Reptile & Amphibian Forums

As I've mentioned before, I feed f/t. Lately I've been feeding in the cage on a paper plate, the female ate, and the male stayed in his paper towel tube hide.(I'm sure he's in blue)

Anyway, the male didn't eat his fuzzy and I remembered Upscale stating his w/s brooksi was a garbage disposel, so I gave it to the female..she was wrestling with it in five minutes. Had it down in seven..LOL

Mind you, the fuzzy was sitting at room temp for over 24 hours before she got it. And that got me wondering...how long is too long to be sitting out? Will a snake eat something that was too far gone and cause it to become sick? And is it best to refridgerate or refreeze any mice that weren't eaten, to be fed again, or should they just be flushed? I'm not cheap..just being thrifty.(unless you ask my wife)..LOL. Thanks in advance.
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Richard Evans

no not THAT one

I think a snake can handle some right funky mice no problem. You just wouldn’t want them to start refusing fresh ones. I don’t do frozen/thawed so mine are always live or stunned. I have fed some kinda bloated blue mauled and rejected stuff the next day, again, no problems noted. I usually find something like that the next day after feeding and finding one didn’t eat for whatever reason. I just toss it into another cage. I picked my whiteside because he’s the one I was most wanting to fatten up cause he started out so skinney, (just like a rat snake ha ha) and he always eats even if he ate the previous day. I’m going to take another pic today maybe and post a timeline on him, since he just shed yesterday. He went from pinks to mice pretty fast.

I won't refreeze anything... If Spot doesn't eat, the mouse gets thrown out.. I won't refeed... I tried refreezing one time and about got sick myself when I rethawed it... mice are nasty after they've been refroze and thawed again... Of course, with 5 breeding mice and only 1 kingsnake, I have no shortage of mice... and the red belly piranha loves baby mice...
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I don't refreeze, but sometimes I thaw out more than needed so I have a small fridge in the snake room that I can toss thawed mice into so I'm not wasting. They stay good in there for a few days. I figure the food I eat is good in the fridge for about a week so I do the same for the snakes. I have had no problems doing this.
Hope that helps,
Jason
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"Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew!" Charlie Papazian