Bloated, smelly rat - throw it away?

I was warming up a rat for one of my BP's yesterday, and when I pulled it out of the water it's stomach was big and soft. That didn't seem normal to me, so I opened the ziplock and took a whiff. It seemed to smell a little worse than they usually do (with my sensitive nose, they all stink).
I bought the rat, already frozen, a little over a month ago. I hated to waste it, but I didn't dare use it to feed. So, what do you think? Did I throw away my money or did I make a wise decision?

I think you made a wise decision. I would not have fed that rat to one of my snakes if it smelled that bad.

yes!!!!!!!!!!!

Good idea to throw it away; wouldn't want to potentially take a trip to the vet cuz of bad food.

Thanks! So nice to get support that I made the right decision. Has anyone else had this problem?

Better to be safe than sorry. I would have done the same thing :)

Have to think of it this way, rats are MEAT, and after 6+ months it goes bad when air gets to it.

If it smells, just like food we eat, we throw it out to avoid being sick.

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Originally Posted by piedplus

Has anyone else had this problem?

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Yeah, with a mouse I bought at the local pet store. As soon as I smelled it's nasty stench, I went to throw it away but I tripped over a cat and squeezed it and...well you can imagine the rest. Yeesh that was nasty! :zerb:

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Originally Posted by King-Godzilla

Yeah, with a mouse I bought at the local pet store. As soon as I smelled it's nasty stench, I went to throw it away but I tripped over a cat and squeezed it and...well you can imagine the rest. Yeesh that was nasty! :zerb:

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This rat came from a pet store too. I'm going to buy my next rats from Layne Labs. I think they'll have a cleaner product than a pet store. I should be able to keep frozen rats for way more than a month before they go bad.

With pet store rats you have no guarantee how long they have been there, or how often they were defrosted(human error of unplugging fridge, left out too long before put in fridge, etc.) so you can get nasty stuff!!

I was SO turned off of f/t at first when we bought those' arctic mice' from petsmart..First off it was more expensive than the live rats at the other store, next it smelled AWFUL, and then half of them were SMASHED!!! One came with a shattered skull and a bloody bag, another had an already ripped open stomach. It was like they had just taken a mallet to the dang things and frozen the remains! Nasty. None of them were fed to our snakes. We wasted so much money because we kept trying, hoping we'd get a good batch this time.. Nope!! My experience buying them online has been infinitely better!! :O

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Originally Posted by purplemuffin

With pet store rats you have no guarantee how long they have been there, or how often they were defrosted(human error of unplugging fridge, left out too long before put in fridge, etc.) so you can get nasty stuff!!

I was SO turned off of f/t at first when we bought those' arctic mice' from petsmart..First off it was more expensive than the live rats at the other store, next it smelled AWFUL, and then half of them were SMASHED!!! One came with a shattered skull and a bloody bag, another had an already ripped open stomach. It was like they had just taken a mallet to the dang things and frozen the remains! Nasty. None of them were fed to our snakes. We wasted so much money because we kept trying, hoping we'd get a good batch this time.. Nope!! My experience buying them online has been infinitely better!! :O

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Ah, that explains it! I guess I was pretty lucky that more of the rats I bought at the pet store weren't bad. I'm almost through with that bunch and now I'll stick with Layne Labs. I was lucky to find someone on line that sells small enough quantities for me! :)

If there is any question about a prey item, I would throw it, no doubt!