Holey Mice

[Drizzt80]

. . . and no I don't mean holy!

I'm curious as to whether or not anyone else has seen a problem with freezing their own mice. I have recently frozen some pinks and fuzzies, and they all seem to have little round holes, indentations, similar to if someone had poked them with a dull pencil tip. They are darker colored and perfectly round.

I am obviously not inclined to use them for food at this time since this doesn't really seem normal. Has anyone else seen this, or know what it might mean for the mice? (Other than they are already frozen and dead!!) I have others that I have frozen in the same freezer, and they don't have this. Also, the mice in question were from several different batches of babies.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

D80

[Probe7899]

I have never seen this with any of my mice or rats. I get my rodents from the same vender at the local expo and never had a problem yet.

[CornCrazy]

I can't say that I have ever seen anything like what you are describing. Could you post a picture?

[Drizzt80]

I will try to get some pics. It's pretty obvious on the mice, cratering would be another description I would give to it. Also, they are not mice purchased online, they are locally bred mice that I have frozen. This is what makes me wonder what it might be. I have never seen it before in frozen mice.

[bmm]

Sounds like freezer burned, dehydrated mice to me. Either the freezer burn took all the water out of them or they were very very dehydrated before death.

That's what I think it is. If that IS the problem, it could be harmful to feed them off to your snake as the snake won't be getting enough moisture in the meals.

bmm

[pinatamonkey]

I have seen pinkies get kind of crater-y if I refreeze them.

[Drizzt80]

They didn't seem to have the consistency of refrozen mice, but they could have been I suppose. Also, they didn't have the 'texture' of having been freezer burnt either, but who knows? I obviously haven't seen it all yet!! I am posting the pics anyway just in case someone else may have seen something similar.

http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/data/31426pinkies.jpg

http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/data/31426pinkies2.jpg

Pintamonkey, do these look similar to what you have seen? If they are that would narrow it down to them having been refrozen after thawing out at some point.
I wasn't planning on feeding them anyway, but wanted to make sure it wasn't something like parasites, etc. that may have caused it.

Thanks for the help!

D80

[bmm]

Too me those look like *Extremely* old mice. I would not buy from that supplier again.

bmm

[Drizzt80]

I guess I'm going to have to stop buying my own frozen mice!! :D

Seriously though, I personally froze these not more than 2 weeks ago. The picture is a little bit off, but more than likely they somehow thawed out a little and then refroze. I can control the mice I put in the freezer, but am not in control of this particular freezer 24/7. :(

Looks like another herp expenditure in the future!! Won't the wife love to hear that!

D80

[bmm]

How weird. I have a bag of pinkies that kinda got lost in all the other mice for like a year.......like looked very similar. Very old discolored looking....

but yeah if it was only two weeks ago one can only assume something happened in there late at night! *L*

bmm