Wow, I've definitely learned a lot from reading through this thread. My BP will take either Live or F/T and she's big enough now to where a mid-sized mouse is perfect for her. I just got a breeding group of rats and I'm really torn on what method to use when they actually begin breeding. I know I only have one BP right now and it might not seem to make sense to some people for me to have rats to breed for feeders but they are my pets also. I'm thinking though that with some rats having 10-15 babies in a litter I'll wind up having to euthanize and freeze some of them for a later feeding even if I do have 2-3 BPs by then. I could not see myself "whacking" one of my rats. That's just not right.

Quote Originally Posted by Gloryhound View Post
We built a CO2 chamber as a couple of our snakes take F/T and we breed our own rats. Our CO2 chamber is the home grown variety that uses baking soda and vinegar. It is two plastic tubs stacked on top of each other with the mixing chamber on the bottom and the rodent tank on top. Holes drilled in the lid and bottom of holding chamber that are glued together and presure relief hole on one side of the mixing tub. It works, but you can see everything that happens and if you watch it doesn't look very humane either. Adult rats will go crazy for about 30 seconds before finally passing out. If you mastered the old method one whack and it was done.
Hey Glory, could you possibly PM me or post how you made and use this CO2 chamber? I've seen some other versions but they all seem to require dry ice and no place up here seems to carry that unless you want to buy it in bulk from a chemical supply co.

As for the OP I would never try to kill a mouse the way that you did but you didn't know any better at the time, now you do. So hopefully you will never feel the need to put an animal through suffering like that again.