Thawing your snakes food

What exactly do you do to ensure that your frozen mouse/rat is completely thawed and is warm enough to feed?

I would appreciate a detailed explaination of your prep process. Thanks :)

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Originally Posted by nathanledet

What exactly do you do to ensure that your frozen mouse/rat is completely thawed and is warm enough to feed?

I would appreciate a detailed explaination of your prep process. Thanks :)

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well I feed all my snakes frozen thawed and I take my rats / mice out the freezer in the morning or purchase them in the morning and let them thaw out naturally in room temp during the day. The rats, when I am using Jumbo rats, I place in warm bucket of water inside a plastic bag as they take longer to thaw due to their bulk and size ,but I know people who dont bother with the bags.

Personally I like to heat mine later in the evening when thawed out with a hairdryer as I find I get a better feeding response and I always heat the head area hotter to focus the snake on that particular area when feeding off the tongs.

hope that is useful to you

snakey

Excellent explanation there Snakey! Especially that bit about extra warming of the head area. Some say head and belly as those areas have the most natural heat signature in a live animal.

The biggest thing I feed f/t right now are hopper mice. Basically I just take them out for an hour or so (they are quite small) then float them in very hot tap water in a ziploc baggie. If they are still pretty cold going in sometimes I change out the water part way through if it's cooled significantly. Takes about 15 minutes to get a nice blood warm hopper mouse. I just make sure they feel slightly warm to the touch and their body and belly is nice and warm and limp. (yewww gross but yummy to a snake I guess). Just don't overheat so you are starting to cook the prey and never microwave (yes some folks have tried that...can you say exploding mouse guts?)

If you are feeding multiple prey items make sure #2 is kept warm or rewarmed quickly as it tends to cool while #1 is being snarfed down. Some folks use a blast from a hair dryer on the head area to up that heat signature just seconds before offering it to the snake.

I pull mine out of the freezer, and pop them into freezer bags.(the nails on the rats are less likely to puncture a freezer bag ;) ) Place in a bucket of water for about 2-3 hours. I check on them periodically. Once they are fully thawed (mushy belly) I replace the water with extremely warm water. I let them sit for another 15 minutes or so, to warm up, and then feed. No fancy process here. :D

I like to thaw mine during the day in my boxer shorts. By the time I am home from work, ding, fries are done!

Either that or I put them in a pan and run hot water over them until they are thawed. My snakes like em warm and wet!

believe it or not my friend put his in the microwave and it exploded. LOL. It smelled so bad. I had to go get another one and do it for him. but his is still on fuzzy's so it only took like 5 min to get ready.

I thaw mine the same way as everybody else except after the warm water step I put mine under a heatlamp for about 5 minutes heat them up a little more.