No I take the rats out of the freezer the night before I feed and put them in the refrigerator to get a head start on the unthaw process because it takes forever for a thick large rat to unthaw
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@caron he was being facetious with his remark.
Unthaw means to freeze. Thawing is what you do with your rats.
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Too many disgusting explosions over the years, so no more hot water. (Ziplock baggy or not.) I keep it simple. Frozen rats go directly from freezer to ziplock bag to fridge where they wait overnight. The next day (after the rats have unthawed in the fridge), I set a large heat mat on the counter to full power. I remove the ziplock baggy from the fridge and lay it on the heat mat. Then I wait 30 minutes. Done. No stinky rat water. No dirty dishes. No explosions. Just lightly warmed rats.
I may be trying the room temp method this weekend. Thanks for the tip, OP. 
Chris
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So…last night, I got out a frozen mouse for my sand boa, put it in a cup of hot water…and then wandered away, got distracted, and forgot about it for about 30 minutes. When I came back to it, it was thawed and sort of lukewarm, just slightly warmer than room temp. I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to see if she’d take a not-warm mouse…and she did indeed eat it! She didn’t seem to care that it was cooler than her usual offerings.
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Ahhhhhhhh! I’m a little slow sometimes but thank you! (Actually I’m a LOT slower sometimes but we will keep this our little secret!) Again, I am truly sorry for my mistake. I try go by “judge not lest ye judged” but as you can see, it’s a work in progress for me……. 
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I think some people tend to overstate things like this. The snakes we keep/breed haven’t lived in the wild in many many generations.
Snakes in the wild also often have parasites in them. We don’t want our snakes to have parasites.
I’m going to again, restate my comment that just because it happens or is done one way, doesn’t make it ideal or the right way. The whole entire goal of us as keepers should be to keep pushing for the absolute best for the animals we are keeping. We wouldn’t feed any of our animals a rotting carcass because we think they can handle it, or just because one of their ancestors used to eat things like that.
We do things a LOT different than how our ancestors did things. We learned, we adapted.
Okay, I’ll hop off my soap box now. Just felt this needed to be restated. Just my opinion
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Bacterial growth still occurs at cooler temperatures even in fridge temperatures, thats why meat should be heated to over 70C before serving. But yes warmer than a fridge = faster growth. hence over 70c cooking temps to kill the bacteria. I am very fussy about my food being stored right and cooked right.
However,:-
I agree with this, they are not delicate like us neither is their stomach acid. I have had dogs that eat other animals poo if I cant stop them quick enough. And they were fine, they evolved differently to us.
BUT this was not my point, very interesting discussion as it is.
I was not talking about defrosting styles, but instead, once defrosted (by whatever means) Do we need to warm the food item so the snake will see the heat and take it.
As in the OP, I found I do not need to with all my hatchlings that had already started feeding.
I used to warm the food once defrosted to initiate a strike, but do not need to anymore.
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Not exactly. It’s still present but isn’t really growing or able to grow at the same rate that it is when it’s above 40 degrees. I’m not saying keeping something in the fridge is going to negate bacteria, just that leaving it for the hours it would take to thaw exposes it to higher temps leading to more bacteria.
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I am scrolling old threadsand I have to share a story about defrosting dinner on the counter…
We had a black lab growing up. We let her out every morning and she suddenly started showing up with meat. Steaks, chicken, whole roasts…
She was going under the neighbors fence and into their house through the doggy door. They had a Jack Russell…she was stealing their dinner off the kitchen countertop and bringing it home…so when people say “be careful, it could attract pests” …it is 100% true! 
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Ok so that story is priceless! This put a smile on my face! Thank you so much for sharing! 
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You didn’t finish the story! What did you do with the meat? It’s not like you would be able to return it…
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I think my parents threw it away and gave the neighbors $50. The neighbors started locking the doggie door and fixed the hole in the fence!
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Oh my goodness! This is hilarious! 
I wonder, before your folks talked to the neighbors about your pesty black Lab, did they blame their innocent Jack Russell for the disappearing meat? 
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And @jennamcg That lab was one smart dog I have to say! I can just imagine the perplexing thoughts going through the minds of the next door neighbors who kept finding their kitchen counters “meatless”! 
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I think the neighbors were at a total loss…there was really no way the little JR could get on the counter. He was old and fat! And he never left his yard so they had no clue there was a hole under the fence! It was definitely dug by our lab. Behind a bush, and out of sight. I think they were concerned someone was breaking in!
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They weren’t totally wrong!
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