How do you thaw frozen rodents?

[Texas Blonde]

Ok, so I got my frozen mice for my snake today, and started thinking about the thawing process. I used to always just set them on a heatmatt on a piece of tin foil. It worked pretty well, but took a long time. What does everyone else do?

 

[Marc_C]

Usually I just throw them into a bucket of warm water. This seems to work the best for me....

Whatever you do, don't try the microwave ****KABOOM**** Rat guts everywhere... hehehe

 

[smokejuan]

Put them in a zip lock pastic bag or other sealed plastic bag and run hot water in the sink or other large container. Set the bag in the water and wait. This will still take a while and may need to rewarm the water. Depending on your water it may be too hot out of the spigget and could start cooking it a bit but it would have to be pretty hot and not likely. Make sure it is just warm all the way through and not too hot for you snake. I do this every weekend and have some sitting in water right now.

 

[xelda]

Just put the mouse in a tub, fill it with warm water. The water will turn cold, but it should only take 10-15 minutes for your mouse to thaw as it's sitting in the water. Then run the mouse under hot water to warm the mouse back up, rinse off any pee on the mouse, and to also double check that it's completely thawed. While it's still warm from the hot water, dry the mouse off with paper towels. Wet mice turn cold really quickly, but dry mice can retain heat much longer, making them seem more alive to the snake.

I thaw about 70 mice at a time this way. Letting them sit out all day or even thawing them in warm water allows a lot of bacteria accumulate, but letting them thaw in cold water helps to counter bacterial growth.

 

[VesAn]

I put 'em in a small bowl, then place the bowl in the fridge (not the freezer) sometime in the morning, I take the bowl out at night, put the mouse inside a small zip lock bag, put bag in warm water for 10 minutes then feed.

 

[Hedorah99]

Just put them in a tupperware bin and leave either in teh fridge overnight or at room temp for a few hours. If you are gonna use water use cool to luke warm water. Hot water has the chance to start some bacteria either breeding on the rodent or cooking it slightly, denaturing some of the nutrients. That and if you leave it too long, you'll be sorry. I left a rat in a water bath too long and most of its insides came out when the snake grabbed it.

 

[Crotalus]

usually i thaw them next to a heatsource like the terrarium spot

 

[dirtborder4life]

Thawing

Yea,i thaw my mice and rats under a heat lamp,turning them until they are thawed and warm all the way through.

 

[Schlyne]

I bag them all in individual ziplock bags, and fill the sink with hot water, refilling with hot water when the water cools. This probably takes about an hour, considing the size of the rats for my adult snakes.

I'm glad I'm not thawing out bunnies.