Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok so I just got my first big order of frozen feeders in earlier this week. I'm in the process of dethawing and trying to feed my animals and almost all of the mouses guts have like busted open or something and their insides are falling out. Am I doing something wrong or is this normal? Ive fed frozen before but never had this happen.. I know their more fagil obviously.. is it ok to feed with the mice like this?
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

that sounds nasty. i have always fed frozen/thawed animals and never really had trouble with their insides falling out. how are you thawing them out and where did you get them?
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Extensive Snakes

...there from RodentPro I just heated up some water and let them thaw, then pulled them out and it was like.. mouse soup. I just tried to feed a larger one a rat that looked fine and then she struck it in the stomach and ripped it open and the inside fell out in her mouth.. its really gross I dunno what to do
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

The longer you leave them out, the more likely they are to "explode" when fed. I usually thaw mice one at a time, and then feed immediately. I've only had 2 mice fall apart on me, and both times I left the mouse to thaw for more than a few minutes.

I've never had to feed more than one snake though, so maybe someone else has ideas if you're feeding large numbers of animals.

I just put them in the water til they lost stiffness and then stuck them on paper towels, hit them up with the hair dryer and fed one at a time after that. I'm thinking maybee the water was too hot to begin with or something.. I dunno? I had to throw away a few and rethawed others at a lower temp water and didnt have any problems.. but they rest made for some nasty cage mess.. really nasty
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

yup, its a nasty mess. F/T is such a pain sometimes.

Jordan,sorry about your problem.What I usually do is before I go to bed or before I leave for work I pull out some frozen RATS wrap em in newspaper and leave them to thaw naturally.I feed all my animals rat pinky's or fuzzy's all the way up to collosal.I have no experience with feeding with mice.Hope this helps. ASH

Hey Jordan,
My thought on the evisceration of the warmed or heated mice, is, that when you heat something up after having been frozen, it causes a break down of the connective tissue, by changing the structure of the proteins that make up the muscle and other fiberous tissue. In effect, by cooking!

I don't like to use water that is too hot, as this can and does cause the rodents to break down and bloat as the tissues absorb water. JM2C!
-Angel
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"Until we lose our self, there is no way of finding our self."
-Henry Miller.

I have not had a problem with F/T -mice, rats and chicks of all stages. I put the frozen item in a mug of HOT tap water- about 50-60 degrees C. (50 degrees C is the hottest temperature that you can tolerate putting your hand in). The water cools and the food item thaws. When the food item is floppy change the water with fresh HOT water for a couple of minutes. The food item should now feel warm- if the water is too hot to put your finger in leave it a bit longer to cool if it feels cool there must have been some ice left so change the water and do it again. Don't forget to wash the mug.

Burst stomachs can be caused by repeated freeze/thaw cycles (not good), or too long a period between death and freezing (also not good). My freeze thawed feeders are frozen singly or in a single layer in a domestic freezer by a fellow herper, or in a blast freezer from a commercial supplier and I have never had one burst. They are still frozen when I receive them.

If you received those feeders from a commercial supplier you may want to notify them and even consider a complaint. Were they still frozen when you received them? Did you let them thaw before putting them in your freezer?

CJ

Josh,

Thanks for the extra info, that helps. There was still a little bit of dry ice left when I recieved them and they seemed like they were still frozen. I put them directly in the freezer once they arrived. There might have been awhile from killing to freezing I dunno, it also looks like they might have been impaled to kill them (there was a little dot that looked like water seeped in on all of them, even those that didnt fall apart). When I tried again with cooler water it turned out ok. I'll just leave them out overnnight next time and heat em up with the hairdryer and see if that doesn't help. Never had a problem with my methods with other ft's.. so I assume the vendor is somewhat at fault but I am as well. I guess I'll contact them and see what they reccomend for thawing. Thanks again.

J
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior