Killing mice?

Just a tip, dry ice doesn't suffocate the mice. They can still breath, they just don't inhale enough oxygen, and eventually fall unconscious, then die from oxygen deprivation. It's actually rather peaceful. I've heard of people dying from this before, in Africa there was a huge CO2 leak from an earthquake, that killed hundreds of people, and thousands of other animals in one night, and nobody even woke up, and people that were awake at the time, just fell down dead without any signs of struggle, or discomfort. They would walk right into the dangerous area, and not even know it until they were already on the ground unconscious.

I think that's a good enough reason to believe, that CO2 gassing is a fairly humane method of culling rodents.

To prevent the horrifying death by freezing, next time put your dry ice in a sealed container with holes in the top. Small Kritter Keepers work well for this. And try to keep the container out of the reach of the rodents, because it is extremely painful to touch dry ice. Don't try that at home!

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Originally Posted by AkHerps

I know this is an old thread, but I thought I would correct it a little bit.

The humane way to use dry ice is to put the mice in the container FIRST, and then add the dry ice, that way the container slowly fills with the gas and they pass out and then die while "asleep"

If you fill the container with gas first and then add mice, it suffocates them to death, which is, not so humane.

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True, but not. They don't suffocate, but putting the gas in first, will cause pain when breathing in the gas, and cause the mice to panic and be in pain before death. You are correct that the mice should be put in first, or at the same time as the dry ice. :gj:

I use this dry ice method all the time with great success. I have never been told that I have to keep the frozen mice for more than 30 days to releases gases from the rodent though - can someone explain this comment.

Thanks

L.West, that's nonsense, you can feed as soon as you cull with CO2 gas. :P