Thawing Methods Round Infinity!

[JamminJonah]

Howdy everybody I know we've been talking about this on the feeding by hand thread so I figured it was time to put a new topic under a new heading. If you search the site there are many other posts like this but it's always refreshing to get new perspectives.

Basically the question of the moment is:

"How do you thaw your mice?"

So everybody in the immortal (he's still alive isn't he?) words of Bob Barker -

Come on Down!


I myself set the rat in a disposable tupperware container with holes poked in the lid and sides (so my cat and dog can't get to it) on top of my snakes tank at about 6 or 6:30 PM (they're small/medium rats) then at around 11pm or when I can feel that the head and mid section (take the longest to thaw) are no longer cold i take the lid off and take the tupperware into the bathroom where I blow dry the rat for about 3 minutes on medium heat focusing mostly on the head and a bit on the midsection being sure to keep the blow dryer far enough away so as not to cook the rat.

Then I grab my big fat tweezer tongs that I got from a wonderful little herp store in Nashville and hold my rat out for the great and knowledgable Icculus (my BP). Sometimes if it's not warm enough he'll just come out and look at it. Apparently he likes a hot meal.

I recently read a reply about holding the mouse/rat under warm and then hot running water. I'd love to try this - do you use a ziploc bag or just run the mouse/rat under the water? I guess it would be best if you can get your snake to take a wet mouse/rat because you'd never have to worry about dehydration!

[JamminJonah]

I know somewhere on here is a thread about a handy little gadget MedusasOwl has for defrosting her f/t mice.


I wouldn't suggest ever using a microwave. You are going to likely make your microwave totally gross for you to use (exploding mice bellies are NOT nice) as well as providing a partially cooked prey item - microwaves cook from the inside out so you won't even know it's cooked from just looking at it. Snakes are designed by nature to eat whole live prey so even when using f/t we need to stick as close to what their digestion was designed for....so no partially cooked prey. Just let the prey item thaw at room temps for a few hours, pop it into a good thick ziploc baggie and put it in a bowl of very hot water for 15-20 minutes or so (depending on size of prey - pinky mice heat FAST, big rats heat slow). Feel it's head and it's belly for warmth. A lot of people give the prey item a blast of hot air from a hair dryer on the belly and head to help raise those temps and it seems to help the snakes focus in well on their f/t prey.

If the snake doesn't eat it right away, give it another warming up as thawed prey loses heat incredibly quickly.

If you can't find hemostats, big tweezers or a small pair of simple kitchen tongs work just great too.

i always just throw it warm water for a really long time, and then when i'm ready to feed the snake i run it under very hot water for about a minute so it's really warm (it will never get TOO hot it cools quickly so it wont burn them or anything) and thats it... but if the snake takes forever of course i gotta do it again. how many other ways are there to thaw it? im scared to do anything else i dont wanna partially cook it or anything!

Snakes lack the ability to digest cooked meat. A partially cooked rodent will sit in a snakes stomach and rot, which could/probably would cause an infection that would then prossibly/probably kill the snake if not caught in time and treated.

Hope this helps.

-adam

Now we're up to speed!

[ErikH]

I put the mouse in a ziploc bag and soak it in warm water for around 20 minutes.

[well_armed]

I put the rat in a zip-loc bag, then into a tupperware or similiar container and cover with hot water for about a half hour. this is enough to thaw the rat, to bring up its temp for feeding cover the rat with hot water again. the whole process takes about 45-60 mins

[Melicious]

Eh. When Ophelia used to eat f/t, I used to take another spot light and let the mouse sit underneath it for about...ten minutes. This usually brought the temperature up.

Now...she eats lives and so does Ody.

[iceman25]

Other than the ziplock in hot water, here is another idea that may or maynot work. Find out what the body temperature of a mouse or rat is. Get a tub of some sort and run a length of flexwatt under it, attached to a thermostat. Set the thermostat to the desired temp and put the mouse/rat inside until they are thawed out to the set temps.

[mlededee]

i count out how many rats i need and put them in a ziplock freezer bag. then i let them sit for several hours to thaw. i fill a tub with hot water and place the bag-o-rats in it and weigh them down with a heavy bowl so that they stay completely submerged. i generally have to dump the water and add more hot water once or twice during the process depending on how thawed they were to start, but i also thaw 8-10+ rats at a time so it takes a bit longer.


now here is a way NOT to thaw your rats. last week our hot water heater broke and it took a few days for maintenace to come and get it fixed (wow, cold showers hurt in the morning!). i got the bright idea to heat my rodents on the stove as the microwave is a BIG no. so i did the same thawing for a few hours in the ziplock bag deal and then put the bag into a big pot of water on the stove. i let that heat for a while until the rats all seemed nice and thawed and evenly heated. now, my first mistake here was heating the rats up too quickly, so i had several exploded bellies. messy, but nice for scenting the herp room. my second mistake was that stoves are made for COOKING THINGS! i attempted to pick up the first rat and its tail broke right off--nice and tender, cooked all the way through. yuck. needless to say, the snakes did not get fed that night. the next morning i called the apt. office and freaked out on them and we now have nice hot water from the tub to warm the ratties in.

[daniel1983]

I just toss a few frozen rodents in an empty tub in my bp rack. They usually defrost in 3-4 hours with that 85 deg. air temp Some of my bp I can feed without 'warming them up' but with others I still have to let them run under hot water for a few minutes.

[ARamos8]

A thawing tub. I'll try that. Good idea Daniel.

[JamminJonah]

now here is a way NOT to thaw your rats. last week our hot water heater broke and it took a few days for maintenace to come and get it fixed (wow, cold showers hurt in the morning!). i got the bright idea to heat my rodents on the stove as the microwave is a BIG no. so i did the same thawing for a few hours in the ziplock bag deal and then put the bag into a big pot of water on the stove. i let that heat for a while until the rats all seemed nice and thawed and evenly heated. now, my first mistake here was heating the rats up too quickly, so i had several exploded bellies. messy, but nice for scenting the herp room. my second mistake was that stoves are made for COOKING THINGS! i attempted to pick up the first rat and its tail broke right off--nice and tender, cooked all the way through. yuck. needless to say, the snakes did not get fed that night. the next morning i called the apt. office and freaked out on them and we now have nice hot water from the tub to warm the ratties in.

Much better to learn from others mistakes haha thanks for the tip Mlededee!