How to protect your small pets during the summer heat

Inspired by the posting “Looking out for your pup in this summer heat“ of genkidesuka I would like to recommend some advices to keep your small pet like rabbits, guinea pig or hamster cool during the summer heat wave. Dogs usually will show you, that they feel very hot by panting. Unfortunately smaller animal don´t have that. Usually they are just laying around and try to survive the heat.
I own two rabbit, which are living on my balcony, even during the summer month. We can´t keep them inside, because of an allergy of my husband, but I always try my best to give them a good life. After already 5 hot summers with my rabbits I have the following recommendation for small animal pet owner (all works for inside or outside living small pets):

Frozen pet bottle
One of the best method to keep my rabbits cold are frozen water battle wrapped in a small towel. The rabbit can lay next to it and keep their belly cold. You can also use frozen ice packs, but then you have to watch out that they will not bite in it.

Cold tiles
In many home centers you can find cooling pads for animal, which are very pricy. Instead of that I recommend just to buy some tiles. If tiles are not in the sun (please watch out they can get very hot), they are very good for cooling down your pet.

Wet towel
Strong wind from the air conditioner is not good for a pet, but if you are putting a wet towel on their cage it will give your pet a cool refreshing feeling. In case the pet cage is close to the air conditioner the wind in combination with the towel will work like a humidifier.

Fresh food and water
The most important for a pet is not hyperventilate, that´s why you should watch out that your pet is drinking enough or getting water from fresh vegetable. Recently I'm feeding a lot of cabbage, because of the high water inside. Unfortunately when it is too hot my rabbits are kind of lazy and I have to force them to drink or eat something,

Even my pets are living outside, they always survive the summers in Tokyo by using all those above cooling ways.