Overheated the mouse... Oh, what a mess. Oops.

[Coluber42]

I guess I left the mouse under the heat lamp a little too long. The skin broke a little as I picked it up, but I didn't think much of it... Then a lot more skin broke when Hoosac wrapped it. He also struck from a sort of awkward cranny, so he hit the wrong end and then smeared it around some more trying to unwrap it. He's now on his third vigorous try at swallowing it from the wrong end The first try involved trying to work the tail down tip first. But of course it's too skinny for him to walk his jaws on, so that effort was eventually abandoned, at which point he was almost completely upside down. The mouse has aspen stuck all over it, and looks almost broken in half, and who knows what mouse innards are smeared all over Hoosac and his hide and everything else.

Oy, what a mess! And now I'll have to bother him while he's digesting to clean it up.

[KMG]

You need to be careful not to cook the feeder under the lamp. Your snake can not digest cooked meat and being close enough to a heat lamp can cause issues.

Personally I like thawing and heating in water.

[Coluber42]

Yeah, I didn't really mean to leave it that long. :/
It wasn't really cooked much I think, just the skin on top was damaged. I checked it with the IR thermometer, and it was warmer than a live mouse would be, but not at a temperature at which we consider food to be cooked, so the inside was definitely not that cooked. I didn't want to move around too much to get a better view for fear of disturbing him, so the whole business actually looked worse than it was. Mouse blood got smeared around a bit, but no actual guts. I think he gave it a really good smush in the middle when he wrapped it; this little guy takes no chances about making sure his dinner is good and deceased, and he hangs on for what seems like a ridiculously long time for prey that is clearly not moving.

And because of the awkward cranny he was in when I gave him his mouse, he really hard a hard time maneuvering it and finding his way around it, and ended up with his whole body upside down while he dragged the mouse around trying to get leverage, and I think he was pretty clearly frustrated. I couldn't help but think that if you took a video and photoshopped the mouse out of it, it would look like the worst spider wobble you ever saw. Then when he finally got it all down and went to slither off to his warm hide, he had to get over the moss mat "hide" he had been pinned against. It's just a piece of moss mat curled over into a tube, so doesn't give very much leverage for clambering over and getting the right way up again.

So I think it's all OK... but it's sorta hard to sit there and watch the little guy struggling with it from the wrong end in a tight corner and feel like I should have done a better job with the presentation!

[Rickys_Reptiles]

I find this happens when you heat it too fast, not so much when it gets too hot. I once did that also - the rat exploded everywhere. And it was a large sized rat. The smell was disgusting beyond words.

[Coluber42]

The mouse actually thawed at room temperature; heating it up was just for the sake of making it more appealing, since in our house at this time of year room temp means 20° below the ambient temp of an 80° enclosure. Give it a few months and that will no longer be the case!

[blue roses]

Thats happened to me a couple of times. I have 3 snakes all eating different size ft prey. So i solved the problem by using very hot tap water and putting the largest, a small rat, in a baggy and placing in the hot water to defrost and warm, when its ready i add the next size down to the water which has cooled a little. then the smallest a pup sized rat for my new girl. I haven't had a bursting problem in a long time, and i agree it really is a mess to clean up.

[CantHelpIt]

I'm disgusted handling dead rats/mice and having one explode would be a nightmare. I feel for you

I thaw in the fridge and then get them to temp with a hair dryer, so far no rat bombs

[lexanidubs09]

I had this happen about a month ago for the first time ever... I feel for you. I really hope I never have to witness or smell that ever again. GROSS.

[TheoIsMyBoy]

I find this happens when you heat it too fast, not so much when it gets too hot. I once did that also - the rat exploded everywhere. And it was a large sized rat. The smell was disgusting beyond words.

I agree. It's happened to me twice and both times the rats weren't cooked at all, just heated too fast. I understand where you're coming from on the smell factor as well. It's disgusting!

What I find with keeping snakes is every day is a learning process, no matter how much you think you know about it! It just throws curve ball after curve ball lol!

[Kaneb7]

This happened to me for the first time yesterday. Monty wanted no part of the exploded mouse after he struck at it and it only got worse