You left them in the water too long. It doesn't take 24 hours to thaw a little rat. Even my small rabbits I feed, I leave them in zip lock bags in warm water for about 3-4 hours and change out the water every hour as it gets cold. Rats I usually just leave in zip lock bags for a couple hours and change the water every hour. Small stuff usually only take about an hour and again, I leave everything in zip lock bags. It helps to keep the smell on them if you got a little stubborn feeder.
I've had rats pop on me before too. In my case, it was because I left them in too hot of water plus my sunglow boa slams her food and squeezes the bejesus out of them while pulling at the same time, so she literally tore the rats belly open. Luckily it was on top of her hide so was kind of easy to clean up.
My advice is you are going to leave them out to defrost, I would just put them in ziplock bags and leave them on top of the snake cages before you go to work. Then when you come home, they should be ready. Or like what I do, throw em all in ziplock bags and then throw it all on a bucket of warm water and change it out every hour and work your way down for feedings....little stuff in a hour or 2 and bigger stuff in 2-4 hours.
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