Hi guys!
I fed a couple of my snakes last night on freshly thawed rats. These were raised and frozen by me, and I'm guessing that somewhere along the line they partially thawed and refroze.
When one of the snakes grabbed and squeezed the rat, some rather unpleasant black watery stuff oozed out. Another thawed rat that I left in another enclosure overnight was severely bloated and again, contained an excess of the same unpleasant stuff.
I've seen this from time to time in frozen prey that I've purchased from various places and put it down to the same thing - thawing and refreezing.
My question is whether prey items in this state will do any harm to my snakes.
Obviously I wouldn't deliberately feed them with food in this state, but what about accidentally, as per what happened last night? Will it harm them? If not, will they still get the same nutritional value from these items?
Thanks in advance for any answers.
:wink:
I fed a couple of my snakes last night on freshly thawed rats. These were raised and frozen by me, and I'm guessing that somewhere along the line they partially thawed and refroze.
When one of the snakes grabbed and squeezed the rat, some rather unpleasant black watery stuff oozed out. Another thawed rat that I left in another enclosure overnight was severely bloated and again, contained an excess of the same unpleasant stuff.
I've seen this from time to time in frozen prey that I've purchased from various places and put it down to the same thing - thawing and refreezing.
My question is whether prey items in this state will do any harm to my snakes.
Obviously I wouldn't deliberately feed them with food in this state, but what about accidentally, as per what happened last night? Will it harm them? If not, will they still get the same nutritional value from these items?
Thanks in advance for any answers.
:wink: