Feeding F/T rodents

Last night I offered my male Pastel BP a small rat. The BP struck and coiled around the rat...then the rat bit him. There was no damage done to the snake, but he was freaked out pretty badly and did not try to feed again that night. Anyway...I'm now going to start offering either freshly killed rats or F/T rats. This has been a thought for a while, but this has given me the ambition to follow through with it.

How exactly do you prepare and present a F/T rat? I have heard of people using hair dryers to thaw and warm them. How warm do you want the rat to be? Then you feed them from a set of tongs? Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,

The guy that sells me frozens sells them in individual bags. I pull some out and stick em(in the bags) into some warm water until the rats are all soft and thawed. Then I take them out of the bag and stick them directly in the water, this time a little warmer. Not HOT but just warmer water. I check on them every now and then and when you can hold them and put your thumb on their stomachs and they feel warm internally, I take em and bring them over to the tubs and hold them by the tail 4-6 inches away from the BPs hide entrance. I wiggle them a bit and get a strike. While the BP is coiled I wiggle the rat a little by the tail, simulating a struggle to have the BP coil tighter and take a more aggressive approach to "killing" and devouring the rat. Only reason I do this is because Ive had BPs strike, coil, and lose interest. Good luck!

what I used to do was let the frozen rats set out over night then in the morning warm some water in the microwave for like a minute ot two. Throw the rats in the water let sit a min or two to warm up then dry off a lil bit with a papertowel then present either by the tail or te scruff of the neck with the tongs. Thats how I did it but there are many different ways that ppl have found to work best for them. You will just have to experiment with it and see what works best for you.

Cool! Thanks guys!

No problem. I have tried it a few different ways and the way I explained I found to be less of a PITA. And it worked pretty good too. As Pav mentioned above it is good to kinda make the rat do the dance to get them to strike and also give the tail a few tugs to mock that the rat is trying to fight back. I hope this works for you!

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Originally Posted by BLong7211

No problem. I have tried it a few different ways and the way I explained I found to be less of a PITA. And it worked pretty good too. As Pav mentioned above it is good to kinda make the rat do the dance to get them to strike and also give the tail a few tugs to mock that the rat is trying to fight back. I hope this works for you!

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I'm going to try offering him a meal again tonight (since he got spooked last night and would not feed), so I'll update after I try offering him the meal tonight. He's normally a very hardy feeding snake.

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Originally Posted by demjor19

Last night I offered my male Pastel BP a small rat. The BP struck and coiled around the rat...then the rat bit him. There was no damage done to the snake, but he was freaked out pretty badly and did not try to feed again that night. Anyway...I'm now going to start offering either freshly killed rats or F/T rats. This has been a thought for a while, but this has given me the ambition to follow through with it.

How exactly do you prepare and present a F/T rat? I have heard of people using hair dryers to thaw and warm them. How warm do you want the rat to be? Then you feed them from a set of tongs? Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,

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When I first switched my bp to frozen/thawed, I would put it(inside a bag) in warm water for a few hours to thaw it, then put it in warmer water(not in a bag) just before feeding it to heat it up a bit. This is great if your snake doesn't mind wet food but I have read about some picky snakes. Also in my opinion if you feed your snake wet food you shouldn't feed it in its tank, bedding sticks to the food.

Now I use a hairdryer on a low setting to warm it up before feeding(still thaw it over a few hours in water). Not only is this easier, its dryer, much faster, and in my case it seems to get the snake in the eating mode too, probably because of the smell dispersing faster in the warm air.

Do NOT put a rodent in the microwave, nor should you leave it out over night. As the rodent thaws, the decomposition process, so by time it is good and thawed, it will also be fairly spoiled. Plus, a small rat doesn't take very long to thaw at all. Put it in a ziplock bag, put it in some hot water from the sink for a half hour to an hour. Right before I put the rat in with the snake I warm the water up for a minute or so to warm the rat up a little. You don't want it hot, but warm to the touch. My bp won't strike or eat in front of me so I just put it in his hide with him.

I try to let it thaw out first but i put the rodent in a ziploc (I buy the zip lock knock off ones for like a buck a box of 50). Microwave a big cup of water for about 45sec. place the rodent in the ziploc and set it in the water until body temp is warm(you can tell thru the bag). I place it so the ziploc is at the top and out of the water.
Make sure it is warm all the way thru and no longer frozen as frozen is not good for the snake.
And always prescent for about 1/2 hr. I place a thawing rodent on top of the enclosure. This gets the snakes in feed mode.