Freezing your feeders

[sbourget]

I've got a couple ideas and such about novel ways to freeze and keep your feeders, so I figured I'd put it all in one thread.

Mini-fridge as a Freezer:
By turning up my mini-fridge I can get the temperature to a steady -10C This is 7 degrees warmer than my larger freezer and I'm not sure if that will be an issue when it comes to keeping the animals frozen well enough.

Iced mice:
My mom who worked in a fish packing plant gave me the idea of completely incasing individual mice in ice to make them keep longer. The idea being that the Ice helps prevent freezer-burn by preventing air from getting to the mice, as well as keeping them cold for longer if the power happens to go out. using an Ice cube tray I could get the younger mice mostly into a block of ice, then I would likely use sandwhich bags to build the ice up enough to completely cover all parts of each mouse. They could then be either vaccum packed or put in ziplock bags.

Any other ideas, or any thoughts on my ideas are welcome and incouraged. I want to find the best possible way to keep my feeders well frozen. Especially if I sell them to someone who may not be able to or willing to re-seal a vaccum pack or suck the air out a ziplock bag.

 

[Lennycorn]

Wouldn't putting them in a vacuum packed bag be the same???
No air to prevent freezer burn??

 

[sbourget]

Yes, it should, however I'm looking at selling them to my local pet store, and they tend to bag their frozen animals like they bag their live fish, with lots of air in the bag. So the ice would help prevent freezer burn. As well, my mom said that the ice should help it to stay fresh longer. The added ice wouldn't effect thawing the animal so there's no harm in trying. I'm going to do so the next time I have some animals to freeze.

 

[sbourget]

Well, I had to kill some hoppers yesterday, so I put them in ice. I put them in an ice cube tray, tucked them down into their own cup, then filled it with enough water to mostly cover them. once it froze I added another layer of water to completely cover them, once that froze I broke them out and put a bit more water under the ice cubes to thicken the ice, and within 3 hours I had 4 perfect little mouse-cicles. Here's some pictures.

 

[Ryan23]

Cool little experimentand I'm sure it will work for getting rid of the freezer burn problem but I must say...you have way too much time on yours hands!!

 

[sbourget]

to much time you say? and here I thought I didn't have enough time on my hands.

 

[Baba-Lou]

Haha. Him...have to much time. Are you crazy if anyone of the two of us has two much time, its me. I don't work. He does lol. He thought it would have been a cool experiment though. He's the one that pops off the rodents (I'm slowly getting into it) I just raise them.

 

[dionythicus]

Just make sure you grab the right ice cubes for your drink!!

It's a good idea, hope it works.

 

[diamondlil]

i'll have to post some pics of my puree mousicles too!

 

[sbourget]

Please do so Diamondlil, would like to see what that looks like.
Well, I thawed one of the ice cubes out yesterday to feed spur, and there was no damage to the mouse despite it being kept in a ziploc bag. I'm just going to have to watch for sublimation of the ice. but I'm pretty sure that keeping them in the ice blocks is keeping them fresher.

 

[Baba-Lou]

Just make sure you grab the right ice cubes for your drink!!

It's a good idea, hope it works.

Haha oh lord. Thank god I won't be useing ice in my drinks for at least a few more months. Thank God we got out mini fridge set up for frozen mice. You wouldn't believe How many times I go to grab chicken in the freezer and grab a bag of mice. My lord.