Nasty case of an exploding f/t small rat

I did my usual thawing method of a small f/t rat for my normal girl last night. I let the rat thaw out at room temperature and then heated the head with a blow dryer. I presented it to my girl and when she struck and coiled, guts flew everywhere. Talk about disgusting and stinky. This has got to be the worst case of explosive rat guts I have ever encountered in my entire seven years of keeping ball pythons. Amazingly enough she still ate the damn thing too.


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Originally Posted by ballpythonluvr

I did my usual thawing method of a small f/t rat for my normal girl last night. I let the rat thaw out at room temperature and then heated the head with a blow dryer. I presented it to my girl and when she struck and coiled, guts flew everywhere. Talk about disgusting and stinky. This has got to be the worst case of explosive rat guts I have ever encountered in my entire seven years of keeping ball pythons. Amazingly enough she still ate the damn thing too.


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I've never had this happen! I thaw mine in hot water until they are soft all the way through and immediately feed. Sometimes, I have to reheat with a blow dryer if they're feeling picky. Never any explosion of guys, though.



0.2 Normal

It shouldnt have smelled to bad.
Was it a refreeze?

Nice! Never had one explode on me (yet), but I did have one of my big girls pop the head clean off of one.

She's known for flying out of her tub when she strikes and that time was no exception. When she was pulling it back up and into the tub, it got caught somehow on the lip and she kept pulling. When it finally gave way, it make a nasty little popping sound - the head went one direction across the room and she got jolted back into her tub from the force she was exerting trying to pull it up. Unfortunately, she didn't finish eating that one - try as she may, she couldn't find a spot she wanted to start swallowing because the head was nowhere to be found. Crazy animals...

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Originally Posted by PitOnTheProwl

It shouldnt have smelled to bad.
Was it a refreeze?

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No, it was not a refreeze. I too was wondering why it stank so bad. My normal girl ate it and she seems to be fine today. I have been watching her very closely to make sure she doesn't have any regurgitation issues. Perhaps I have learned my lesson here to never feed her another explosive stinky small f/t rat.

Makes me think it was a bad one. Decomposition shouldnt have happen that quick.
Probably sat around a while before freezing.

In my experience it has only ever happened when thawed too fast for example in hot water or when the feeder was previously thawed and re-freeze.

Could be a feeder that was thawed and froze again where you bought them from.

hey i dont mean to hijack the thread but while were on the topic, is refrozen detrimental? or does it just smell really bad. on the way home with a bag of frozen mice they defrosted a little and were still hard but a little soft on the skin. just dont want to feed my snakes something that could harm them.

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Originally Posted by ItBurnsToPee

hey i dont mean to hijack the thread but while were on the topic, is refrozen detrimental? or does it just smell really bad. on the way home with a bag of frozen mice they defrosted a little and were still hard but a little soft on the skin. just dont want to feed my snakes something that could harm them.

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The guts I believe is what you don't want to thaw then refreeze. The skin/meat should be alright. Nice name btw...

Just curious, did you buy the rats or freeze them yourself? When I first got into the hobby I bought an entire batch of frozen rats from a big frozen rodent company that did what yours did. Never hurt my snakes but I had several explosions. I think for sure they were refrozen. I only feed from my own home grown stock now and never ever have an issue. My frozen rats look much better then any I have bought and never explode. However, I had a big girl pop the eyeballs out of a live rat once. Poor little thing, it was a bit small for her and she was in super feed mode.