Best way to pre-kill?

[sorraia]

I'm sorry to have caused an argument.


I tried cervical dislocation for my feedings yesterday, and I think it went ok. I'm pretty sure they died instantly. I used the method in the posted Youtube video (pressing its neck down with feeding tongs and pulling by the tail) because I thought it would be easier/better than doing it with my hands. It didn't require as much force as I thought it would, but that may have been because it was only a rat pup. I don't think it will be easy once I'm doing something bigger, though, but I guess I'll learn as I go. Might even figure out an alternate arrangement before then.

Thanks everyone for your help!

If you are going to use cervical dislocation on small rats or larger, you'll need to hold both the tail and hind legs. If you hold only the tail, there's a chance it could deglove, meaning the skin is pulled off. This won't kill the rat (or at least not immediately), but would be extremely painful. Using the hind legs to help "support" the tail (for lack of better words) decreases the chance of a degloving.

Personally... I use CO2. For me, it's more foolproof (and thus more humane) than pure cervical dislocation. In my observations it does NOT induce panic and terror when done properly. In my observations, "properly" has been to slowly introduce the gas to the rats. They basically just fall asleep. If gas is introduced first or built up too quickly, there IS a panic reaction, with the animals showing absolute terror and clawing at the chamber to get out. (I found this out accidentally when doing batches of rats. Didn't realize there was still gas in the chamber when I introduced the next batch, and that's what happened. Never again will I do that.) With slow introduction, the rats fall asleep peacefully while sniffing around the chamber and exploring. A quick introduction of gas after that causes their final death.