Heating frozen mice

[Raven01]

I do the water sometimes, but it's a lot messier than thawing in the fridge overnight then hitting it with a hair dryer to warm it up.

You can still thaw in the fridge overnight and use slightly cooler water to warm or park them under a heat lamp.

500+ degrees is far too hot. This is suitable for removing paint and starting fires not warming rodents.

[ChaosAffect]

Hmm... I hadn't thought of a heat lamp. I've got a couple CHEs that I'm not using right now.

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[rossi46]

I do the water sometimes, but it's a lot messier than thawing in the fridge overnight then hitting it with a hair dryer to warm it up.

Have you tried putting the frozen critter in a plastic baggie before putting it into hot water? Might help with whatever "messiness" issues you're dealing with.

[Derrick]

I use a cheap lamp from wal-mart and a 250 whatt inrared bulb.

[ChaosAffect]

Have you tried putting the frozen critter in a plastic baggie before putting it into hot water? Might help with whatever "messiness" issues you're dealing with.

LoL. Yeah. Once I had a leaky bag and some mouse soup, which was pretty disgusting.

It all comes down to location. The microwave is downstairs in the kitchen, the rack is upstairs in my office. So to use hot water I have to nuke it, bring the container upstairs, let the baggie sit in the container for a few minutes, take the baggie out (dripping water in the process), etc, etc... When I heat them up using a hair dryer I just defrost them overnight in the fridge, bring the baggie upstairs, dump the mouse on a paper towel, hold a hair dryer on it for a few minutes, bob's yer uncle. Much simpler. Once I get a dedicated mouse-warming hair dryer I'm going to attach a thin cardboard cone to the end of it so I can just set it over the mouse and not have to worry about blowing it off the table (which has happened a couple of times).

Anywho, my question's been answered. No baking frozen mice with a heat gun. Thanks, everyone!

[maegalcarwen]

It is quite simple... you buy a small plastic bowl for yourself, a stupid color, so you both know its for the mice. You but almost boiling (tap-hot) water in it, you put in the mouse, and you have it ready in 10 mins. Make sure it is body-heat warm for the snake. That's it. Not messy, not smelly, doesn't annoy anyone.

[MorbidWolfess]

Do NOT get a heat gun. Snakes cannot digest cooked meat, and if you accidentally cooked it that would be a disaster. Cooked meat does not process, and usually ends up severely hurting the digestive tract of the snake. Your best bet is to get your own hair dryer for your mice, maybe a mini one of a different color, or just simply use hot tap water.

[jackiee]

I bought the cheapest hairdryer I could, and its been good for the last 9 months touch wood.

[Mike41793]

It is quite simple... you buy a small plastic bowl for yourself, a stupid color, so you both know its for the mice. You but almost boiling (tap-hot) water in it, you put in the mouse, and you have it ready in 10 mins. Make sure it is body-heat warm for the snake. That's it. Not messy, not smelly, doesn't annoy anyone.

You don't want to use boiling water, that will cook the rat. The water that comes out of your tap isn't that close to boiling.

[AGoldReptiles]

I let the rodents "air" thaw. Then I throw them into the "hot box" until there nice and warm, around 100 degerees. I started using hot water years ago. Decidied I must not like "rat soup" and then went to the "air" thaw, warm with a hair dryer method. I even made a hairdryer holder from a clamp for a dome light, but as the collection grew this became way to time consuming and not very energy efficient. So I decided to make a "hot box".



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Works great and could easily be scaled up for larger collections.



Anthony


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