Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I currently have a number of bps that I feed f/t rats. Some will eat every week; some will skip a week or two before they decide to eat again. As my collection grows when a bp decides not to eat, discarding the rats after I've already defrosted them can get expensive. Can rats be re-frozen? If the rats are not eaten after being refrozen, I plan to discard them. I don't plan on refreezing them more than one time.

Any advice, opinions, etc. would be grateful.

Refreezing is fine, I have heard of some balls that only liked to eat frozen twice, it is not very common but there are some that are just that picky. I would not be consirned about refreezing as long as you don't leave the rat out for extended periods of time after being defrosted. Also you can refreeze as often as need, but most of my rats only get a 2nd or 3rd time on the floor before they have gone where they are supost to go.

matt

Could just get yourself a nice big monitor for display. Black throats are great Varanus albigularis ionides. Walking garbage cans. OR get a group of the BIG rat snakes, pine, or some nice red bulls. I guarantee they will eat any left overs you have to offer and reward you with plenty of offspring and POO.

One thing I do is never thaw out enough to cover every animal. As there is a good chance some will not eat anyway. If you feel everyone must eat that day keep some live handy to cover the extra. LEST wasted money that way!!

God Bless, Lee

I would not refreeze them after they have thawed out. If you have 10 ball pythons, thaw out 5. If they eat all of them, thaw out a few more. Any that are not thawed out, place in the fridge for a few days and try again. After that, I would discard.
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Morph Evolutions
www.morphevolutions.com
www.myspace.com/morphevolutions

I woundnt refreeze a rat that has already been frozen. When your thawing out that rat the first time, the rat is decomposing. If the snake turns down a thawed out rat you should toss it.
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Chris Berrios
~South Fl Constrictors~

I have a few stubborn eaters so I never thaw enough for everybody. I always offer the stubborn eaters food first. If they don't eat after a few hours then I rewarm their uneaten rat and give it to my guarantee to eat snakes, so waste is minimal.
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PHLdyPayne

I tried to refreeze... most of the bellies popped after 2nd defrost... nasty... my 2 cents. but yeah--offer to finiky eaters first so you dont waste.. it may take longer to do a couple batches but it saves $$

but do not overheat them or the belly can explode.

absolutely go for it, i've gone as many as three defrosts with no bad side effects, their bellies only pop if you heat them up too much too quick, that's happened to me on the first defrost, so don't let that deterr you, to avoid this, what I sometimes do is take out one or two too few, and you offer it to your pickier eater first, if it takes, great, if it doesn't, you can offer it to one of your pigs and then you won't have to worry about refreezing, if the picky eater gets it, then just take another out another and feed it to whoever got let out later that day or the next day

Thank you all for taking the time to respond to my inquiry. It never crossed my mind to take out a few less f/t rats than needed for the entire gang and back filling as required.
All - thanks for the input and advice.