Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, today my order of frozen weaned rats arrived, and I took the suggestion of dropping the little buggers directly into hot water. Just a few minutes and they were ready. (Thanks for the tip.) Now for the transformation...

Kahotep, whose always eaten live mice, studied the still rat corpse for a moment or two and just proceeded to down it. Great!

Tiger struck at it with fierce intensity. Even better!

My Het Pied girls, Cleopatra and Akasha, who were also raised on live, wouldn't eat at all. Finally, I just left the two dead rats in their Sterilite and walked away. A few hours later, Cleopatra is HUGE and Akasha is the same size. Cleopatra ate BOTH rats. I'll have to separate them from now on, but the good news is that Cleopatra has taken to the switch, too. I'm still not sure if Akasha would have.

That's three for four!

Katrina, also a live feeder, hasn't touched her rat, but I brained it and hopefully she'll want a midnight snack. If so, that means I've gotten really lucky with the whole switching thing.

Anyway, I'm not really sure why I'm even posting this. Maybe it's because I need to keep typing even during work breaks because i have a script due tomorrow morning. Now that i think of it, i remember why...I wanted to thank those of you who've given such great advice on live-to-thawed switching. It's worked wonderfully.

So...thank you.

Chris =)
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0.1 Normal
0.2 Het Piebald
1.0 Reduced Pattern
0.1 Banded
0.1 Screaming Child

I know those switches can be tough. I have all my snake on ft and I am very happy. I just picked up a new female ball and an african rock that both took ft with some teasing for me. the ball even took while in shed (i had to see if she would). and I will not lecture about feeding and leaving the room with food in a cage of 2 snakes. You know better.

how do you put them in the hot water without them exploding?? luckily mine were in bags when they exploded.
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--0.0.1 ball python
--0.1 orange cat
--2.0 dogs
--0.0.3 frogs
--3.0 beta fish
--and some cockroaches
--maxgmercer@yahoo.com--

I had an explosion the other day, only it was during the strike. Quite unplesant for myself and my snake area/living room.

All I can smell now is f/t rat. I can't shake it. My roomate says she doesn't smell anything, but she didn't see the rat-innards water fountain. Maybe it's psychological.

Can that be avoided by allowing to thaw over hours on the countertop at room temp? If so, i'm going that way. Screw fast. I'll take non-exploding dead rodents any day!
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1.1 BPs (Syd and Nancy)
1.1 Het. Albinos (Bill and Beatrix)
0.2 French Lops (Lapine and Jacquotte)
0.0.2 Firebellied Toads (Stanley and Stuart)

This is like the third time ive read such and considered the other two to be jokes(or some idiot somewhere with a microwave).
...cause,thats funny.

Rat grenades lol

I just let them soak with the original warm water and let it go for a long time actually.Then refill it with hot water,then feed.
...no sploding rats.

I guess i have just been lucky ? hehe
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3.12 Ball Pythons
0.1 Mutant Thayeri

Well...I tried again tonight with the two girls who wouldn't eat yesterday, and they both attacked the thawed weaned rat. Gosh! This is easier than I thought! That's five for five switched to F/T in two days...I oughta be in Vegas! =)

Chris
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0.1 Normal
0.2 Het Piebald
1.0 Reduced Pattern
0.1 Banded
0.1 Screaming Child