freezing mice......humane question...well lots of

[CrazyHedgehog]

OK, with over 20 snakes, the price of food is outragous...
also, farming frozen mice seems to be a profitable thing to get into..

OK, breeding and keeping mice would not be so much of a problem, but how do these big sellers kill them humanely?

I have heard some just freeze them, the coldness cools them to sleep and its 'supposedly' fairly pain free.....hmmmmm not sure

Have also heard about C02, chamber, put them in and gas them, but with pinkies, apparently they have an 'anti smother' mechanism to protect from being suffocated by mother, in which case it can take up to 30 minutes...hardly seems humane..

Have read about 'flicking the nose hard' but I'm talking hundreds of mice? and again, hardly seems humane....

One site suggested putting in air tight bag and freezing...it just gets worse...Not sure if I could actually do any of these, and would probably end up with hundreds of pet mice, but just in thought mode..

How is it done?

[GarterGuy]

I think a lot use the CO2 method....also some places get there mice from labs that use them for other purposes....especially to work with there blood (if you've ever bought mice called "cut throats"..that's where they came from). The labs use isofluorene to "gas" them ( I actually did some work with a large testing lab making iosfluorene detectors so they could tell if the "kill boxes" were leaking). Freezing ectotherms, like reptiles is humane, but mice are mammals just like us.....freezing to death is not a great way to go. By the time they'd "slow down" they've already suffered from the freezing of their extremities (tails, feet, ears)...which if you've ever been outside for a long time in the winter....it's VERY painful! You'd probably be best off actually contacting some of the rodent breeders and asking them what they use.

---Roy

[Stefan-A]

I could be wrong about this and I probably am, but I don't think that CO2 should trigger any "anti smother" mechanism since it's not an obstruction of air flow. On the contrary, I think that the rising CO2 levels should cause the pinky to breath even more.

[boeh]

As far as I know, it gonna take a long long time, till a pinkie die in cause of CO2. I kill all my pinkies by throwing them on the floor. It sounds some kind hard, but it's the easiest and quickest method I know about. One trickle of a second an it's all over.

Cyrill

[nessy]

i read on the "new scientist" magazine that using CO2 (as in using dry-ice) to kill animals was once thought to be painless but in fact gives the animal "a distinct sensation of being suffocated" because animals have sensors about CO2 levels or something... cant really remember... the new method that they are trying to put into practice is using nitrogen.... but seeing as we can't get hold of that, using carbon monoxide?

ps. there was also this interesting article about how all colubrids, which where once thought to be non-venomous, are in fact venomous. that snakes did not evolve venom (they had it when they evolved from venomous lizards), but boas/pythons evolved out of having/using venom. you guys ever heard of anything similar?

[CrazyHedgehog]

Ok, have been searching again, have found this..
http://oacu.od.nih.gov/ARAC/EuthCO2.pdf
which seems to be the 'proper'way,
It mentions about stress in too quick exposure to C02, and has to be levelled slowly so that they pass out before getting stressed...
Pinkies up to 10 days are immune to C02?? or similar gasses....have a look!

[Stefan-A]

As far as I know, it gonna take a long long time, till a pinkie die in cause of CO2. I kill all my pinkies by throwing them on the floor. It sounds some kind hard, but it's the easiest and quickest method I know about. One trickle of a second an it's all over.

Cyrill

No doubt quick and relatively painless, but I have heard many complain about the pinkies bursting easily after they have been thawed, when they have been killed using any kind of force.

[boeh]

@Stefan-A
Maybe that happen when you do that the first times. After that, you get a feeling for that. I can't complain about things like that. Either way it isn't a nice practice, and if you have to kill more than 20, it's getting hard. Nevertheless I only kill my pinkies like that. I feed prekilled (without freezing) as good as possible.

[abcat1993]

I would personally go for something cheap and what to me sounds painless. Something that kills them instantly like throwing them on the floor (but if you throw too hard they splatter and too soft they live-painfully), or flicking thier nose. That's how I would choose to die between CO2 and getting my head smashed.
PS: This might sound like I hate mice (which I do) but as I said that sounds humane enough to me.

[CrazyHedgehog]

aggghhhh it sent before I had finished...