# How long can frozen mice be stored



## Toxic Cables

Wondering how long i can store frozen mice for or do they need to be used within a certain time frame.

I am about to place a new order, so wondering how much i should buy.

Thanks in advance.


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## deefa139

http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/snakes/473776-frozen-mice-rats-rabbits-how.html

Thread should answer some/all of your questions.


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## Toxic Cables

deefa139 said:


> http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/snakes/473776-frozen-mice-rats-rabbits-how.html
> 
> Thread should answer some/all of your questions.


Thank you.


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## Guest

6months is ideal really.

After 2-3 months any rodents without fur will start to show "freezer burn" - white specs on them that don't look too pretty but this is perfectly harmless and the rodents can still be used freely.

Most of our customers order either every 3 or 6months if that also helps


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## Toxic Cables

Thank you.

I am just waiting on the freezer to be delivered, then will place an order with yourself.

The wife has been going nuts with me keeping the mice in the current freezers


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## jarich

FrozenReptile said:


> 6months is ideal really.
> 
> After 2-3 months any rodents without fur will start to show "freezer burn" - white specs on them that don't look too pretty but this is perfectly harmless and the rodents can still be used freely.
> 
> Most of our customers order either every 3 or 6months if that also helps


Ok I know its a little picky, but six months is hardly ideal. _Ideally_ you'll want to use them within a month of freezing, but you can go longer. That freezer burn is the ice crystals migrating out from within, degrading and damaging the cellular structure of the animal. Basically it means they are becoming less nutritious. As well, after about a month, fats start to denature in the freezer. Within about three months they start to go rancid. Its unlikely a real nutritional problem in the end, but if you want ideal, then go through your stock within about a month to three months.


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## Drayvan

I'd go with about 6 months, ideally sooner as above. The few things I've defrosted after 6 months have been rather squishy and not as good as what Id expect from a few months frozen...but they were an iffy batch from the start so could just of been that.

Slightly off topic Re: freezer burns, being a right cooking noob I was watching a cooking thing the other day and they were going on about keeping meat in totally airtight packaging (like greaseproof paper wrapped in clingfilm etc) completely removing and risk of freezer burn...would that be true for furless rodents? They're meat after all :blush:


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## Guest

jarich said:


> Ok I know its a little picky, but six months is hardly ideal. _Ideally_ you'll want to use them within a month of freezing, but you can go longer. That freezer burn is the ice crystals migrating out from within, degrading and damaging the cellular structure of the animal. Basically it means they are becoming less nutritious. As well, after about a month, fats start to denature in the freezer. Within about three months they start to go rancid. Its unlikely a real nutritional problem in the end, but if you want ideal, then go through your stock within about a month to three months.


One of the first thing the snake starts to do when its digesting stuff is break down and denature the products to chop them in to smaller pieces for use. There would be no nutritional change.

Regarding freezer burn, its mostly caused by how often you open and close the freezer because its surface crystals of water defrosting and re-freezing causing cells to rupture and the discolouration.

Again I'd jump back to the fact that all these processes take place during digestion anyway, and the nutritional content of the rodent doesn't "go anywhere" when cells are ruptured, things denature, etc. Hell, I'm sure a hell of a lot of proteins are denatured during the blast freezing process.


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## jarich

Freezer burn is caused by the water forming ice crystals that then migrate out of the cells. If you wrap food tightly, it will delay the crystals migration from the surface of the food, since the ice crystals on the surface have nowhere to sublimate. However, over months of freezing, the crystals will migrate no matter what. 

The packaging makes a difference to the fats too, and herein lies the nutritional difference. If they are not packaged in an air tight way, the freezer will oxidize the fats and eventually turn them rancid. It actually can also break the bonds, especially of relatively unstable unsaturated fatty acids, and leaves you with a much less nutritional food. Sorry, FrozenReptile, that is not the same thing as the digestive process of your reptile. This is made worse by the way in which most people thaw their rodents, namely in a bowl of water, since now some of the nutrients have gone somewhere...into the bowl of water. 

As for your blast freezing, that actually helps. Freezing at much lower temperatures reduces the size of the ice crystals, so fewer cells are damaged. Freezing in just a typical household freezer will not only cause larger crystals (more cellular damage), but also because of the way they warm and cool it can really do some damage over time. That is the main reason why you dont want to leave them in your freezer for months on end. If you have a big deep freezer in your garage that you barely ever open, so that the temperature stays consistently cold all the time, then six months is not a big deal. If, like most people, you just have a normal self defrosting (fluctuating temp) household freezer, then 3 months or less is best. Again, Im not saying its the end of the world if you have 6 month old rats in your freezer, just that they arent as nutritional as the ones that have been in there for a couple weeks.


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