How to heat rats?

My has not eaten and I asked the breeder what theyre feeding routine is and they said they heat the rats in the oven at 100 degrees for an hour. I'm not about to cook rats in the oven I cook my food in. What are your guys ways of heating the rats to feed?

Ziploc bag in warm water until thawed, then I hit them with a hair dryer before offering to give them something to strike at. That's just what works for me.

I pull rats out 12 or so hours before I want to feed. Usually befor work and when I get home I use a hair dryer to heat up the head and feed away.

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I usually take the rats out about 6 hours before feeding then use a old heat lamp that i don't use anymore to heat them up.

Ok so my snake room stays at 85 year round. Can I just take rat out of freezer and leave in the room till feeding time? (12 hours) Then do I need to warm it up yet? Sorry for the hijack but same subject.

You should still heat the rat up before feeding. I currently dip the rats head in hot water, but I made this thread cause my bigger female is off feed and the breeder I got her from informed me that they heat up in the oven. I'm going to try a blow dryer in a week or two.

i use a hair dryer too. if you just leave it out, it will heat to room temp then stop. the snake will have trouble finding it if it is the same temp as the rest of the room. warming them in water works but some snakes don't like to eat them wet, not sure why. i like the ziplock bag idea but haven't tried it myself as the hair dyer is so easy to do. we heat till about 100 deg, then it is significantly warmer than room temp and the snake finds easily

You can use a hair dryer, and if you have a lot of snakes you can line them all up on paper towels on heat pad for a while to heat them up.

we put them in a small tub so the hair dryer doesn't blow them around as we use a powerful one. an added bonus is that the air starts to smell of rodents too and the snakes come out of their hides in anticipation. this helps us decide who we are going to feed. if it can't be bothered to leave the hide, it clearly isn't hungry and doesn't get offered

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Originally Posted by duckschainsaw

Ziploc bag in warm water until thawed, then I hit them with a hair dryer before offering to give them something to strike at. That's just what works for me.

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^^This is the method I use too.

Ziplock bag in hot water for around 1/2 hour, until rat is over 100F (usually gets to 105), take out of bag with big tweezers, use paper towel to dry off and to avoid dripping rat soup on floor.

I invested about $11 at Amazon for a laser-guided Infrared temperature gun, and always use it to check the temperature of thawed rats before offering to be sure they're close to 100 degrees F. The amount of time required for thawing depends on the rodent's size (bigger rats need longer time to thaw).

I use hot water in a cup following at least 90 minutes of thawing at room temperature to get the rodent's temperature up. (abput 8-9 minutes for rat weanlings seems to do the trick). The water temperature in the cup is about 130 degrees. I also use a blow dryer to finish up and scent the room (my snake has become conditioned to the flow of air to know it's feeding time. If I run the vacuum cleaner nearby, he'll poke his head out of his hide to see what's up...). ;)

I don't trust leaving feeders out in the open air all day. You can put it in a plastic ziplock in the fridge the night before to defrost and then heat it when you're ready to feed. I do the whole thing in a cup of water. Stick the frozen rats in cold water for about 20-30 minutes to defrost then add hot water slowly until they're brought up to temp. I usually get mine to about 105. That's a little warmer than necessary but I've always gotten good strikes that way.

I thaw mine in hot water once thawed i scent room with rat bedding. I then get the rats hot with a hair dryer. Even my picky eaters are ready to eat after the others have eaten. I like hair dryer cause the rats losse heat signature real fast so when feeding multiple snakes i know each one hot plus the airflow pushes all the scent around.