me and now
I always have a freezer full of frozen water bottles just in case... I
also do this at home since we are more likely to have power outages in
the extreme heat...At home we have the ferret nation cages so I am
thinking of freezing a couple 2 liter bottles to put in them...

Jackie
Sierra, Cinnabun, Snowflake, Furrari & Koda
At the bridge: Taz, Opie, Harvey, Buster, Plato, Cybil, Simon, Coby,
Peanut, Lexi, Bandit, Mo, Echo, Precious, BumbleBear, Dominic, Mindy,
Trance, Adrian, Hershey, Honey, Laney, Voodoo, Wally, Sir Duke,
Zipper, Duchess

Ferret Fun things:
http://jackiesdecals.webs.com/
http://stores.ebay.com/FERRET-STUFF-Plus-More

[Posted in FML 7131]