A rather odd question....

Last night was feeding night and I decided to put a glass of water in the microwave to get it nice and hot - then I put the rat in a ziplock baggy and put it in the water for about 2 min. - I realized that the water was much hotter than I normally can pull from the tap - I was worried that I may have cooked the rat in the hot water - is that possible??

I checked the rat and it was still very limp - it didn't seem hard or solid like it would if it had been cooked.

I liked using the hot water from the microwave because it really warmed the rat up but I wanted to be sure that it was okay to use the microwave to heat the water.

He ate the rat and appears to be fine this morning - no regurge or anything. I just wanted to put that out there to see what you all thought.

Thanks.

It is possible to cook the rat if the water is hot enough. I'm currently feeding f/t small mice, and what I do is just take the hot water from the tap, put the mouse in there for about 10 mins and its usually defrosted all the way through. Then I blast it with a hairdryer to warm it up. Not sure how this would work for a rat being that its going to take much longer to defrost.

I don't think 2 minutes would cook the rat, as long as the water was not boiling. Just remember...your body temp is aroung 98-99*, that's about the temp you want the rat warmed to. So if the rat feels hot to you, it is getting too hot.

Since he has already ate the darn thing and appears to be fine - I guess I will have to see what happens. If it was slightly cooked - what would that do to my bp??

I will go back to using the water out of the faucet like I've done all along - so much for my new ideas - LOL.

What should I watch for if the rat was slightly cooked when he ate it??

It's unlikely to do him any harm. So long as it wasn't hot enough inside to burn him when he ate it.

Boiling water is overkill and completely unnecessary.
Hot tap water is sufficient.

I actually held it in my hand before I offered it to him - it was warm on the fur but I didn't leave it in the water long enough for the inerds to actually get too hot.

I do think I will go back to my hot tap water routine - that way I wont have to worry all night that I may have hurt my snake in some way with a cooked rat.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in with a response.