live rat problem

Cervical dislocation is hard to master but once you've got it, you've got it. Co2 is virtually painless, and you can probably make a chamber for free out of house hold ingredients, and then dry ice or vinegar and baking soda.

I don't think anyone should be complaining about how much 'work' it is, when the few minutes it takes to set up a chamber, or the few seconds it takes to CD shouldn't be more important than the welfare of the animals in question.

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Originally Posted by heathers*bps

Are you talking about the bp in your avatar? What size rat are you feeding?

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Thats what I was thinking. Fang is about that size maybe a lil bigger around 175-180 grms and I fed him pups or rat pinkies whaen the store has them.

I would not advise cervical dislocation. Unless youve been trained to do it, it can be a terrible experience for you and the rat/mouse. What are you going to do if when you pin the head down and pull, the head slips loose? now you have a pissed off scared animal that will defend its self and try to bite you. What are you going to do when you pull the tail and it comes off and the rats still alive????? something that iv seen no one mention is what size of rat is too big for cirvical dislocation,, there is a protocol on proper size...... all of these things can hapen at some point.
Iv dispatched probabaly thousands of mice and rats both by gas and dislocation. It was alwayse quicker to dislocate if you had 5 or 10 to do, but even with my experience I prefer to gass...
spooky

Just a heads up, a C02 chamber can also be sad if you're prone to feel empathy towards the animals you are handling, for whatever reason, I do agree however that it is the easiest to do humanely, and is recognized by the Merck Veterinary Manual as an acceptable means of rodent euthanasia. The thing to keep in mind with C02 is that they should sort of just fall asleep. If they start heaving and breathing heavily especially right off the bat, you're going too quickly. The point is to slowly reduce the amount of oxygen/increase the amoutn of C02 so they get tired and pass out before then increasing the C02 further, causing the rat to die while unconscious. If done properly, C02 should not be painful, and in some cases, shouldn't even be noticed/realized by the rat. Some will get concerned, possibly because they are in an enclosed unfamiliar box, or possibly because of the smell or the reduced oxygen.. but often times I see no signs of distress with a C02 chamber, only rats that slowly fall asleep, and then die.

btw, Merck defines euthanasia as -
... an easy, painless death. In regard to animals, euthanasia is the act of killing an animal in a humane manner. The primary objectives of animal euthanasia are: 1) relieving pain and suffering of the animal(s) to be euthanized, 2) minimizing the pain, anxiety, distress, and fear the animal experiences before consciousness is lost, and 3) inducing a painless and distress-free death.

Cervical dislocation if done properly every time, can be quick and painless, but I pride myself in being able to handle even the squirmiest of rats/mice without being bit and without hurting them.. I can't imagine also trying to humanely execute this method especially by somebody who is nervous about doing so and especially concerned with the animal's distress/anxiety before it dies (which is what sparked this thread to exist with a screaming rat being held by a snake).

Building a CO2 chamber is really easy. I'll post a pic of mine when I get back home.

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Originally Posted by Homegrownscales

You may want to try feeding smaller more frequent meals. Less work for the snake to kill and less chance of something like that happening again.

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X2!!

I agree fully with this.

I would advise against cervical dislocation, especially if you're uncomfortable with doing it. You may end up doing it incorrectly and injuring the feeder.
And if you do plan on CO2, then I would do the baking soda+vinegar route. Dry ice may get costly if you're only going to do one rat at a time...

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Originally Posted by satomi325

X2!!

I agree fully with this.

I would advise against cervical dislocation, especially if you're uncomfortable with doing it. You may end up doing it incorrectly and injuring the feeder.
And if you do plan on CO2, then I would do the baking soda+vinegar route. Dry ice may get costly if you're only going to do one rat at a time...

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Airline tubing and a paintball canister full of co2 is easy and inexpensive :)

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Originally Posted by mr.spooky

something that iv seen no one mention is what size of rat is too big for cirvical dislocation,, there is a protocol on proper size......

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I'm interested in this point. I have no idea, because the only mice/rats I do this way are pinkies/fuzzies. I'm not being facetious at all here, but if it's anything similar to killing a chicken, size shouldn't be much of a factor as long as the proper force is exerted and it's done with a confident hand.

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Originally Posted by Anatopism

Airline tubing and a paintball canister full of co2 is easy and inexpensive :)

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Agreed, I pay $9 to refill my canisters, gas 100's of rats a year, and spend less than $40 a year in refills.

There is no size rat that's too large for cd. But I do not recommend CD for young rats, because the tails can be degloved very easily.

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Originally Posted by Rhasputin

There is no size rat that's too large for cd. But I do not recommend CD for young rats, because the tails can be degloved very easily.

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Do you mean young rats as in crawler/hopper/weaned in size or even smaller? I've read and experienced that C02 isn't an efficient method with pinkies/fuzzies. I forget the reasoning behind it, but in experimenting with it, I can say that the kept coming back to life on me and it took forever.