Left over rat?

So my ball wont eat this rat. He comes out when he smells it but for what ever reason he wont eat it, it's like he cannot see it, maybe I over thawed it and now it is cooked, maybe it's because I am feeding him a few hours earlier, whatever the reason I will try agian later with another one but my problem is I have no idea what to do with this left over rat and I cannot find anything on the forums about it via the search bar. So what do you do to dispose of the rats that your reptile doesn't eat?

If they won't take it it gets thrown away or I offer it to another first .


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If it has only been out for a short amount of time you can re-freeze it. From your post I assume the rat started out as f/t? You can successfully re-freeze rats once, but after that it starts to get gross and you will want to throw it away. Did you thaw it in warm water? I highly doubt that you cooked the rat unless you boiled it or zapped it with high heat for a long time. Your BP is just being a BP, these snakes are finicky eaters at best. As long as your husbandry is correct, give the snake 3-4 days and try again. You will see on this forum tons of posts about problem feeders, and you will see a litany of responses giving advice on what to do. You can try any and all of these measures, but from what I have found, BPs with correct husbandry will eat just when they are good and ready.

I give them to my cats, but you can also put them outside, away from your house (a treed area is good if possible) for the nighttime creatures (there are raccoons and possums even in cities). I hate to let them go to waste.

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Originally Posted by Willowy

I give them to my cats, but you can also put them outside, away from your house (a treed area is good if possible) for the nighttime creatures (there are raccoons and possums even in cities). I hate to let them go to waste.

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This is what I was wondering as this is the first time he hasn't taken it I felt weird about throwing it in the garbage. In the end I just threw it in the huge dumpster for our building. My cats wouldn't eat it and they have food allergies so it is probably a good thing to not give it to them. My cats watch mice go by and don't care, learnt that the last time we had mice in the house. I know BPs are picky this is just the first time he hasn't eaten for me so didn't know the proper disposal of the rat. He does seem VERY hungry but it was like he couldn't see it. I tried the hair dryer trick to make it warmer hoping that would help but it didn't seem to. I did feed him earlier than normal and it was an albino which I don't normally use. My hot water heater is also scolding hot so it's possible for me to cook things with the water and when my second timer went off after flipping it I did notice the head of the rat looked strange and I thought to myself "That doesn't look right" so when he didn't take it I wasn't surprised. I am not worried about him eating since I know they can go a while without it I just didn't know how to dispose of the dead rat in a proper way but if throwing it in the garbage outside is fine then I can do that from now on when this happens. I felt so guilty when I did that! I am in an apartment building so I felt really sketchy throwing this one bag out in the outside dumpster like I am breaking the law or something! lol

Get a boa as a backup eater.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

Get a boa as a backup eater.

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Haha! Maybe at some point but right now that isn't feasible.

Feed it to my youngest dog-she doesn't turn down food.

My dogs will eat raw meat but won't eat a whole critter. I wonder if I cut it open if they would realize that it has meat inside. . .

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Originally Posted by Willowy

My dogs will eat raw meat but won't eat a whole critter. I wonder if I cut it open if they would realize that it has meat inside. . .

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All three of my dogs will eat mice and rats if that's the only thing I offer, but the older two don't really care for them much at all. When I was breeding rats I fed off the breeder sized ones to them and found they eat them more willingly frozen solid. Ratsicles.