Heat Packs and Shipping Animals - Choosing The Right Heat Pack

Heat packs are often used when shipping fish, lizards, and other animals. When placed in the animal's container, the heat pack helps to ensure that the temperature won't get so low that it could harm or kill the animal. Different types of heat packs can last for different lengths of time, and also reach different peak temperatures and reach their top temperature at different intervals. Finally, different heat packs may take different periods of time to activate.

The shortest duration heat packs last for 20 hours. Though shorter in total time, these heat packs have the most rapid activation (five to ten minutes) and achieve their highest temperature most quickly (about seven hours). They also give off more heat than other packs, making them ideal for shipping tropical fish, as water is not as easy to heat as air. When shipping from a cold climate, these heat packs can be used with others to balance the temperature throughout the trip; the greatest heat is provided early on in colder climes, while the longer-lasting heat packs provide lower grades of heat later on, when the outside temperature starts to increase.

Thirty hour heat packs activate more slowly, generally taking twenty minutes to half an hour, peaking in about half a day. These heat packs are nicely balanced, being faster and hotter than 40+ hour packs, but longer-lasting than 20-hour packs.

Heat packs lasting forty hours and above have the longest activation times (about forty to fifty minutes) and lowest maximum heat output (around 110 degrees Fahrenheit). These heat packs can range in duration from 40 to 72 hours, with peak times from seventeen to twenty-eight hours, depending on the duration. Forty-hour heat packs are the most popular for shipping reptiles, amphibians, and insects. Sixty and seventy-two hour heat packs are ideal for export shipments.