Anybody know what this is on my frozen rats?

Hello,
I ordered some frozen rats from rodentpro about a month ago. All the rats looked good, but I just started to use the rat pinks from this shipment. I noticed there is this white stuff on them. I didn't really inspect them when I got them, just stuck everything in the freezer, so I just noticed it.

Do you know what this stuff is? it is not ice crystals or anything...



I was going to separate the ones that have this, but all of them do- I have ordered 2 size of rat pinks, both bags have this white stuff on the pinks.

Also, I am hoping this is the correct section of the forum... I am thinking since my post is about my snake's food, the feed section is correct... if not, just let me know ( yeah, I get paranoid about posting in wrong section-LOL)

Anyways, thanx in advance! I really hope this is nothing, or I just waisted the money on bad rats...

Janet

Looks like freezer burn to me.

Bart

freezer burn, I never saw it before.... so I got a few more questions:
1- is it still safe to feed to my snakes?

and
2- what can I do to prevent freezer burn again? tho I do have frozen mice pinks bought from a reptile show that didn't get freezer burn... so I wonder if my freezer did it? Now, if it was done in the shipping by the company, shamefully I didn't notice it until now.

janet

You never saw freezer burn before or never on mice before? It is a fairly common occurrence with meat that has been frozen for an extended period of time. My guess is the mice you received were not recently packaged and had been in RP's freezer for some time prior to shipping, or the zip lock bag was not secured properly. It is not something your specific freezer would have caused.

Bart

Freezer burn will not hurt the snakes. It is pretty common with pinks and pups, especially.

Believe it or not- I haven't seen freezer burn before, or at least not to my knowledge-LOL! I never had a lot of frozen rats in stock, I just started to stock up as my collection grew. I also don't really keep a lot of meats in my freezer for me. Now, I have heard of it before...atleast

I do feel kinda dumb now, but at least I found out what it was before I fed it to snakes.

I did place them in a better bag system, and will be vacuumed sealed soon. Thankyou both for your replies, I appreciate it very much.



Janet

buying frozen feeders that are vacuum packed will elimnate this,i buy from big cheese rodent factory because all there feeders are vacuum packed,greatly extending there shelf life.have fun !

You can also buy a Foodsaver vacuum packer and reseal your rats and mice (in new bags) and keep them fresh much longer. I've been using one for years and it works great. Sometimes I only use a few rats out of a pack of 25 or 50 and I vacuum reseal it over a period 4 to 8+ weeks, the last rats are as fresh as the first.

The machine cost is around $80 to $100 depending on model and the bags are $10 for a roll which will bag a lot of rats and they are reusable. If you keep partial bags of feeders around I recommend getting a vacuum packer.

I agree the food saver is worth the investment- i already got one! If that whit e stuff turned out to be mold or fungus, I did want to waste the time vacuum sealing it. But I am going to do the sealing this weekend.

I did some searching on this site and discovered I wasn't the only one to have freezer burn on their shipment ( i can only assume th e pinks were like that for shipment, but can't say for sure) from RP. I'll check into big cheeze and other sellers. Yes, i'd rather them come already vacum sealed- better rats and less work for me...

thankyou all for your helpful replies. I really appreciate it!

janet