Finally switching to frozen/thawed!!!!

Okay people, today was a good day, I finally convinced my parents of letting me buy frozen rats for my ball pythons! I'm so happy, I dont find killing rats with my hands fun, and this way I dont have to go to the store every week. I just have a couple of questions because I know nothing about frozen feeders. Okay, questions........
How long do they last in the freezer?
How do they look? As in, are they sealed individually, or they come in a bulk and all of them are stuck to each other?
In case of a power outage, what can i do?
Do they come to my house in the regular mail? Has anyone here ever gotten rats that werent frozen anymore and had to throw them away?
Do they stink the fridge? Or do they stink once they're being thawed?
What websites would you reccomend?
Thank you very much in advance! :)



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Originally Posted by Gc99

Okay people, today was a good day, I finally convinced my parents of letting me buy frozen rats for my ball pythons! I'm so happy, I dont find killing rats with my hands fun, and this way I dont have to go to the store every week. I just have a couple of questions because I know nothing about frozen feeders. Okay, questions........
How long do they last in the freezer?
How do they look? As in, are they sealed individually, or they come in a bulk and all of them are stuck to each other?
In case of a power outage, what can i do?
Do they come to my house in the regular mail? Has anyone here ever gotten rats that werent frozen anymore and had to throw them away?
Do they stink the fridge? Or do they stink once they're being thawed?
What websites would you reccomend?
Thank you very much in advance!

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they can last ~9 months, so i've been told.
they look fine, packaged in bulk together and sealed in freezer-safe plastic bags. some might be stuck but a little wiggle should be enough.
frozen rats are delivered priority mail within 2 days of the order, and are shipped with dry ice to keep them frozen. i have never had an issue with them arriving thawed; always buy from a reputable supplier: Perfect Prey, Big Cheese, etc.
they do not stink when they're frozen and have no smell in the freezer; i used to keep them with our frozen food until a spare freezer opened up. there is a smell once thawed but to me it's not terrible or room-filling.
as for a power outage i'm not sure i can help there: you need to keep that stuff frozen; a cooler with ice could help for a while.

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Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

they can last ~9 months, so i've been told.
they look fine, packaged in bulk together and sealed in freezer-safe plastic bags. some might be stuck but a little wiggle should be enough.
frozen rats are delivered priority mail within 2 days of the order, and are shipped with dry ice to keep them frozen. i have never had an issue with them arriving thawed; always buy from a reputable supplier: Perfect Prey, Big Cheese, etc.
they do not stink when they're frozen and have no smell in the freezer; i used to keep them with our frozen food until a spare freezer opened up. there is a smell once thawed but to me it's not terrible or room-filling.
as for a power outage i'm not sure i can help there: you need to keep that stuff frozen; a cooler with ice could help for a while.

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Thank you! And i was just looking at the perfect prey website, seems like im gonna go for them. My last concern is the size, i buy "rat pups" at my local reptile store but i dont know if the option on the site is gonna be the size i need, https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...e35a887df7.jpg
Thats what i get for a rat pup, and its around the same size as an adult mouse. The rat pup picture on the website (i just checked) is in a bulk, so i cant compare the size, do you think they are the same?

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Caution! I do not know how many animals you are feeding. It is sometimes difficult to convert animals. I had one that took over a year. There may still be trips to get live. I advise converting to FT first and then placing an order. In my case unless I don't fill a box it is way cheaper to get feeders local. You also need to consider that each animal grows at different rates and guessing what size prey you need can be challenging. It did not make sense for me to buy in bulk until I hit about thirty animals that were steadily taking the same size food item every week.

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Originally Posted by Gc99

Thats what i get for a rat pup, and its around the same size as an adult mouse. The rat pup picture on the website (i just checked) is in a bulk, so i cant compare the size, do you think they are the same?

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yes i'd say they're about the same but there will be a SLIGHT size variety within the bunch, nothing drastic though.

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

Caution! I do not know how many animals you are feeding. It is sometimes difficult to convert animals. I had one that took over a year. There may still be trips to get live. I advise converting to FT first and then placing an order. In my case unless I don't fill a box it is way cheaper to get feeders local. You also need to consider that each animal grows at different rates and guessing what size prey you need can be challenging. It did not make sense for me to buy in bulk until I hit about thirty animals that were steadily taking the same size food item every week.

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important points i have not addressed that should be considered!

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Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

yes i'd say they're about the same but there will be a SLIGHT size variety within the bunch, nothing drastic though.

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Sounds perfect! I try to get a slightly smaller rat for my female anyways lol Thank you very much for the help, im gonna place my order and go out for some freezer bags as well

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

Caution! I do not know how many animals you are feeding. It is sometimes difficult to convert animals. I had one that took over a year. There may still be trips to get live. I advise converting to FT first and then placing an order. In my case unless I don't fill a box it is way cheaper to get feeders local. You also need to consider that each animal grows at different rates and guessing what size prey you need can be challenging. It did not make sense for me to buy in bulk until I hit about thirty animals that were steadily taking the same size food item every week.

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Im feeding two similar sized ball pythons, and they apparently will take anything, even my thumb lol hopefully thats also the case once i bring f/t. I dangle the already killed rat and they take it, does that mean they are likely to eat the f/t prey?

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There are many different suppliers of frozen thawed rodents. Some will vacuum seal the bags, others will have them all loose in a bag. I raise my own rats and I'm finding that it's best to put them on a Styrofoam plate in a ziplock bag, then freeze them, then after they are fully frozen vacuum seal them. I'd say vacuum sealed they can last up to a year, but just loose in a bag probably 3-6 months max. make sure you put the date on them when you put them in the freezer, I just threw out a ton of rodents because some were way over a year, others I had no idea because I wasn't marking them as they came in. I basically had to start over... Ideally it's probably best to use them within a month or so, within a week or two they are almost just like fresh killed.

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

There are many different suppliers of frozen thawed rodents. Some will vacuum seal the bags, others will have them all loose in a bag. I raise my own rats and I'm finding that it's best to put them on a Styrofoam plate in a ziplock bag, then freeze them, then after they are fully frozen vacuum seal them. I'd say vacuum sealed they can last up to a year, but just loose in a bag probably 3-6 months max. make sure you put the date on them when you put them in the freezer, I just threw out a ton of rodents because some were way over a year, others I had no idea because I wasn't marking them as they came in. I basically had to start over... Ideally it's probably best to use them within a month or so, within a week or two they are almost just like fresh killed.

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I was planning on buying a 25 pack, and it would last me for 12 weeks because i have two snakes. And when they come just put them in a freezer bag

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