The mouse split!

Ok, so what went wrong.......

I think I have an idea but I wouldn't mind a couple of opinions and ideas. I tried to feed my BP last night for the first time. defrosted mouse during day by leaving it on top of his viv. Came home placed mouse in bag immersed in hot water for few minutes, removed and placed in tank.

Snake ignored it for a while but eventually came and showed it a bit of interest before deciding there was no love. BP returned to his hide.

So I thought maybe mouse wasn't giving off enough of a heat sig. So why not warm it up some!! Big Mistake - mouse split in the bag spilling the contents of its insides into the bag.

Why did this happen? Did I warm it up too much or use water that was too hot? If anyone can give me a recipe for preparing an adult mouse for my BP I would grateful.

As for the fact that Brian didn't eat - not so worried yet, he's only been in his home for a week. Hoping maybe mid to late week he'll decide to chow down. I have also got a digi therm/hygro on its way to check the temps etc.

Thanks again guys for the great advice coming from this forum.

Chris

That's nasty! I always warm my rats in a plastic bag in boiled water, but i never had a splitting rat. I defrost them a long time before warming up though, maybe that's where you went wrong. It could be a problem to warm up a frozen mouse....

Could have rotted from leaving it out all day. It's best to thaw them quickly in hot tap water, not boiling or you will cook it.

You also might want to wait until you have the proper temps before you try feeding.

If you are feeding frozen/thawed read up on the mouse "zombie dance" as well,

That happened to me last week. I thawed it out for several hours and then put the baggie in some hot water to heat it up. *Gross warning* The mouse guts came out just a little so I tried to feed it to my snake anyway but I guess when he squeezed it the mouse came apart anyway he refused it and was in shock from getting a bad taste. He did eat a different one the next day though. That time I just thawed for several hours and did the blow-dryer instead of the hot water.

Ok, I'm pleased to see others have had 'belly splits'. I suspect putting the mouse on top of a warm viv for the best part of 12 hours followed by a double dose of immersion in warm and then very hot water probably wasn't a good idea!

How long does it take for these mice to defrost approx at normal 'UK' room temperature? And given that I can place it on top of the viv directly over the ceramic heat lamps location how long do we think it would take to warm up to a good temp once defrosted. I have a standard wooden viv. (< this maybe a question to far! )

Also if I am going to leave it in the viv overnight would it not go cold quite quickly and therefore why would the BP still eat it. Is there a normal time limit on these things?

I'll probably try at the end of the week to feed him again depending upon when my digi therm/hygro arrives - I hoping this to be much better than the 'ok' manual disc type one I currently have.

I'm gagging to introduce 'Brian' to you guys and show some photos of my set up but I am waiting till he's had his first feed and is settled in.

Lastly before I go..... What does the zombie dance look like? If someone can explain in a 'line dancing' styly I would be really greatful.

Oh well back to work - I'll check for further replies later. Thanks guys.

Chris

Chris, are you feeding a normal sized adult f/t mouse? The younger the mouse the thinner the belly wall so pinkie, hoppers, etc. tend to split if overheated even more than fully adult mice would. Personally for mice I wouldn't even bother to defrost more than a couple of hours at normal room temp, then immerse in a good waterproof plastic bag. Use hot tap water not boiling water and change it once or twice over about 10 to 15 minutes and you should have a nicely warmed up mouse. You want it close to "live" temps and often a quick blast with a hot hair dryer on the belly and head of the mouse will give it the heat signature your snake will be looking for (in a live prey that's the area that naturally is warmest).


To do the zombie dance simply grasp the rodent with long tweezer or hemostats at the loose skin back of the shoulder blades. Walk it around immitating a lifelike movement by having the rodent touch the substrate and leave a nice scent trail. Do not shove it into the snake's face directly, just sort of wiggle it around like a live mouse would move. Get ready to immediately release the rodent when the snake strikes. Sometimes if the snake is hesitating you may have to quickly blast the mouse again with the hot hair dryer to keep it warm enough to interest your snake. Some folks just tangle by the tail but I found our f/t eaters always hit faster when the mouse was moving in a more lifelike position (mice generally do not "fly" overhead lol).

Normally feeding after dark will increase your odds. Ball pythons are naturally nocturnal so I always find ours feed better at night.

That happened to me as well in the last feeding :mad: Needless to say I'm sick to my stomach, it was only my 2nd time feeding my new BP).

I'm the one to blame as I was in a hurry and used almost boiling water to thaw/warm it up. The moment I took it out of the bag all the guts just came right out dangling over the rat's head *puke*. Blood was dripping everywhere over the floor(my floor) and the gravels. And my BP didn't even eat it afterward :( I"m not sure it's because of the blood/smell or because of her shedding. It was 4-5 days since and today I see her eyecap :)

Lesson learned: NO BOILING WATER! :cool:

The other very important issue here is to not cook the prey item. Ball pythons digestive tracts are not built to handle a cooked food item so you can get a regurge and in snakes a regurge is something you want to avoid at all costs (it's far, far more dangerous and hard on them than vomitting is for you).

I don't feed much F/T anymore, but here is the best method I found to reduce the time of thawing at room temp, as well as reduce the chance of a "blow-out".

-Pull rodents to be fed the night before feeding, and put them in the fridge to thaw. They will mostly thawed by the next day (except if they are large rats).
-An hour or so before feeding time, place rodents on an aluminium pie tin, or something else that is a good conductor (think metal, think easily cleaned or disposed of).
-Place a small fan on low blowing gently across the rodent platter. (This will also get the snakes in feeding mode if you do it in the room they are kept).
-If an individual animal will not take a room temp rodent, heat it quickly in a bag in hot water for a short period AFTER thawing it using this method.

Note that I do this in a dedicated snake room that is in the low 80s, but even at normal room temp, they will thaw relatively quickly.

So with a little planning there no need to feed wet, bloated, or otherwise nasty rodents to your animals. :D

-Evan

I thaw mine out overnight and set him on a small spare heat pad I have for a bit before feeding. I've also been told warming up by holding the mouse's head right next to a light bulb for a few seconds or using a blowdrier all work to warm up after thawing, too.

A tip Kara gave me is NOT to thaw a mouse out on its stomach or to heat it on its stomach for long, as the stomach wall lining is thin as (as you experienced) prone to bursting.

Auryn's been eating fine for a few months now on F/T--and no exploded mousies yet ;)

I use to have that problem from time to time when warming up the prey in warm water.


Now what I do is that I let the prey thaw at room temp and then use a hair dryer for 30 seconds max, it work a charm never had that kind of :puke2: incident since.

Thats great guys, thanks for all the support. Something it doesn't answer is the issue of leaving the mouse in the tank and another question - I'm assuming the snake will not strike at the tongs? I'm concerned he may catch them in his mouth?

Chris

Can we avoid the hair dryer option. I don't own one as I don't own enough hair to justify one!!!

I'd be careful with leaving mice out all day. I can leave a XXL rat out all day and in about 9 hours when I come home its just a bit cool in the center. Leaving a mouse out that long its bound to go bad.

we thaw our f/t mice/rats out in warm water for about hr, put it in their tubs when we goto bed and its gone in the morning.

You are all making it WAY too difficult when it doesn't have to be. There is no need to thaw at room temp for hours, let alone overnight! That's just asking for the mouse to decay further.

All it takes is 10-20 mins in a glass of hot tap water, in a ziplock bag. Make sure it is submerged. Use a weight of some kind on top if you must, to keep it submerged. You might have to refresh the hot water if it cools off and the mouse isn't thawed all the way yet.
That's it.
I've been doing it this way forever for my corn snakes and I've never had a "split" mouse or any other problems.

and when they bust open they smell bad...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Flagg

You are all making it WAY too difficult when it doesn't have to be. There is no need to thaw at room temp for hours, let alone overnight! That's just asking for the mouse to decay further.

All it takes is 10-20 mins in a glass of hot tap water, in a ziplock bag. Make sure it is submerged. Use a weight of some kind on top if you must, to keep it submerged. You might have to refresh the hot water if it cools off and the mouse isn't thawed all the way yet.
That's it.
I've been doing it this way forever for my corn snakes and I've never had a "split" mouse or any other problems.

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Yup. I use a plastic coffee "can" and put my rats in plastic bags, run warm water over them in the sink. I use a glass jar on top to hold them under. Works like a charm!

Steve

the only trouble i have had is when my snake coils he once made the mouse "pop". then he decided to swing in around above his hide for a few mins before trying to pull it in to his hide(a terra cotta pot), which didn't work to well. so he came out and ate it next to his hide, guts out and everything.

I simply warm it with hot tap water, hold it with tongs by the tail and dangle it in front of my corn snake. I've never had a problem. I did get little contraption that I have yet to try. Fiance has been using it to thaw pinkies for Spencer, but I plan on using it next week for Zim's next feeding. Its like a little jar. You fill the jar up to the ridges with tap water, microwave it so the water gets hot, place platform over water on ridges, place mouse on platform, put top on and let let sit for 10 min. Fiance says it works like charm.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Flagg

You are all making it WAY too difficult when it doesn't have to be. There is no need to thaw at room temp for hours, let alone overnight! That's just asking for the mouse to decay further.

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Who said anything about thawing at room temp overnight? :confused:

I guess I should've mentioned that the method I described above was for thawing larger quantities of rodents, between 100-200 a week for me depending on the time of year, but would work just as well for smaller numbers (or larger for that matter). As I said before, i don't feed much F/T anymore, but this was a very effective and efficient way to thaw larger numbers of rodents, only using about 5 total minutes of prep time.

-Evan

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

I simply warm it with hot tap water, hold it with tongs by the tail and dangle it in front of my corn snake. I've never had a problem. I did get little contraption that I have yet to try. Fiance has been using it to thaw pinkies for Spencer, but I plan on using it next week for Zim's next feeding. Its like a little jar. You fill the jar up to the ridges with tap water, microwave it so the water gets hot, place platform over water on ridges, place mouse on platform, put top on and let let sit for 10 min. Fiance says it works like charm.

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MMMM, steamed mouse, convenient and healthy too!