Continuing the discussion from Greetings!:
How do you thaw your mice?
Obviously this means take them out of the freezer, but do you warm them up to be body heat? Do you just pop them into the microwave for a couple seconds?
These may seem like silly questions, but ive never fed snakes anything other them live in the past. And i dont exactly want to get my future snake sick from not knowing how to do that properly.
And whats the differences between how you thaw pinkys and fuzzys with the adult mice
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best way is to take them out of the freezer and let them thaw first in the refrigerator over night. After that there are many ways to heat.
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i put them in a zip lock bag and heat them in warm water until body temp is over 95* so it has a good heat signature.
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you can also heat with a hair dryer, some use heat lamp.
Only if you wanna buy a new microwave. Nothing like popped mice/rat
Pinks you can pretty much just put in warm water and then feed. Adult mice you will need to thawed first and then heated in a zip lock bag placed in warm water or hair dryer/ heat lamp method.
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My method is pretty simple, I just get my frozen rats, take a sheet of that aluminum foil and plop them down under that lamp. Takes a few hours, since I thaw them right by the rack the girls seem to get the scent and I’ve had really good success since I started doing it this way with them being ready and in feeding mode when I go to offer them prey.
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I personally put my mice/rats in a sandwich bag, tie it, then leave it in warm water for a few hours. They are usually done thawing in 1-2 hours but I like to be sure they are thawed. And never put them in the microwave, they get cooked that way and can explode. They are also way too hot to feed to a snake, and I have no idea what eating a hot cooked rat would do to a snake, but it probably won’t be good.
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My F/T routine has been the same for years and I have try various method some leading to poor experience such as exploding rodents.
So I thaw slaw at room temp in the snake room this also allow to pre-scent the room which entice my animals to eat.
One thawed I use a hair dryer to concentrate on the head. (I only do this for my BP, Carpets and KSB, I do not warm up the preys for my Honduran Milksnakes or Hognose)
I offer the preys by grabbing them behind the head and moving them as if they were alive vs dangling them by the tail.
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Going to give this a shot next week. Thanks Deb!
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Haha popped mice oh god no😂
okay warm water or on aluminum foil with a heat lamp thank you so much!