There are a few ways that are considered more humane than others. The way I pre-kill rodents is through the cranial-spinal separation. I personally believe this is the quickest, easiest, and most humane way to pre-kill rodents. This is done by taking a utensil, pinning the neck as you hold the tail of the rodent, and quickly yanking the tail back.
There is also another method of smacking the neck of [larger] rodents on some type of wall or table corner. For smaller rodents like hoppers or adult mice, usually a smack of the back/spine on a corner works fine.
They may kick around or twitch for a minute but that's normal.
Another way I've heard of is using a CO2 chamber. This uses an airtight cooler or box and placing a kritter keeper of dry ice in with the rodents. All the rodents usually knock out within 5-10 minutes.
You should try to checkout some videos on how these methods are done to get a nice visual.
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