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How to prepare a frozen mouse?

D

Debbie45

The biggest noob ever
So I heard to stick it in a plastic bag and stick that on the stove and turn up the heat gradually to about 85 degrees. Is that the right way to do it? Is there a better way?
 
I just run a glass of hot water stick the mouse in, in a bog or not, I usually change the water once for pinkies. The water needs to be really hot, but not off the stove. The pinkie should feel warm to the touch and you should be able to squeeze the head and it should feel soft. good luck, susan
 
I usually boil the kettle, half fill a container with cold water and then add hot water until the water is hot, sort of just before it gets too hot for me to keep my hand in there. Then I pop the mouse (or mice) in the water, usually in a baggie but sometimes not.

Some say that the bag leaves a funny taste on the mice (how they know this, I would be very interested to know) and some snakes won't eat bag-defrosted mice. Others say that the bag "seals in the flavour". Personally I haven't seen much evidence one way or the other, my guys chow down either with way no probs! lol

One thing though, just something I do but I don't feed the mice dry, my snakes are fed on newspaper so I usually give the prey a quick dunk in the warm water before feeding.
 
I run my tap really warm, then fill a glass with it, then pop the mouse in. I leave it for about 10mins, then empty the water, refill it, and give it another 5 mins to warm through before feeding it. Iv so far only had to feed pinkies and fuzzies, and this has worked fine. Maybe when I increase the size of mouse I may have to leave it in the warm water a little longer. To check its defrosted properly, if you gently squeeze its head or belly, you will be able to feel its temperature throughout, ifs its even slightly cold, I heat it up more! Good luck though, you'll soon find your own way that suits you best.
 
I take out how ever many pinkies I am feeding that day and sit them on a paper towel on top of my dart frog viv, under their lights. Once they no longer feel cold to me I feed them to the snakes.
 
I drop mine in a little plastic container turn the tap on as hot as it will go and use tongs to hold the pinkie in the container as I run the hot water into it it usually takes around 5 minutes. I then keep the mouse in the hot water until I feed so its nice and warm.
 
For pinkies/fuzzies I put them in hot water but for my larger items (small rats) I bought a toaster oven and heat them up slowly turning/checking them often. Works good for them but I wouldn't use it for the pinkies.
 
Hi,

I just leave the mice to thaw at room temperature and offer them once they are completely thawed.

Bye for now,

Jim
 
what i do is get a empty pickle jar a pinky in a zip lock bag then i fill the jar with hot tap water and the pinky goes in and i put the top on the jar so the steam of the hot water stays inside the jar keeping the jar hot enough to thaw out the pinky to so i then remove it and the pinky isnt hot but warm and then its feeding time
 
Okay, I had to get in on this too.......
What I do is keep the pinky in the bag, put it in hot water in a little tupperware container; then I put another tupperware container, filled with more hot water, on top of that to hold it down. I then check the temp after a few minutes and end up adding more hot water to the whole thing for a couple more minutes. My little baby seems to like her pinky pretty warm.

P.S. I would like to advise against putting a pinky in a microwave, ever. I did this once for a very short period of time, and it wasn't a pretty sight!

-Daneale
 
I'm jumping in here too..Since I have many snakes(sizes) I use a crock it holds heat better and just put in what I need pinkies,fuzzies, mice and just run some hot tap water over it for about two minutes. I then let it sit for about 10 minutes come back re heat with warm water for a sec and the pinkies are ready to go..I start with feeding my babies first then move on up and keep repeating with warm water in the crock till I get to the big guys which honestly can take about 20 minutes by this time and there's are all thawed out.

Someone posted about using a toaster oven..That might be of a concern ..would it possible cook the meat slightly?!? It would have less nutritional value then ..Just curious if they are in there long enuff to actually cook :shrugs:
 
Never, ever make the same mistake I did upon preparing my first snakemeal.

"Oh" I said to myself, "The box says to defrost them in warm water! I'll just heat up some water in my electric kettle and pour myself some tea and use the extra water to thaw the pinky and then have tea while I wait!"

Well, the water was quite hot, the tea was quite good, and the pinky was quite unfortunately boiled to the core. There is nothing as offputting as the scent of freshly boiled mouse to ruin your morning tea. :(

Thankfully, Kyoshi is quite forgiving and nomnomed his little pinky soup plate right down after about 20 minutes of cautious circling and sniffing.
 
I put the mousicles (2 snakes to feed) in a snack size zippy bag, fill a bowl with hot tap water, put the bag in the bowl and put a smaller bowl on top to hold it down. Then I let it sit on the counter for 10 min's or longer if I forget. Dump the thawed mice into the smaller bowl and then I use our Keurig to get a piping hot cup of water. Right before feeding I dunk the head of the mouse (or the whole pinky, when we were feeding those) into the hot cup of water and do then do the dangle of death. Both of our corns strike right away and sometimes give the kids a show by "killing" their dinner ;)

It's cool how everyone has their own way of doing the same thing.
 
I also use HOT tap water. I used to use the microwave for getting the water hot (not putting the mice in there.........) but there were too many instances of the mice being too hot and their guts leaking out through the abdominal wall...soooooooo...now I just use hot water out of the tap lol. I have mouse bowls set aside specifically for thawing of the mices so when I'm ready to thaw, I just plop the mouse in the bowl and fill it up, cover it up and let them do their thing.
 
Alicia P said:
Dump the thawed mice into the smaller bowl and then I use our Keurig to get a piping hot cup of water.
Click to expand...

If you use that Keurig for anything other than hot water, you might be flavoring your mice in interesting ways. I brew 1 cup of coffee a day, and it leaves enough residue downstream from the K-cup to flavor teas and produce light brown water. Seems your snakes don't mind, though, which is interesting in and of itself.
 
Guruofchem said:
If you use that Keurig for anything other than hot water, you might be flavoring your mice in interesting ways. I brew 1 cup of coffee a day, and it leaves enough residue downstream from the K-cup to flavor teas and produce light brown water. Seems your snakes don't mind, though, which is interesting in and of itself.
Click to expand...
Yeah there is usually some coffee grounds in the bottom of the cup, and the water has a tinge sometimes, which I thought might be a problem the first time we fed them, but they both took their food straight away. Now I'm afraid to just heat the water in the microwave, maybe they like their mice slightly caffeinated?? :laugh:
 
Well, as you can see there are lots of options. I don't always do it the same way, but one thing I've found is that if I heat a frozen one too quickly, it is more likely to pop and make a mess while it's being eaten. So, I prefer to defrost on the counter or in the fridge before I hear it. Actually, this last feeding, Ala grabbed the thawed mouse off the counter before I even dunked it in the hot water. LOL! She's not nor has she ever been a picky eater. So maybe I'm waisting my time heating it. :)
 
I'll heat the tap water up until it's almost hot enough to burn my hand, fill up a tea cup and leave the pinky in the bag, and put it in the cup and set the kitchen timer. Usually takes about 7-9 minutes, and makes it very warm and extremely mushy. But that's the only way mine takes hers. Every snake seems to take theirs differently. You may have to 'experiment' with some thawing techniques. I had to before finding out how she took hers.
 
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