Vacuum sealing. Where am I going wrong?

[BP_Mama]

I have been wanting to better organize my feeders as I buy frozen in bulk 2-3 times/year. I hate using a million freezer bags and have been fighting freezer burn with my smaller sized feeders if I separate them out.

Most of my snakes are juveniles or subadults so we weigh out their food frequently rather than bulk freezing a full feed days worth of rats in a 'rat pack' I prefer to either have bags by size or individually sealed feeders that I can label by weight.

I tried sealing some of my larger feeders individually, most of an order. The ones I vacuum sealed exploded when thawed Every. Time. As a rule we don't ever risk feeding them if they pop. Not willing to risk decomp or somehow cooking the feeder not to mention our picky eaters often refuse their food even if they rip it. (Gotta love clumsy BPs) Basically just created a lot of waste from what was supposed to be time and space saving.

Thawing process was the same as all my other feeders that were just in bags which leads me to believe it is something with how I am sealing them. Do I need a different kind of vacuum pouch? Do I need to work in smaller batches so they spend less time out of the freezer?

My assumption is that sealing them while unpacking the order was my downfall and they simply spent too long out of the freezer and off the dry ice but I figure asking the experts out there never hurts and may save me a lot of headaches!

I may just go back to freezer bags but plan to give vacuum sealing at least one more shot ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Frozen rat storage is becoming my special interest at this point...

[jmcrook]

Are you vacuum sealing while frozen, then thawing in the vacuum sealed bag? If so the feeder is becoming pliable and fluids are reliquifying and following the path of least resistance out of the body cavity due to the vacuum pressure used to seal the bag. If this is the case, try breaking the vacuum seal before thawing and see if you get different results.

[Lord Sorril]

I used to have a vacuum sealer.

Something to remember is: Water *expands* when it freezes (think ice cube trays).
If you have a frozen item with a high water content that has been vacuum sealed and then you heat it up: it is going to shrink.
Shrinking in a negative pressure compartment will steadily add pressure until something 'gives' and the pressure is equalized again.

The amount of time required to vacuum seal a frozen item in a warm air environment could be another factor here, but, if you are not already: I also definitely recommend breaking the seal before trying to thaw them out.

[BP_Mama]

Are you vacuum sealing while frozen, then thawing in the vacuum sealed bag? If so the feeder is becoming pliable and fluids are reliquifying and following the path of least resistance out of the body cavity due to the vacuum pressure used to seal the bag. If this is the case, try breaking the vacuum seal before thawing and see if you get different results.

I do break the seal and remove them from the bag before thawing and they were frozen at the time of sealing but I did do quite a few and they had just arrived from being shipped so perhaps not as frozen as they could have been but definitely not fully thawed or squishy at all.

[jmcrook]

Could be thawing method? Too warm, too wet, too something? I get an occasional sploder but only happens when the snake wraps the feeder

[Armiyana]

That does sound a bit like the water may be too hot... Maybe a combo of freezer burn and water that's too hot?

Usually the worst I see is some bloody noses and such. But that tends to get some of my slower feeders moving faster.
I ended up with a sous vide machine not too long ago and that has been pretty nice at getting my feeders thawed out because I can just set the temp to 95-100 and leave it.
I've mostly just been using it for my retics that are eating pigs at the moment, but thawed a few rats with it as well.

[BP_Mama]

That does sound a bit like the water may be too hot... Maybe a combo of freezer burn and water that's too hot?

Usually the worst I see is some bloody noses and such. But that tends to get some of my slower feeders moving faster.
I ended up with a sous vide machine not too long ago and that has been pretty nice at getting my feeders thawed out because I can just set the temp to 95-100 and leave it.
I've mostly just been using it for my retics that are eating pigs at the moment, but thawed a few rats with it as well.

My biggest confusion with this is that rats of the same size from the same order that were kept in bags because I just didn't get to them could be heated at the same time in the same water and be fine.

The water temp was my first thought but that result replicated on 3 or 4 experiments. They came from the same freezer right next to one another, is there something about the process that might make them more temperature sensitive? I'm no scientist but I sure thought frozen was frozen and thawed was thawed. It has really been throwing me for a loop!