I've been thawing my frozen rodents in hot water for years.
Depends on how many rodents (size and quantity)and the volume of water used.

As a rule, I never use water over about 118 to 120 deg.F.
For example: 2 extra large rats generally are completely thawed within 30 minutes at a start temp of 118 deg.F. in a 5 gal. bucket with an ending body temp of about 87 deg.F. This is an acceptable food item temperature for a snake with a good feeding response.

Use lower starting water temperatures for smaller items like mice and rat pups, otherwise you will wind up with a ruptured abdomen when the snake puts the squeeze on the prey item, as previously mentioned. Uncontained viscera present a potential health risk for snakes, as entrails would be considered an oral foreign contaminant.

The optimum end temperature for water thawed food items would be close to 100 deg.F, as thats near normal for rodents. In Boids temperature is one of the primary recognition senses.

Another benefit of the water thawing method is exposure reduction from flies and other airborne contaminants.

I'd recommend a good remote IR temp gun to maintain required temperature parameters for this method.

Good luck.
jsc

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• frozen/thaw - chipcount, Sat Oct 13 11:58:07 2007
• RE: frozen/thaw - bcijoe, Sat Oct 13 12:48:28 2007
• RE: frozen/thaw - jscrick, Sat Oct 13 13:32:34 2007
• RE: frozen/thaw - wh00h0069, Sat Oct 13 16:13:31 2007
• RE: frozen/thaw - TnK, Sat Oct 13 23:34:55 2007
• RE: frozen/thaw - boachris, Sun Oct 14 01:41:50 2007
• CO2 - charmer, Sun Oct 14 10:47:29 2007
• RE: frozen/thaw - chipcount, Sun Oct 14 11:33:03 2007
• RE: frozen/thaw - charmer, Sun Oct 14 13:23:55 2007