Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,

I must of done something wrong yesterday when I warmed up two frozen mice for my balls. I put the mouse, still in it's small palstic bag in a pot of water, let it boil and then turned of the heat right away. I let it sit in the water for about 10 minutes... I believe this made the mouse TOO hot for my ball python, becuase she struck right away, and then dropped it. Then I tried again, and she wrapped around for a while, had a tight grip on it, and then dropped it again about 5 minutes later...

My male ball python ate just fine... did I made the mouse too hot? Do you have any advice on warming frozen mice/rats? I usually put them on our radiators, but since it's getting warmer, the raidators aren't on as much....

take care,

Jen

Use hot water, but not any hotter than you can keep your hands in. The idea is to warm the mouse.....not cook it.

I just use hot water right out of the tap, no additional heating is required.

I just put the mice in a ziploc bag, fill a bucke full of hot tap water and let the mice sit in there until they are warm

Yeah, this works well for me too. I used to overcomplicate it to "improve" the process, but just leaving them in warm water in a ziplock for 20-30 minutes is the best solution.

ok, well. its at least the way i do it, with good results for snake and mouse.
First take frozen rat and or mouse from freezer. I let sit at room temp for about 15 minutes....if you put straight into a ziploc bag, the toenails poke holes in it sometimes and you end up with rat/mouse soup.
The take rat/mouse put in freezer style ziploc bag, place in a tub of water, so water cant get in bag. Not hot water, just the water from cold side, its alot warmer then frozen!
I change the water 2-3 times, after water gets cold from the rats/mice and in about an hour depending on size of rat, its thawed and at room temp. Always poke your finger on the rat to test make sure its still not cold inside.
I then have one of those heat lamps you see at carryouts etc . I put the rats/mice head under it for about 35 seconds or so, untill it reaches normal rat temp, or just so its warm, helps them hit quicker, and then feed.

Now there are benifits to doing it this way..if you use hot water it can cause the skin to burst when snake coils and you end up with goo everywhere, although i have never seen a snake leave any goo behind, they always clean thier plate.
Also, you dont cook the mouse, which i dont know if it matters, in the wild snakes eat some nasty stuff, but your snakes arent in the wild, you want to keep them healthy...
Also heating the head gives them a target, so you dont get the eating from the middle thing goin on.

I will point out, I have a small clean and healthy collection, so I can take the time to do all of this, if you have hundreds of snakes, im sure this would not be cost or time effeciant.

Good luck

Mike

Hi,

I do a lot of the same things as talked about here, but I do feed about 7 to 12 rats a week. One thing to note is that you do want to use a Ziploc bag but you want to use the sandwich bag. DO NOT USE any Ziploc that says for freezer use. The bag is much thicker and it takes a lot longer to warm the rodent. So I take a 32 oz tall cup of water and I microwave it for about 1 minute and 50 seconds so when I put my finger in it, it is hot, but not so hot it would burn me, but I do want it hot. I put the rat or mouse in for 8 minutes than I pull out the rat or mouse reheat the water in the microwave for 20 to 30 seconds and then put the rat or mouse back in the water for 8 more minutes. I then use an inferred temp gun and I make sure the average temperature is at least 92 degrees. My snakes will not strike at any rat or mouse that is under 90 degrees. Well, I hope this helps and this is a method that has taken me 3 years to create.

Best regards,
Bill R.

I used to do the whole hot/warm water thing, but i've found it much easier to just let them thaw. I only have about 40 snakes but as soon as i get home from work, i take out all the rats or mice i need. I set them on a large rubbermaid lid and set them on the floor in front of the room heater. It takes about 4-5 hours or so, and they are thawed, and usually warm enough to feed. They are clean this way, obviously with large rats or rabbits i let them out until morning, then feed before work.

Best way to defrost is overnight in the fridge you can set it out in the morning and let it defrost on the counter -- heat up either by a quick blast from the blow dryer or under a heat lamp or hold the head next to the light bulb until warm. You just need to make sure that the rodent is completely defrosted -- a lot of snakes once you get them on f.t. don't even need the extra heat - just a room temp feeder.

Good luck.
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Tosha
JET Pythons
Toshas Blog

I got an idea! How bout' putting frozen rodents on a tray the night before and feed thawed rodents in the morning?

I came up with a forced air heater that is low enough wattage to get them up to temp easy enough in numbers too. I just thaw them out overnight at room temp in a big sweater box , slip the unit over the side of the tub , turn it on low, stir them every couple minutes to avoid a "hot spot" in the rodent pile and just add more room temp, already thawed out rodents to the pile as needed , they seem to heat up more evenly if you have a good number in front of the heater (say 15-30 or so mice depending on the size of rodents your warming up). It seems the Balls eat them better if you get the feeders up to the proper temp , nice and warm to the touch is best , don't cook them no matter what way your doing it as the guts do come out easier if you get them to warm to fast. This is what I do and I like it , I have allergies to rodents so doing it this way seems to work good for me, plus it wasn't that expensive , you just have to find the right heater setup , that's the secret I think, to much heat/wattage and you'll find yourself babysitting the rodent pile instead of feeding off rodents to your snakes.

There are many ways to do this , what some people like to do others will do it differently, just figure out what makes sence to you and do what works best for you, this is just one of the many ways to finish warming your feeders up . I am simply sharing with you how I do it here and I am not trying to sell you anything , just giving you the idea! Do your research and you can put something together like this yourself for about $30-35 or so by shopping around your local hometown stores and putting a little of your own thinking, time and effort into it .

Anthony McCain

Dude, I wouldn't put a mouse in boiling water unless I was making rodent soup. For one adult mouse, I fill up a quart of steaming hot water, insert mouse, put a cover on, and let hot water run over the container for about 10 minutes. I find that thawing the rodent without a bag helps keep the snake hydrated. I've never had any problems feeding using this method.

I was thinking about maybe using my incubator. Set it at 94, and thaw for however long it takes. It would have to be trial and error until I figure out exactly how much time is needed for them to reach that temp. What do you guys think? Good idea, or am i missing something that would make this idea a "no go"?

I think more like 98F would be better than 94 but an incubator may work . Prethawing them out would still be best and then put in the incubator for about 30 minutes and start checking them after that.

Anthony McCain

I think the incubator thing would work, but sometimes there are eggs in there!

>>I was thinking about maybe using my incubator. Set it at 94, and thaw for however long it takes. It would have to be trial and error until I figure out exactly how much time is needed for them to reach that temp. What do you guys think? Good idea, or am i missing something that would make this idea a "no go"?
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www.RoyalGemReptiles.com

So, thanks for everyones advice!! there are so many different ways to do it!

Today, I put the mouse on an extra UTH for an hour, and vwalla... my female struck the mouse within second of it being presented and took it with no problems!

jen