Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How long say a pinkie mouse good for.

I placed one in a cage about 10:30a.m. at 9:10 p.m. snake at it. I was at work the whole time or i would have removed it before. should i be concerned?

spmills,
...Rodents have bacteria. Freezing them kills nearly all of the bacteria and prevents most bacteria from reproducing. When you warm a frozen rodent back up to room temperature it has relatively few bacteria but they do begin reproducing. They reproduce somewhat at an exponential rate. The longer a dead rodent stays out at room temperature the greater the chance that there will be enough bacteria to be harmful. Having said all that I should add that people who keep and breed Rubber Boas often let rodents stay at room temperature for a day or two so that they become rancid and smelly because this make them more appealing to reluctant feeders. So, in summation, there is probably not going to be any harm from your most recent feeding but you should probably not let all rodents sit too long at room temperature or warmer before feeding them to your snakes.
Jeff

>>How long say a pinkie mouse good for.
>>
>>I placed one in a cage about 10:30a.m. at 9:10 p.m. snake at it. I was at work the whole time or i would have removed it before. should i be concerned?

I usually feed my Rainbows at night when they are most active. That way they eat the prey item when it's still warm (beter feeding response) and if they haven't eaten it by morning I remove it and throw it out. If after thawing, the prey item smells bad, I don't feed it to my snakes. The smell of a decomposing pinkie is bad, but the smell of a rat gone bad is horrible and hard to clear out of the snake room!

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Lora

Thanks for the info jeff, I used to feed live only till i lost my year old retic about 5 years ago sold all my snakes and this is our first since. So i decided to not feed anything i ever get live food nomatter how hard it is. Thanks for your guys time and knowledge.

Steve