Thawing Rats

So, whilst thawing out my kids' food today, I noticed something. If I thaw in a bag to keep them dry, it takes 3x as long! This time, I plopped them in hot water and BOOM. 45 minutes and DONE. Didn't even change the water. I stopped doing it because I thought it affected whether my snakes ate but that's not so. Thoughts? Opinions?

The thermal conductivity of still water is 0.58 Wm⁻¹K⁻¹, while still air has a thermal conductivity of 0.024 Wm⁻¹K⁻¹.

In layman's terms, it means that heat transfers 20-25 times more quickly to/from an object in water than to/from an object in the air.

If you have a vacuum sealer you can vac seal them and heat in water as well. Best of both worlds. Thermal conductivity of water and they stay dry. To take it a step further, you can get an immersion circulator and heat the water to the exact temp you want. So in theory you could heat the water to 98-100°, vac seal your mouse/rat and in 45-60 minutes the whole thing will be heated through to exactly the temp you have the water at.

I have not dine this but I plan to try it when I switch to frozen/thawed. It helps that I already have an immersion circulator.

Some snakes don't like water-logged food, so I guess that's where the dry baggie comes in. But if yours don't mind it, then gee lucky! LOL

I'm feeding my Dumeril's Boa medium rats, and takes some 5 hours to thaw even in a bag in hot water... So I just put a frozen rat on the counter in the morning, air-thaw, and when I come back from work 9 hours later, it's thawed. :D

Yeah, I do the same thing. Take the rat out of the freezer in the morning (in a sealed baggy) and when I get home from work, or later in the afternoon, if I'm not working, I put the baggy on top of my hot water tank. It is a bit warm, not hot, and helps bring the rat up a few degrees. this seems to work as my ball and boa are usually pretty good eaters.

I vac seal mine and then put them in warm water. I have too many snakes that won't eat soggy rodents.

Dave

My rats don't take very long to thaw at all. :P

My medium rats take about 2 hours to thaw inside a ziploc bag immersed in warm water. I have had a few bags with small holes that allowed the water in. In those cases I just put the rats on paper towels and blow dry them before serving them to the snakes.

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Originally Posted by EL-Ziggy

My medium rats take about 2 hours to thaw inside a ziploc bag immersed in warm water. I have had a few bags with small holes that allowed the water in. In those cases I just put the rats on paper towels and blow dry them before serving them to the snakes.

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Same here. My blow dryer has gotten many of my picky snakes to eat.

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Originally Posted by bproffer

If you have a vacuum sealer you can vac seal them and heat in water as well. Best of both worlds. Thermal conductivity of water and they stay dry. To take it a step further, you can get an immersion circulator and heat the water to the exact temp you want. So in theory you could heat the water to 98-100°, vac seal your mouse/rat and in 45-60 minutes the whole thing will be heated through to exactly the temp you have the water at.

I have not dine this but I plan to try it when I switch to frozen/thawed. It helps that I already have an immersion circulator.

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I would if I had the money for one x.x

Quote:

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Originally Posted by redshepherd

Some snakes don't like water-logged food, so I guess that's where the dry baggie comes in. But if yours don't mind it, then gee lucky! LOL

I'm feeding my Dumeril's Boa medium rats, and takes some 5 hours to thaw even in a bag in hot water... So I just put a frozen rat on the counter in the morning, air-thaw, and when I come back from work 9 hours later, it's thawed. :D

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Yes, but mine didn't seem to mind ;)

When I used f/t, I'd always defrost using a heat pad. Couldn't be easier and no water logged rats.