re-freezing food?

steveo · 08-30-04, 05:38 PM

please someone correct me but i hhave heard that it is ok to re-freeze food as long as it is not in the cage for far too long to the point it started to stink good and so on. i have also heard it is awful to do even to the extent of half thawing the food and re freezing. i know i am rambeling but if someone could read this and reply that would be much appreciated.

burmese maniac · 08-30-04, 05:46 PM

once your food has been unfrozen it is not recomended to re-freeze it , as we would not do so with our food!!!!!!

bistrobob85 · 08-30-04, 06:23 PM

yeah, snakes need fresh food. In the wild, they kill all their meals and don't even touch dead animals, so keep the food as fresh as you would keep food for yourself...

phil.

Jayson · 08-30-04, 10:19 PM

actually snakes have been reported eating carrion (sp?) although not very often it does still happen.
Reguardless we are not talking about wild animals, we are talking about captive animals that were most likly born and raised in much more sterile conditions.
I personally have in the past refroze feeders before and have never had any problem, however i have since stopped doing this, after considering the cost of a new feeder vs. the value of my pets i decided that its not worth the gamble.

Dom · 08-31-04, 12:02 AM

Personally, I have no problem re freezing an animals once .. after that its good for the garbege if its not eaten ... Or it goes to monitors.

The problem with freezing and unthawing is that it breaks down the cells and eventually all the inside organs become mixt and smelly .. I never leave it unthawed for more then an hour.. if they dont take it back in the freezer only once..

Thats just my way of doing it .. I have been for years and have never ever encoutered any problems.. I know many ppl who do this practice as well and never have I or any others I know seen any ill effects..

Except saving a few bucks

Dom

seann · 08-31-04, 12:22 AM

That's true I do it all the time well I have corns so their nothing they won't reject except on odd days like shedding or when the females are pregnant i will refreeze them thats right away though cause my snakes grab it as soon as they see it as soon as i hold it infront of the snakes and dont except i will refreeze right away and try again later and have never had anyproblems with my snakes.

bistrobob85 · 08-31-04, 12:44 AM

Also true that the monitors can deal with almost any carrion you feed them...

BoidKeeper · 08-31-04, 04:11 AM

I used to re-freeze once. But now the way I look at it is I wouldn't re-freeze meat and then eat it so I don't do it with my snakes. I know snakes are not people but I'm just not comfortable with the practice anymore.
Cheers,
Trevor

rwg · 08-31-04, 06:25 AM

There's two issues: 1) food slowly goes bad while thawed. 2) cells rupture in the freeze-thaw cycle.

Issue 2 is asthetic...doesn't really affect the safety of the food, but makes it a bit yucky.

Issue 1 is the health concern. They tell humans not to re-freeze their food not because it's unsafe but because it's hard to track wether it's safe or not. Bacteria goes to sleep in the freezer, but resumes it's activity on thawing, so meat that was "almost bad" when frozen will be bad pretty quickly after thawing. It's hard to track how long food has been "going bad" when it's in and out of the freezer.

Anyway, re-freeze if you want (I do once), but make sure the total time the rodent has been thawed stays pretty low especially if you thaw in warm/hot water since that provides good conditions for bacterial growth.

rg

Samba · 08-31-04, 09:09 AM

Luckily I haven't had many problems with this issue, and on the odd occassion my burm doesn't want to eat I'll refreeze the rat and try again the next day. Only two or three times have I had to bury rats because they weren't eaten within these two feedings, and 99% of the time they're gone on the first attempt.

Now, I also am curious about a habit my snake has when it comes to eating; if anyone else has noticed this in their animals doing the same it would be interesting to hear about it...

My snake usually strikes his rats right away, and most of the time, loosely coils around them. Then, when he's 'killed' his rat he'll release his hold, and seem to forget all about it. He'll crawl around, look at me, do anything but EAT the darn rat!!! If I leave him alone ( I think removing a distraction - myself) he'll calm down and eat. He's so predictable, in fact, that, my occassional laziness has prompted me once or twice to just toss a thawed rat into his enclosure and forget about it. No teasing needed. I could believe that carion-eating deal... if a snake came upon a freshly killed snack... =)

steveo · 08-31-04, 02:15 PM

thanks to everyone that replied that really means a lot. it means more that i recieved many more positive replies and no replies i noticed that more than anything simply said i am an idiot... too much of thatsilly shtuff happens here. i am sorry that it is so hard to find info on these animals, that is what i think exactly why we are all here. so yeah long story short thanks for the help.