Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi folks, long time, no post. Darwin is doing magnificently. He's growing like crazy and actually seems to like hanging out with me (especially when he can explore the vast and wondrous area inside my shirt).

A couple of months ago we bought Dar a bag of 100 frozen fuzzies. He loves them, but they're starting to stink up our freezer. It reeks in there of lightly rotting...something. But the mice are the only thing that could be rotting (we eat entirely too much to leave anything in there long enough to rot).

This can't be good for Darwin, although individually the mice don't seem to smell much at all, but collectively they stink to high heaven.

Is it ok to keep feeding these to him? Is this normal? Were our expectations of 100 fuzzies a little ambitious, are they not meant to be stretched out to last this long? He eats once a week and so far, so good. He's healthy, active (especially when he's hungry, but he comes out of hiding whenever we open the cage), good skin...but I just can't help but think that eating stinky fuzzies is good for him.

Help please?

Thanks,
KT

PS, can someone pass along the link to the program that will measure snakes from photos? I'm guessing he's over 2 feet just from watching him, but I'd like to know how close I am

Frozen stuff doesn't rot. Heat is one of the required factors to cause something to rot or decay, and since freezing it is the complete absence of heat, it can't rot. How are these fuzzies stored? Are they sealed up in a ziploc freezzer bag or what? I keep LOTS of mice and rats in my freezer (probably around 200 at various sizes there currently..from mouse pinks to small adult rats) and I never get a rotting smell.. i'd look under/behind the fridge see if maybe you dropped one and kicked it underneath or something. Also, you haven't had your freezer go out on you have you?

In addition to this, looking at the size of the snake you are probably going to need to start feeding 2 fuzzies/week.

Here's the program
http://serpwidgets.com/Apps/apps.html
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-Chris

0.1 Licorice Stick Black Rat
1.0 Black Rat
0.1 Vietnamese Blue Beauty
1.0 Green Tree Python
0.1 Texas Bairds Rat

The educated are the few. The uneducated are the masses.

North American Rat / Corn Snake Care Sheet

Thank you! And I agree on the fuzzies per feeding with you. We have, for a few months now, been offering him a second one most weeks, sometimes he takes it, sometimes not. Lately it's been more often than not. I could have been more explicit, sorry about that But I'll be offering every week regardless now.

They're stored in the bag they were shipped in (well-known vendor, came shipped with dry ice and were frozen solid when I opened the box) which is a thick ziploc type bag.

The smell doesn't smell like rotting carcas at all, it smells...just bad and it's only in the freezer, not the fridge or outside of it, just the freezer and only since about a month after we'd had the mice in there.

The smell factor, while unpleasant, doesn't bother me as much as potentially feeding Darwin mice that are bad for him. So far, so good, though, so maybe I'm worrying over nothing.

Should/Do frozen mice smell?

Might be an ideal to clean out your freezer, somethign else could have spilled and started to go rank in there. If the fuzzies smell bad when you open the ziplock bag and sniff inside, then it is probably them that are getting old. Though freezing does preserve foodstuffs, it doesn't prevent it from going bad. Eventually all food in the freezer will need to be thrown out. Most freezers are n ot cold enough to completely preserve foodstuff and often it leaches out moisture.

A clean freezer certainly will make it smell better, whether or n ot its the frozen mice that are stinking it up. Having an open box of baking soda will also keep the freezer smelling fresh. Same with the fridge as well.

Also, every time you open that ziplock bag, you are letting new air get into it, breaking the vacuum seal it may have had originally. Sometimes it's best, when you get your mice, to separate them into individual ziplock bags, suck out as much air as possible and reseal them. This way you only need to open the bag you need for feeding day and the rest remain sealed. You can put the smaller individual bags into a larger ziplock bag to keep from having loose bags of mice moving about your entire freezer and getting buried under other stuff.
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PHLdyPayne

Unfortunately, it sucks u bought so many pinkies. Not that u bought that many, often its cheaper in total to buy 100 together than 50 at petco.

Most people say the freezer life is 3 months, but u don't know how long yours were in the freezer where u bought them. I bought a bag of 100 for 3 animals, and its been just 3 months and I'm almost done w the bag.

Anyways, I've had this bag a while and it doesn't smell! Or maybe my nose doesn't work. But my fuzzies have no smell as far as i can tell.

Also, for next time, if u just have 1 snake, you will probably move up to fuzzies before your snake can finish 100 pinkies!

While your snake may be doing ok, perhaps this is because in the wild snakes eat what they can find, be it live or rotting. If the pinkies really are rotting, it will only get worse-and stinkier! I'd say cut your losses & get new. Also, double check your freezer temp- the dial in your freezer, to make sure its cold enough (it took me a while one time to figure out why my milk was going sour so quick-turns out someone knocked the dial in the fridge to "4" when it should be on "7"!). also be sure your pinkies are zipped in a ziplock bag to avoid freezerburn & dehydration!
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Zsa-Zsu and Corny the Corn Snake
and Monaco the Argentine B&W Tegu
and Meanie the Black Throat Monitor