Long term frozen rat storage?

I'm about to order some feeder rats since what I have on hand won't last my balls until the next expo to restock like I've been doing. rodent pro has their small rats a little cheaper right now for 1.25, which is less than 1/3 what I can get them locally. and shipping is the same as long as it all fits in the same box. I'd might as well fill the box enough to last a while to make use of the shipping cost and the rats being on sale. If I get enough to last about a year or so. What would be the best method of making them last longest?

Thanks,
Kyle


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I actually store my rodents in mason jars in the freezer. It helps to keep the frost off of them (no frostbite). Seems like you get the most frost when you open a jar and take out a rodent but by the time you start worrying about frost on your rodents you are moving to the next jar. If you have them in several jars then the frost will only get in the jar you are working on and not all of the jars. I'm going on several months with hundreds of mice with no problems at all.

I store my feeders in a deep freezer solely for snake food. I usually break them down into smaller ziploc freezer bags and only open the bags I need at feeding time. If you can vacuum seal them thats even better. I know you said you were using Rodent Pro but I'd highly recommend Big Cheese or Perfect Prey. I've used all three and the feeder quality and packaging at Big Cheese and Perfect Prey are far superior to Rodent Pro imo.

http://bigcheeserodents.com/frozen-feeder-rats/

http://www.perfectprey.com/frozen-rats/

Put three months worth of rats into freezer bags. Vacuum-seal the rest 5-6 rats per bag since once the seal is broken they'll still keep a while as long as you don't thaw them.

If I was going to save them for a year I'd get a vacuum sealer and seal up most of it. Right now though all of my rodents come vacuum sealed (except a couple bags that aren't perfectly sealed). I open one bag from my supplier and dump it into a ziplock. I can do this though because I have enough snakes eating various sizes that I can get rid of the opened bag in a couple of months.

I'd follow bcr's advice, keep about 3 months or less in ziploc bags and vacuum seal the rest. If you don't have a vacuum sealer I'd just buy one. I got a nice one from costco for like 80 bucks and then bought two 11"x50' rolls of bags for a little over 20 bucks. It's totally worth it since I had some pinkies start to get frost bite well before a year in the freezer. Not to mention I use it for other stuff now too like red meat and chicken.

If I have more then a few weeks of rats I vaccum seal them individually. I probably don't need to but better safe them sorry plus I have other food in the freezer. Also what EL-Ziggy said check out Big cheese and Perfect Prey. There was a thread on here a few weeks ago talking about the inconsistent quality of rodents.

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