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what is your method on heating up rabbits after they have thawed?

First I thaw my rabbits by placing them in moderately hot water in 5 gallon buckets. 1 to 2 rabbits per bucket, depending on the size. The hot water almost immediately cools down considerably after the frozen rabbits are placed in it, equalizing somewhat. The thaw process takes between 6 and 10 hours on average this way so I usually either bucket them very early in the day,. or late the night before. With a quick feel I can determine whether or not they are completely thawed. At this point I dump the initial thaw water and refill the bucket with very warm (not hot) water and let the rabbit warm up a bit for about 15 or 20 minutes. I don't always do this as most of my snakes don't mind the rabbit being somewhat cool, but I do have the occasional picky girl that prefers them warm.

Just for the record, I leave the rabbits wet to aid swallowing.

>>what is your method on heating up rabbits after they have thawed?
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Believe in yourself and your abilities and you can accomplish anything.

I'll second that....I basically do the exact same thing and this seems to work the best for large prey.

Personally, I don't have anyone feeding on rabbits, but occassionally I will buy one, a 8-10 lb rabbit, just so I can watch a friend of mines 12 ftr eat. What I do is just throw them on my bath tub, with no water, at about 7:30am and by 10pm, when I get off of work, they are thawed and all I have to do is throw it into a rubbermaid with some hot water to let it warm up for about 15-20 minutes and it is good as fresh killed, well except for it being water logged.

Jason

I agree with the bucket, my rabbits are smaller, about 2 pounds, so I leave them in a zip lock bag, and leave in warm water, after about 30 min I take the rabbit out and sqeeze it and stretch the legs out, to take out the frozen parts and then back in the bucket it goes. the body when I feed mine is still kind of cold but the head is warm, and my girl eats it, but sometimes she wont and I have to thaw it more then she eats it.

Slight modification on the bucket idea... I have a 48 quart (I think) cooler specifically for hawing snake food. That way less of the heat from the water escapes into the air.
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Larry D. Fishel
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