Killing rats

Tonight I gave a medium sized rat to my BP that my dad had put into a pillow case and slammed into a wall, and my GF went nuts saying that its inhumane. I gave her the other option of putting it into the freezer and letting it freeze to death and she didn't like that either. She thinks that I should let nature take its course, but I'm not about to let Spike fight a rat that could blind him or even worse kill him. I already had an episode of him getting a bad grab on a large mouse and it turning and biting him on the neck, scarring him permanately. Any suggestions would help.

CO2 gas chamber. Your rat will fall asleep and never wake up :)

Here is a very well written thread on creating a Co2 chamber http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...hlight=chamber I followed these instructions using a 10 gallon tank and 2 lbs of dry ice in a bag, with two large rabbits in the tank I opened the bag and covered the top with a piece of plywood, they slowly went to sleep and stopped breathing after about 4min. If you can't access dry ice you can create Co2 with white vinegar and baking soda, here is that page. http://www.alysion.org/euthanasia/ Co2 is very clean and they just fall asleep and don't wake up.

errr, dont put it in the freezer, thumping it hard is better than that.

i say go with feeding it live prey. that way its as close to being natural as possible. pythons hunt for thier food. its instinct. as long as you feed your bp the right size mice or rats, it shouldnt be too much for him to handle.

Ball pythons don't hunt for their prey, they ambush it. I've read too many posts and have heard stories and know someone that did feed live once that had a rat bite the snake in the eye and had to be taken to the vet, costing a couple hundred for surgery and such. It's just much safer to feed frozen thawed, or pre-killed in my experience.

CO2 is AOK for me, i donm't want to take a chance of a rat nipping my snakes tail if he doesn't have an instant feed response. I had gotten a dumeril's from a petstore they nursed back to health after a rat went off on it, nearly 2/3rds of her back was scared up.


wildlifewarrior

I tried the vinegar mix to euthanize some mice, and the darned things simply got drunk, and then acted like thay had hangovers. I felt bad, and wanted to give them teeny ice packs. But they recovered fully, and went on to become snake food anyway. I'm going to get CO2 in a tank if I can.
Wolfy

Yea I am getting to where the size of rat I have to whack are getting bigger than just hoppers or smalls may nee to do one of those gas chanbers myself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MontyNSpike

I've read too many posts and have heard stories and know someone that did feed live once that had a rat bite the snake in the eye and had to be taken to the vet, costing a couple hundred for surgery and such.

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How many posts and how many stories? How many people that you know had this happen? 5, 10, 50, 100? ... Just curious?

-adam