Re-freeze

Dose anyone here Re-freeze their f/t rats or mice? I never have but some of my snakes have been real stubborn lately, and I hate throwing away the rats. If you a have has there been any issues?

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I see two reasons not to do it.

Firstly, there is the same reason as any food. As you defrost it and re-freaze it, you separate water in the rat, as with any food, and the re-freazing causes those water molecules to bond and freeze, which simultaneously dries out the food, and can damage tissues, causing the texture to be damaged, in this case, the rat can leak and get really mushy.

Secondly, there is the possibility of contaminating the rat during the defrost, attempt to feed, re-freeze process and freezing, unless well below true 0, will not necessarily kill everything, though it would slow it's progression, you could inadvertently introduce something harmful to the food which just festers while frozen and may go absolutely nuts when re-defrosted, and could make your snake sick.

I've refrozen refused prey items before without any issues but I would never re-freeze them more than once. This was when I only had 1 or 2 snakes. Now there's always someone willing to dispose of any leftovers.

I only refreeze a rat for one of my snakes because she's the only one that will eat the refrozen ones. She eats anything though. If it isn't eaten the second time around it gets tossed. But I've never had any issues with it :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EL-Ziggy

I've refrozen refused prey items before without any issues but I would never re-freeze them more than once. This was when I only had 1 or 2 snakes. Now there's always someone willing to dispose of any leftovers.

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Agreed. I never re freeze more than once. Haven't had an issues with re freezing though

I haven't refrozen before. But I have put the rat in the refrigerator for a day or two after being refused.


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Thanks for the info. I'm going to give it a try, only because I'm running low on rats and the next show isn't for a while.

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Another vote for refreezing once only. Done it several times without issue, also stored a couple in a very cold fridge (basically at freezing) and they were good for a few days. Any on their second try get offered to good feeders or a garbage truck, not the picky snakes.