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I froze most of my rat colony in November to prepare for reduced needs due to breeding cycling. They are double bagged in freezer bags with as much air as possible forced out. Tonight, I thawed 2 small rats in a jar in the bathroom sink with hot water very slowly running into the jar for over a half hour. The rats were in bags to keep them dry. They were pretty warm when I took them out, so I let them cool to "rat temperature" and fed them to 2 of my BP's. Both rats were half to three-fourths eaten when the skin on their bellies ruptured and the snakes spit them out. (don't blame them-it was nasty). Have the rats been in the freezer too long or did I get them too hot when I thawed them? I don't want to make the same mistake again because I'm afraid the snakes will start to refuse rats!
Thanks,
Paul

Paul, if you only removed 'most' of the air from the bags, the rats will be viable in your freezer for a month or so. From November to now; 7 months, no meat at all would last that long. Treat rats as you would ground beef, lamb chops or steak, after all, their all meat. If you decide to actually get an air-suction doo-dad, they will be good in the freezer for up to 4 months.

Thanks,
I'll throw away what I've got and try offering them some fresh pre-kills in another week or so. Hopefully they will forget what happened last night!
Paul

Rats will be good longer than 4 months, especially if they are vacuum-sealed. My mom bought one of those foodsaver things, and the guide says that meats can be stored 2-3 years, and ground meat can be stored 1 year. So my guess is that rats will fall somewhere in there.
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-audri
Webpage/Pics

yep

even 4....

......people can eat frozen meats that are 3 or more years old...

I didn't say they tasted good...I said they can

yep

Hey – I’m not saying that a fresh-killed rodent wouldn’t probably be nutritionally superior to a six month-frozen non-vacuum-packed rodent. Nevertheless, I would imagine if your freezer has been kept at zero degrees, those rats are plenty good eatin’ for your snakes.

The bellies splitting open and the guts spilling out thing has happened to me when I have unintentionally heated up mice too hot (like, sitting under a dome light too long). Perhaps your snakes reacted unfavorably not to the innards per se but to their unaccustomed wetness. I have animals who lunge and then put on the brakes when their snouts come up against a rodent thawed in water and not blotted semi-dry.

Why don’t you try thawing out some of those rats at room temperature, or use water less hot for less long?

-Joan

>>I froze most of my rat colony in November to prepare for reduced needs due to breeding cycling. They are double bagged in freezer bags with as much air as possible forced out. Tonight, I thawed 2 small rats in a jar in the bathroom sink with hot water very slowly running into the jar for over a half hour. The rats were in bags to keep them dry. They were pretty warm when I took them out, so I let them cool to "rat temperature" and fed them to 2 of my BP's. Both rats were half to three-fourths eaten when the skin on their bellies ruptured and the snakes spit them out. (don't blame them-it was nasty). Have the rats been in the freezer too long or did I get them too hot when I thawed them? I don't want to make the same mistake again because I'm afraid the snakes will start to refuse rats!
>>Thanks,
>>Paul

Thanks,
I thought I might have overheated them. I've been feeding my smaller BP's rat pups from the same time frame with no issues, but they thaw quicker and I haven't left them warming for nearly this long. (I kind of forgot about these two with hot water on them for awhile). I still think I'm going to feed these individuals a few fresh-kills, just to reassure them that rats are good-eatin', then retry some of my frozen inventory a little more carefully. It's also possible that those entrails were still hotter than I expected due to the insulation of the rat's fur and that could have caused the snakes to react the way they did... Thanks again everybody!
Paul