How do i stun a rat?

[Josh Emmons]

will it live?

[Hulihzack]

will it live?

If you have to whack it, don't just knock it out, break it's spine with one blow to ensure a quick and PAINLESS death. I do use this method but I've done it about 102912309 times... for the rat's sake, I do not recommend it.

[matt71915]

ive heard you can flick a smaller rat in the back of the head to knock it out

[Nate]

Just...don't.

I know some time back there was some useful information posted up which noted that a lot of the rats suffer unnecessarily because the person doing it gets scared/nervous and doesn't do it right... a rat in a world of hurt prior to getting squeezed to death is a bit unethical in my opinion.

I just drop the live rat in with the snake. Snakes are born killers...let them do their thing

[HerpKeeperVA]

I'm not a fan of "stunning" feeders, I aim to kill them. I hold them by the tail and slam them against the edge of the counter, but I rarely prekill, I just feed live if they won't take F/T. Since you're new at it you can put it in a pillow case and smack it against a solid surface as hard as you can. But like others have said you could chicken out and not do it right and wind up making the rat suffer more than they would if the snake had killed them.

If you don't want to feed live and your snake will only eat freshly killed rodents I'd check out the stickies in the DIY section on making a CO2 chamber. At least then they'd die painlessly.

[trott]

Just...don't.

I know some time back there was some useful information posted up which noted that a lot of the rats suffer unnecessarily because the person doing it gets scared/nervous and doesn't do it right... a rat in a world of hurt prior to getting squeezed to death is a bit unethical in my opinion.

I just drop the live rat in with the snake. Snakes are born killers...let them do their thing

I agree. Most of the time the constriction is the best and fastest way to go. Unless your really fearful of a rodent bite. Even with FT, which i know most of the big pet stores only recomend is kind a contradictory. Co2ed rats sometimes take a couple of minutes to go and it's a struggle.
But in the long run i feed what my snakes will eat and FT means i don't have to keep extra pets.

[rabernet]

I personally do not advocate whacking rats as a method of pre-killing.

I feed live to all of mine, never stunned, never pre-killed. Ball pythons are amazingly efficient hunters, and are quite able to take care of the killing themselves with extremely low risk of injury.

I have ~ 40 ball pythons. Let's just say conservatively that I feed 1 rat a week to every one of them (some eat more than one). I've probably fed over 8300 live prey items to my snakes in the time I've kept them. In all those feedings, I've had probably 5 minor scratches. That makes my personal risk of injury .060%. For me, a .060% likelyhood of injury is very low risk and is not compelling enough of a reason for me to feel the need to stun my prey before it's offered to my snakes.