Fresh Killed rat left bugs

[BriGuy31+]

Hello,

I am supplied by a local breeder. She always has great quality rats, very clean breeding set-up and is extremely helpful with my questions.

So I got my usual order of two rat pups (fed live to my male) and two weaner rats (fed to my female). I transported all four rats home together in a bucket. The issue was with the second rat for the female. I fed the female one freshly killed rat at night without any problems. I regrettably had to put the rat into the freezer to kill it because I ran out of CO2. She ate without any issues. I checked the tub before going to bed and everything was just fine. The next day I fed the second rat to her....again using the freezer ( I will not do that again). I put it in the freezer for about 30 min, let it sit out at room temp for another 30-40 min. Then put the rat into the tub. My snake ate in within 10 min.

This time after checking in on her after the meal I noticed 2 dozen small white bugs on the clean paper towel bedding. They looked like VERY small maggots. About four could fit on the tip of an eraser. They were only in the spot the the rat was in before she ate. I had to try to rub them to see any movement at all. I cleaned everything including my snake.

Any ideas? Are they dangerous to my snake? Should I be concerned about returning to my local breeder?

[vangarret2000]

Why are you feeding 2 days in a row? If you wanna feed multiple rodents you can do it in the same night. You could also just do one properly sized rat instead of two smaller ones.

For the bugs if it came from the rat it most likely won't be harmful to your snake. Just clean it up (which I assume you already did) and everything will most likely be fine.

[Felidae]

Rat mites. Don't worry, they cannot infect your reptiles.

(and it's my personal opinion. Freeze the poor beasts to death is more inhuman than broke the neck fast and clean. Just... I imagine for myself...)

[BriGuy31+]

I usually do fed one pray item but my male went off feed for several weeks and was trying different sizes to try to get a feed. The larger ones went to the female after the male took the pups. Good tip though and thank you for reminding me.

Yes, I really regret using alternative methods to killing the rat. I will not do that again but I thought it would help determine the bugs.

So you think this was the larva stage of the rat mite? Should I tell my breeder or is this very common without much intervention needed?

[Felidae]

I think tell him if he don't know already. The mites make anemic the rodents, and that isn't cool for them.. Neither for the snakes. The color can be the after effect of the freezer, but I'm not too talented in entomology, so...

[Rhasputin]

White oval shaped 'maggot' like bugs is lice. They are species specific. Don't worry, but that's not speaking well for your supplier.

Rat mites are red / brown.


Please never put another rodent in the feezer to kill it. For small pups you can just flick them very hard on the back of the skull to kill them. It scrambles their brains and they're dead very fast.

[Cupid]

Those are lice, not mites, as Rhasputin said. They will not hurt your snake.

And the freezer thing.. yea. Don't do that again.

[Felidae]

That make sense why they were white. Sorry for the fake info. Everything else I still think how I said.