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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2015 5:56:21 GMT -5
Love Hare Today. Ordered Rabbits(small). They were clean as r my guinea pigs. Looks like they r well taken care of---as if they had been someone's pet.
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Hare Today
Aug 22, 2015 19:39:46 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Corvidophile on Aug 22, 2015 19:39:46 GMT -5
Ordered from here for the first time this week, and I got: Venison cubes (boneless) Goat cubes (boneless) Duck chunks (entirely inclusive of the body) Rabbit chunks (same) Beef lung Beef kidney 25 mouse bag
The shipping stated 2 days and it took just that long. Came almost fully frozen, just the edges had started to soften but still full of ice crystals.
All of the boneless cuts and whole body chunks smell good, right colour and moisture content (no freezer burn) and are cleanly cut, as was the section of kidney. The lungs I was a little disappointed in, but that might just be my expectations not being right- I didn't think they'd pop in part of the trachea as that weight, and if it were me doing the processing I'd rinse out the old cud before packing it. The meat itself was again in great condition, but the cud chunks stank like halitosis and poop. A few seconds under the tap and they were gone, though.
The mice... I'm afraid I'm not gonna order mice from them again. They were really freezer burnt, and due to me being a weirdo who doesn't mind dead pets in the freezer, when my rats were old and the first one of the group passed away, I left him frozen waiting for them all to pass on to bury them together. He was in there five months and wasn't any different looking than the final rat to pass when I gathered them all up to bury, and it's not like I didn't open and shut the freezer frequently, so how old/temp fluctuated were these mice? They had white had blisters all over them from ice damage.
They also weren't clean, out of 25 I rinsed off yellow puddles from eight and plucked poop off of three, and five of them had burst sinus blood vessels. This occurs when they're flooded hard or put into a preloaded chamber with CO2 instead of slowly increased, I wasn't happy to be holding animals that died under strong distress.
The ones I rinsed defrosted and I gave them massages to check out how they were during life, and honestly they were in good condition, soft even coats without staining aside from the after-death pee on some, clean toenails and pink feet, well muscled tails, strong skin, and plump without being too fat. So they led good lives judging by body condition! Just the gassing wasn't conducted properly, and they were either stored frozen far too long, or in strongly fluctuating temperatures.
I'd order cuts of meat in the future, but not whole prey rodents.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2015 12:12:15 GMT -5
Did you write them about this? Please do.
I am glad you r knowledgeable about this. What do I need to look for to see if this is happening at Perfect Prey. Does it show on outside?
I have never ordered mice from there because I wanted to get ASF rats and order both from Perfect Prey out of Florida. (Perfect Prey uses dry ice)
Thanks for heads up. I am disappointed.
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Hare Today
Aug 23, 2015 13:56:13 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Corvidophile on Aug 23, 2015 13:56:13 GMT -5
Yeah, they look like they had a massive nosebleed, plain old dried blood on the nose (deep brick to Kool-Aid red depending on how long it was exposed to air before being frozen, but not peachy transparent orange, that's just the colour of rodent snot) some of those I rinsed and they began bleeding out the nose again when thawed because the path was open when they died. You can tell too if it's rinsed off before you got the mouse, but generally only in comparison to other mice, look at the faces next to each other: the nose and lips will be tinted only with skin pigment instead of the glow of blood. In white mice that would register as yellowish instead of pinkish, in darker shades it's gonna be grayish instead of tannish. Don't be worried comparing the nose and lips to the feet and tail, those areas are generally always a more vibrant shade than the lips, really gotta compare lip to lip of another mouse unless you have an eye for it (just like you develop an eye for any animal's bizarre pallor, like I'm sure some people here could tell at a glance a ferret's skin tone is too flushed or too pale without comparing animal to animal)
I didn't take pictures because I spread them out on my counter and wanted to check them over and clean those that needed it quickly before they defrosted more, and also I didn't want my husband to walk into the kitchen and toss his lunch at the lineup of dead mice where I prepare our food too, LOL, but I'll go into the bag and certainly take photos of the nose colour differences and blisters.
I know I should write to them, but I'm still hemming over how to do it. I don't want to sound like an extremist unsatisfiable animal rights person who cant be pleased, don't want to come off as whiny, etc. The goal isn't getting money/store credit, I'm sure I could bully them into that, but A: I don't want to sour my relationship with this company, and B: I'm gonna feed them to him, so that would be cheating anyway. One problem might be cost: it takes longer to do it more gently, and time is money. For the amount of dissatisfied people who can tell what a nosebleed during death means, is it worth all the extra minutes of paying employees to gass them slower? You also need to allow more space for a larger euthanasia chamber if you want to avoid whizz in the fur: a mesh floor that the mice stand on that allows excrement to pass through to the bottom of the container. More space means more CO2 needed to do the same job. Etc.
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Hare Today
Aug 23, 2015 14:13:57 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Corvidophile on Aug 23, 2015 14:13:57 GMT -5
I went to Perfeft Prey's site, from their FAQ:
"What is the best way to thaw out rodents for feeding?
We prefer to let frozen rats and frozen mice thaw to room temperature overnight if we plan on feeding the next morning, or during the day if we’re going to feed that night. It is important to break the vacuum seal on the bag before thawing as the vacuum will draw blood out of the noses of the thawing rodents, which can be messy."
This blows being able to check out the water. I don't think this is an excuse on their part though, vacuum sealing is more expensive and time-comsuming than gassing slowly. I like the vacuum sealed detail! Still, no way to tell with that being done.
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