mice expirey time period

[Slateman]

You do not have to rush, your snake can be with out food long time. You would be surprise what bit of hunger can do. Keep trying and make sure that snake have comfort and right temperature.

 

[ajler]

Mice Expirery Time Period

A very intresting topic, one I have wanted to find more about.I have been told to leave the mouse in the cage overnight if the snake dos,nt eat it and then chuck it back in the freezer for next time, have allso been told to leave tucker in the cage for days untill they do eat it. Obviosly wrong addvice but it does make me wonder about rodent breeders I bought some rats from a breeder who said all his mice died from the heat he just threw them in the freezer and I suppose will sell them, at the time I just assumed that it was ok. I wonder how many other rodent breeders do that and how long where they dead before being found.

 

[lutzd]

I have had the occassional batch of frozen rodents from pet shops that have obviously been refrozen. The black gunk that comes out of them when they are constricted has to be smelled to be believed! :shock: :roll:

In my opinion, it's not worth the risk. Snake = $250 odd. Frozen rodent = $3.00 odd. You do the math!

 

[Hawkeye]

Just for the record.

I also have a degree in transplantation immunology where I did heart transplants on rats. Bacterial counts were an integral part of what we did as we were dealing with heavily immunocompromised animals (they had no ability to fight infection). There skin and gut bacterial counts are frightening at best.

As has been said before how much is YOUR snake worth?

Cheers Hawkeye

 

[Slateman]

And that is reason why most of reptile keepers do bread they own food. That bit of security that rats are freshly killed and frozen. I do know cases when people freezed rats after finding them death in cage after heated day. I trust only to my own stock.

 

[ajler]

Mice Expirery Time Period

It looks like I am now into rodent breeding I was trying to avoid !lots of rodents mean lots of reps oh well cant be all bad

 

[boconnor]

I know you are talking about snakes here but what about the larger monitors that feed on carrion. Are they designed to handle large amounts of bacteria that would be found in this food type?

 

[Hawkeye]

Actually there is an interesting thread regarding this on http://www.venomdoc.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=380 about komodo dragons and their saliva. Animals that eat carrion (ie dead rotting things) have developed evolutionary protection against decomposition bacteria and in the cas of some monitors it actually acts as a form of 'poison' with a komodo dragons bite being quite lethal due to the bacteria on their teeth (surpisingly the komodos that are captive bred do not have the toxins in their saliva due to the fact they are fed relatively fresh food. The monitor itself has antibodies and immunity against the bacteria and they live happily together.

Snakes eat live fresh prey as a rule and have not got this evolutionary protection and therefore will suffer the consequences of essentially food poisoning.

Cheers Hawkeye

PS: That is also why when you get bitten by your snake you tend not to run the risk of infection but monitor bites on the other hand get infected quite easily if you feed them carrion

 

[Parko]

Great info Hawkeye we are lucky to have you here matey! Goes to show if people like boconnor who is asking with the honest intent of wanting to know and not just blowing his own trumpet than you can receive great advice and information from this website!

 

[gudang]

this is why i only feed live food. snakes dont eat frozen mice in the wild and you cant be sure how these frozen pet shop/breeder ones have been prepared

 

[Greebo]

That is true Gudang but a defrosted rat can't bite your snake and possibly take its eye out.
Frozen is my prefered method every time.

 

[gudang]

id only feed frozen if the rodents were bred by me and frozen by me and handed to the snake by me. there is a convenience issue too of course but im sure the pros and cons have been debated on this site before....