safe for snake?

hey guys, Charles is being a little picky with his f/t rats so ive decided id try some prekilled stuff and have noticed that the best way seems to CO2 gas them. I just wanted to make sure that this was safe for my ball. I would be feeding it to him very soon after gassing it and am just slightly worried about the CO2 that will still be in the rats system. Thanks a bunch for the opinions

dont pick CO2, pick any other gas, CO2 feels terrible for mammals if not done absolutely correctly.

people use CO2 because its rather fast and cheap and for historical reasons, also when people think "suffocate" and dont know much about gases, they think "CO2". So its the obvious choice, but still the wrong choice. all mammals can detect a rise of blood & brain CO2-levels and respond with reflexes, cramps, convulsions.

use nitrogen or any noble gas like helium or argon. will be slower, but mammals will detect absolutely nothing. There will be no CO2 buildup, and mammals cannot detect a lack of oxygen, they just get sleepy and yawn and fall asleep. No CO2-induced suffocation panic.

Best choice is laughing gas / nitrous oxide. super painless super fast. even faster than CO2. Literally seconds, people stupid enough to deeply inhale it while standing get knocked out so fast that they dont manage to sit down, instead they crash into furniture or something, youtube is full of that stuff. (its only deadly if exposure is continued).

worst choice (apart from toxic/corrosive gases like sarin, mustard gas, chlorine) is CO2.

and now we will have this discussion all over again i think ;) Fact remains, based on human experience: CO2 is nasty. And nitrous oxide is inhaled by some people for fun. Nitrous oxide is not illegal unless intended for human consumption and quite easy to get.


edit: its safe for the ball, no matter if you use nitrogen / nitrous oxide / noble gas / CO2. no risk there.

Co2 is fine, it's been proven. Many threads deal with that arguement already. Far as feeding after gassing off like they are asking, I know people that do it with out any ill effects to their snake, I also have friends who prekill the rats before feeding by breaking their necks (not nicest way to do it)

Co2 is completely safe and humane OP. Just make sure the gas is introduced slowly. When you think the rodent is dead, do a rapid release of gas for a minute or so to make sure. The left over gas will not be in the rodent's system. The Co2 dissipates on it's own.


Quit giving poor advice Kurt. Why are you such a broken record and keep insisting on giving the same advice over and over again.
Why do refuse to believe in the proven facts?
You're going to hurt animals in the process and lead them to a inhumane death. So I highly suggest you restrain yourself from posting potentially harmful things and/or educate yourself.


Some studies that show adverse effects of Nitrogen/Argon euthanasia:

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Our study indicates that rats are averse to argon-induced hypoxia over a range of flow rates, and the physiological effects of hypoxia become aversive at approximately 7.7% O2. These results suggest that argon is not a suitable alternative to CO2 for the euthanasia of rats.

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I. Joanna Makowska, Lee Niel, Richard D. Kirkden, Daniel M. Weary, Rats show aversion to argon-induced hypoxia, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Volume 114, Issues 3–4, 1 December 2008, Pages 572-581, ISSN 0168-1591, 10.1016/j.applanim.2008.04.005.


Specific behaviors were observed that might relate directly to pain and distress during gas exposure. No rats in either the argon or CO2 treatment group showed any obvious escape behaviors during gas exposure. Shaking occurred in 3 animals during the baseline period and in one animal from the argon treatment group during gas exposure. Grooming of the face was observed in one animal during CO2 exposure and in 2 animals during argon exposure. During argon exposure, rats showed adverse behaviors before they appeared to lose consciousness. All of the argon-exposed rats showed hyperreflexia or seizures; these occurred both before and after recumbency without tone. In addition, 3 of 7 argon-exposed rats showed back arching with an open mouth, which was termed abnormal gasping. This behavior always occurred before recumbency without tone.
Burkholder TH, Niel L, Weed JL, Brinster LR, Bacher JD, Foltz CJ. 2010. Comparison of carbon dioxide and argon euthanasia: effects on behavior, heart rate, and respiratory lesions in rats. J Am Assoc Lab Anim Sci 49:448–453.

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It has been proposed that Ar is superior to CO2 because it is not irritating to animals and therefore does not produce distress. However, we observed that approximately 100% Ar produced significant increases in MAP within the 1st minute of exposure suggesting that exposure to high concentrations of Ar may be stressful. In fact, the severe hypoxia or anoxia resulting from breathing 100% Ar is expected to be stressful. If this expectation is true, then exposure to approximately 100% N2, which also is expected to produce severe hypoxia or anoxia, likely is equally stressful

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(MAP, mean arterial blood pressure)
According to the Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, Volume 45, Number 2, March 2006 , pp. 21-25(5), they say that CO2 is effective for inducing unconsciousness and euthanasia. Ar appeared to be effective, but produced hyperflexia and tachycardia effects. They also concluded that N2 is not satisfactory for euthanizing rats or inducing unconsciousness in them.


Studies that show CO2 with no adverse effects:

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Our results showed more rapid falls in pulse rate and blood pressure in rats euthanized in a chamber precharged with carbon dioxide (CO2), when compared with rats euthanized more slowly, but death still took over 5 min in the former group. There was no behavioral evidence of pain or distress in either group during euthanasia.

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Smith W, Harrap SB. 1997. Behavioural and cardiovascular responses of rats to euthanasia using carbon dioxide gas. Lab Anim 31:337–346. [PubMed]

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A method of inducing euthanasia by carbon dioxide (CO2) inhalation in the home cage of an animal is described and tested for distress by behavioural as well as by hormonal measures. There were no signs of distress by behavioural or by hormonal changes.

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Hackbarth H., Küppers N., Bohnet W. (2000). Euthanasia of rats with carbon dioxide – animal welfare aspects. Lab. Anim. 34, 91–96. doi: 10.1258/002367700780578055. [PubMed]

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...alls-Too/page4

I've not heard of using laughing gas as a form of euthanasia before. To put your feeders into an altered state before their pulse rate drops low enough for them to pass seems cruel, to me. Maybe I'm perceiving it wrong. But in any case, CO2 just sends them to sleep, in every instance I've ever seen. No distress signals from the subjects.

but to keep to the subject at hand, no, it's not harmful to your snake to ingest a recently-prekilled feeder, as long as it's done using something like CO2 and not something that will stick around in the feeder's system.

This same debate has come up a number of times. The facts are obscured. Nobel gases will work but are not as effective as C02. Nikki posted studies to that effect. Nitrous oxide is not correct, isoflurane vs C02 is the actually debate. It is nitrous with out adding oxygen, oxygen addition is not lethal quickly. Yes there is a debate, yes there has been questions about the which is more humane. I believe an open mind and attention must be paid to such matters. The best choice (humanly speaking) seems to be currently isoflurane gas.) Is c02 bad no it is not it would be the second choice at this point. The issues with Isoflurane are many cost being high on the list, enough gas for a shoe box killing chamber is about 50$ US, it requires permits to buy, the delivery system for it is very costly as it is lab grade (about 4000$ a unit) and it is not available off the shelf to purchase.

There are debates the lab animal community the consensus ends in this simple statement,

"I suspect we shouldn’t be using carbon dioxide, but we don’t know what’s substantially better.”
Dr. D Weary UBC

Kurtilein when you buy your own isoflurane set up, and start reading the studies rather than wikipedia and PETA, please let it be. The debate is not nobel gases vs c02 it is a single very specific complex gas that requires a huge uphill battle and no clear and obvious out come at this junction. There is already enough fear mongering and decisions based on sources with no grounding in fact happening adding to it is not going to help anyone at all.