Re: First Thawed Rat Accepted, Yes!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DebbieDecker
Do you always stay and watch? My BP will generally not eat if I am watching, so after I put the frozen/thawed rat in his tank I turn off the light in the room and close the door, come back 20 minutes later and he has eaten and is asleep in his hide.
I have tried a few methods of thawing and he refuses slow-thawed rats like under his heat lamp or using just warm water. What he prefers are rats thawed in a mixture of hot tap water and a little water from the tea kettle which thaws a weanling or small rat in about 35 minutes, I change the water halfway through since the water cools too fast sometimes. I use a ziplocked bag to try and keep the rat dry but water still manages to get in the bag, he has never minded eating his rats wet thankfully.
However, his favorite is freshly killed rat, my local reptile store (which is 15 minutes away) had no frozen in stock one time so they killed some for me right then and there, I decided to give one to my boy right when I got home and he came out of his hide with more enthusiasm than I have ever seen.
I have tried just leaving them in there with the snake and turning off the light and walking away. I’ve thawed my rats in water and once they are thawed that’s when I’ve put them under the heat emitter until it died to get them nice and warm now I use a heat gun, I’ll give them another try and leave them alone. My local reptile store is 30 minutes Away on a good day. I appreciate you for the suggestions.
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Re: First Thawed Rat Accepted, Yes!
You're welcome. I'm still very new to owning a snake, but went through a period of my BP refusing to eat for nearly 6 weeks this summer when someone scolded me for thawing my rats using hot water so I switched to slow thawing methods, but after him not eating for that long I went back to the hot water method and he started eating again. Since then he has only refused eating when I offer meals less than 10 days apart, I've also started to notice his body language changes when he is ready to eat again every 12 to 14 days so I just wait until he tells me now when to feed him.
