Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Sorry, man. I know I promised these pictures months ago, but I honestly just kept forgetting to take them.

I think that you'll be able to note most of the construction details from looking at the photos. It's essentially just a box with a UTH along the bottom. There is a hole drilled on one side to allow the cord to be threaded through and the lid (which is not on hinges but that could easily be remedied) is lined with reflective tape. I also used a cookie cooling rack to keep the frozen rats somewhat elevated off of the UTH.

Generally, I just remove the rats I'll need from the freezer and place them into a zip-lock type bag. I don't zip the bag closed because I've noticed a tendency to end up with more "belly bursters" when I do. Simply plug in the UTH and place the top on the box. I do not have it hooked up to any type of thermostat or other temperature controller. The pad itself warms to about 130 degrees F and the rats end up being about 100 degrees F after about 3-4 hours.

Below are the approximate times for various conditions for the rats to be ready to feed (The times can vary depending on the size and number of rats - how full the Thawing Chamber is):

Frozen - about 3-4 hours
Thawed - (refrigerator temperatures) - about an hour
Thawed - (room temperature) - 1/2 hour to 45 minutes

I'm sure that results will vary from person to person as will the design and materials used, but this system has decreased the number of refusals I have on any given week and I no longer have to deal with buckets of hot water and leaking baggies.

Here are the pictures (I think they are fairly self explanatory but feel free to ask any questions you may have):

I just noticed that I didn't have the tape measure positioned very well in these pictures, but the last picture gives a fairly decent view. It really doesn't matter. I simply found a UTH that I liked (I prefer the ones that beanfarm.com sells) and customized the box to it. The entire project took less than an hour. I suppose I could go back and paint the exterior, add a hinge or two and also line the rest of the interior with reflective tape, but right now I'm not overly ambitious to do so. Perhaps it will end up being one of my mid-winter projects to ward off cabin fever. We'll see.
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Stay United!

"...I say 'apparently' because despite all our progress she is not at all a tame or handle-able snake and gettting her from that cage would re-start a war.. and we've had a good armistice for several months now."-Gus Rentfro - I love this quote!

Is it necessary to take them from the Freezer to the Fridge to have them thaw? Can you just sit them out at room temp for a few hours?

Any pros / cons?
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That's all a matter of personal preference and time constraints. I used to take my rats out of the freezer the night before I was going to feed and place them in the refrigerator to thaw overnight. If I was in more of a hurry I'd leave them out to thaw at room temperature.

The times I posted were not steps to completion. Each time was a rough approximation of the amount of time the rats would take to warm up enough to be offered if they were at the posted state when you placed them in the Warming/Thawing Chamber.

So if you had already thawed them in the refrigerator before you placed them in the chamber and plugged it in it would take less time for them to heat up than if they went straight from the freezer to the chamber.

It's easier for me to just grab the sizes and number of rats I plan on offering a few hours prior to feeding simply because I am often pretty busy and my schedule changes a lot during the day. If I were to try to plan my feedings any earlier there is a good chance something else will come up that will take me away from being able to feed the snakes. By waiting until the last minute I can ensure that I have the time to thaw and feed so I can minimize waste.
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Stay United!

"...I say 'apparently' because despite all our progress she is not at all a tame or handle-able snake and gettting her from that cage would re-start a war.. and we've had a good armistice for several months now."-Gus Rentfro - I love this quote!

Gray Rushin has a good method for thawing frozen Rodents on his website: www.allboas.com. He just fills a sink with hot tap water and puts the rodents in a tight sealed Tupperware type container. Then he puts the container in the water where it floats a while and flips it over to the other side for a while and lets them thaw. Personally i, and many very big time breeders i know, just put the rodents directly into a bucket of hot tap water and let them thaw to a point where if there are no hot spots felt by grasping the Rodent and sqeezing it lightly just under the back bone, they are ready to go. I can think of no problems caused by warm wet Rodents being fed to snakes. In fact, the snake can swallow a wet lubricated rodent easier then a dry one. I have yet to get a gut buster after 26 years of using this method.

I used to use the hot=water-in-a-bucket method and, I agree, a warm, wet rat is probably the easiest for the snakes to swallow. I actually had a few that wouldn't even bother with the rat unless it was soaking wet.

My problem with this method was that I don't have access to water in the room I keep my snakes in and carrying the bucket into the room and (often times) dripping water on the floor became a pain. Plus, the warmest (and hence, those that were least likely to be refused) rats were always the first few... by the time I got to the last few rats the water had cooled significantly and it was more difficult to entice the snakes to strike at them.

I simply wanted a way of thawing and warming the rats to the correct temperature that involved the least amount of mess as well as a minimal amount of preparation from me. This method has worked very well and has decreased the average number of refusals I've encountered. I simply posted this idea along with the pictures because I hoped that if someone else was having problems or looking for a potentially "better way" that this would help them. It was quick, inexpensive, easy and fairly straight forward and anyone with even a minimal amount of woodworking experience could do this.

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Stay United!

"...I say 'apparently' because despite all our progress she is not at all a tame or handle-able snake and gettting her from that cage would re-start a war.. and we've had a good armistice for several months now."-Gus Rentfro - I love this quote!

That makes a lot of sense Brandon. When my rats started to cool down and get refused i just went and got another dose of hot water. I got to thinking though, Dry thawed Rats are great for people using any substrate other then newspaper. Much less chance of ingesting substrate pieces with dry then wet.