appearance of f/t mice

[mlededee]

up until this point my bp has been eating f/t fuzzies. today i went to the same store as usual to get small adult mice to feed her. the fuzzies that i got there before were nice and clean and normal looking and nothing that i really thought much about. but the mice i got today were, well kind of gross looking. maybe that is normal and i'm just being a noob, but like it is obvious that they peed on themselves among other things. they are all squished up weird and their fur is matted and dirty. i feel like i don't want to feed my snake something that is in that condition. am i just being silly here or is that just how it is with f/t mice?

[Smulkin]

Some of the larger mice do get to looking pretty twisted, fur sticking up like they just fell outta bed, folded over, molded into strange forms frozen around each other - sometimes some'll have almost pooped but not quite - but I've never seen anything that appeared to be pee. The fuzzies and hoppers on the other hand due if nothing else to the fact that they are still small and compact and more importantly freeze quicker seem to retain their "natural lively shapes". Does the store kill/freeze these themselves - if so how?

[mlededee]

i know that they get the mice from a breeder but i'm not sure if they come frozen or if they do it themselves. i think they use CO2 and gas them, but i'm not absolutely sure. i'm not totally sure that what i'm seeing is actually pee, but that is what it looks like. like their fur is dirty as if something got on them before they were frozen. if they were just put in the freezer and killed that way (yes i know that is terrible, but i know that some places unfortunately do it) would they pee and get funky that way? i definitely don't want to buy from a store that does it that way.

[gozetec02]

the only time i know that a mouse will pee all over themselves is if they are fozen alive. But i seriouly doubt that. They get packed all togethe when they are frozen so they get squished and stuff. If they still look like that when you thaw them out i would not feed it to my snake.

[rex322]

some of the rats i got from rodentpro.com look like that. i dont see any harm in feeding it to your snake, since if you really think about it, the rat/,mouses urine will be in the snake anyways

[mlededee]

yeah i had thought about that. is there anything wrong with rinsing off the mouse with just water before i give it to my snake? i know i've seen stuff about not letting them get wet but i don't recall anyone saying why that is. i mean i guess that it would be more for my benefit than anything else because the snake doesnt care what it looks like. it just seems in my mind that a clean mouse is better. (maybe it's just because i've learned to be obsessive about husbandry and keeping things spotless, who knows.)

[Alkaurkharim]

some of the rats i got from rodentpro.com look like that. i dont see any harm in feeding it to your snake, since if you really think about it, the rat/,mouses urine will be in the snake anyways

That was my thinking too. Why worry about it having pee or poo on it? The snake is going to be digesting it anyway, its just on the inside of the mouse instead of the outside.

[Smulkin]

The only drawback to rinsing off, or otherwise getting the rodents wet (intentionally or not as in the case of claws poking tiny holes in thawing bags) is that the scent can become a little-diluted. A few times this inadvertently happened to me I had to re-scent nearly all the wet ones off the live rats to get any but the "dispose-alls" to take them. Mileage may vary, of course

[Marla]

Yup, I'm with Smulkin. If you get it too clean, it no longer smells like prey and some snakes will refuse it. It's natural for frightened prey to wee or p00 before or during the process of becoming food, so I can't see any snake being put off by that.

[mlededee]

i think it's just me who's being put off here and i need to get over it.