Does anyone have a fire safety plan for there pigs?

[rustypete]

I’m just curios to know, since most houses are supposed to have a fire plan. I only have guinea pigs that live in a hutch outside, however I keep their carrier open in there attached run. So it’s easy to access.

Because it’s always best for people put themselves before there pets. Because unfortunately we only have around 60 minutes to escape if there’s ever a real fire and that you wouldn’t be able to catch pets in that amount or time or if your trapped upstairs and have pets inside.

Do you guys have a fire action plan for your pets as well as yourself?

[3piggles]

We don't have a plan exactly, but we have what we need close to the front door, and in an emergency, can't pack up the piggies and their stuff, and be out the door in less than two minutes. A friend once did a fire escape plan for her house, and it made me think about it. Nothing posted on the wall. No regular fire drills. We just keep everything nearby, and we know what to do. I guess that is, technically, a plan

[Bean]

Mine always have a cardboard box or two in their cages, large enough to fit all three pig in. So my plan would be to turn one of them over, put the pigs in and get out, and worry about everything else from there.

That's more of a plan than we have for ourselves actually!

[bazookagoof]

Our house is small, and there are two exits I could use for my guys (front door & back door) but I haven't figured out the logistics of grabbing their cages and moving them in a hurry. I suppose I could grab each pig and run out whichever door, but since their cages are in the office I would probably hesitate and also try to grab my portable hard drive where I have my pictures of my daughter stored and run out with all three things at once. 

This is a bad idea, and would end up killing me and my guys, so I need to look into online storage.

This thread has given me food for thought. 

[Bean]

We have an external hard drive which we store at my parents' house - it's a back up of everything that's on our server which we update every few years. The idea came about after we copied all our CDs into a digital format and got rid of them so didn't want to lose all our music, but it also has all our photos on. This reminds me, we're overdue updating it!

[3piggles]

Baz, do you have a rolling suitcase, the kind you pull by an extendable handle? Anything like that works great to get everything you need out of there in a hurry. You need food and water bottles for the boys more than you need a cage. You need a place to put your hard drive, and probably a few other things. Just make a layout plan for the suitcase that shows where each thing is supposed to go. Once you have loaded everything else, load in the boys. Don't zip then in completely, and if you're worried about them being in a small, enclosed space together, just put a towel between them. You'll need to put in towels for them not to pee on anything else, anyway.

There are also laundry baskets on wheels. The legs collapse for storage, and extend for use. Same deal. Figure out what you'd need, put it in the laundry basket, cover everything with towels, add the boys last, and roll it all out the door.

Bean, I really like your idea of having your back up disk at your parent's house. Can you add to it from your house?

[bazookagoof]

We're going to get off track here, but I was talking to my friend Ken who specializes in computer support and he says portable hard drives are only good for about 5 years, even if you seldom use them. My drives are older than that, and I need to consider cloud storage before one of those old drives fail. 

This has happened before, and it IS possible to recover data (not always) but it's an expensive solution. 

[Bean]

Uh oh, me too then!

And no, 3piggles, we just get it back and re-copy everything every now and again - make sure it's all still working. We have a mirror drive on our server (might not have said that right, but hopefully you know what I mean) so that if one part corrupts, we still get to keep everything. But in a fire, that wouldn't help one bit!

[3piggles]

I'm not sure what's going to the cloud and what's not. I'll have to ask Tech Support (husband). We need to have our passwords someplace we can access them but others can't. He had a password program, but it required a password, lol Basically, if we couldn't get into the basic system because we forgot the password, we couldn't get to the password program to tell us what the needed password was. Haven't used that in years, and have relied on paper lists. We use a basic password, quite complex, and only change the suffix. This was recommended by many computer professionals, the bank, etc., and it works. Memorize the basic password, and the list only contains the suffixes. At least that's made it easier to get into apps we don't use very often. I'll ask him to make sure everything is backed up someplace safe. I lost two discs, years ago, and they had the pictures of Zippy and Dallas, Piggy Paradise, and others. Luckily, they were rescued off Photobucket before it became impossible to get anything off Photobucket, so I have those. They're not great pics. They were taken with a point-and-click, but at least I have some. If I can reproduce the Piggy Paradise photo, I don't have to spend the money to rebuild it just to get a decent photo.

I also don't know if there's one cloud everyone uses, if different providers have their own clouds, etc. I may have stuff on a cloud from a couple of computers ago that I've totally forgotten about. I hate being a techno-dino, but it's all changed so much, and I haven't kept up with it.

[bazookagoof]

My new computer has a mirror drive as well, but I'm so used to backing up everything on a portable drive or a Blu-Ray disc that I never use it. Besides, like you said- if a fire breaks out, it's useless anyway.

3piggles, my friend Ken said Google permits a few gigabytes of storage for its users, so if you have a Google account you could look into it. I have at least 3 terabtyes of files, so I need much more. There are different cloud accounts as well. I did try Carbonite, but found it unworkable. Basically, I had to upload everything through the same path, so if I uploaded through my computer, I couldn't plug in a portable drive and upload from that as well- I would have to load everything to my computer first. Once you change the path, you lose everything you just uploaded with no recovery option. Fortunately, they refunded most of my subscription. 

[3piggles]

Thanks for that info, Baz. Vic probably knows that, but getting it out of him can be like pulling teeth!

[bazookagoof]

I realized my plan has changed now- with the guys in the basement, I would have to go downstairs to get them. We do have a third door that leads out, and the cages are about 15 feet away from it. As long as any potential fire isn't downstairs, I can grab them and get them out without a problem. 

[3piggles]

While knowing which exit to use in a fire is extremely important, how you're going to get them out is also important. Right now mine are right by the front door, so not far to go, but I would need a conveyance. I have a laundry basket and fleece to use to get them out in any weather, and it has room to take their food bag and a bowl. In an emergency, that's all we'd need. We can always replace anything that gets lost in the fire, put water in the basket in a bowl instead of a bottle, etc. The pigs would be safe, and that's what matters.

I had a friend who had a set of rolling drawers with all the pigs' stuff. In a fire, she would put the pigs in a basket, put it on the drawers, and roll them and all their stuff out the door. She lived in Belgium where houses didn't have 5 steps from the ground to the door, so it would work really well. Here, we'd have trouble getting rolling drawers over the front door threshold, much less down the steps to the yard. Each situation is different, but it is good to have a plan, know where things are, and be able to respond really quickly. Save everyone <3