Dead mice.

[whoami?]

So, like, a lot of pet reptiles eat pre-killed mice and rats, right?

Well, just how are those rodents killed?

Because I used to have a pet snake, and I'd feed it live mice. And it was pretty cool, but at the same time I felt pretty sorry for the mouse. Must not be a very pleasant way to die.

Now, if I ever got another snake, I'd feed it prekilled rodents. Not only for the health of the snake, but because it would make me feel better about myself. Sort of like how some people think it's evil to hunt, but have no problem buying a hamburger. If I feed live mice to a snake, it's like I murdered the mouse. But if i feed a dead mouse to the snake, that's okay because it was already dead. And I can ignore the fact that in buying it I was essentially paying someone else to kill it for me.

But I got to thinking, the mice don't look too happy when the snakes kill them. But how do the people kill them? Probably can't be much more painful than how the snakes killed them, but that's something I've sort of wondered about. Are they killed "humanely?"

And I guess it really doesn't matter, since they're just rodents. If it's legal to poison mice and rats, I really can't get too upset if someone drowns them. I'm just sort of curious about how they are killed. Does anyone know?

 

[Empi]

I don't know how they are killed. I think they are sufficated. But I look at it like this. The frozon mice at the store are dead wether I buy them or not so I might as well put them to good use right.

 

[JoshS]

Co2 Chamber

I am pretty sure most people use co2 chambers for rodents(Not useful for amphibians as they can tolerate high co2 for awile)

 

[PrettyHate]

Some places will freeze them, other places will gas them.

On a side note, live prey such as mice/rats should never be offered to a snake. The rodent will obviously put up a fight and can inflict painful bites and scratches to the snake that can in turn get infected. As well, if the snake does not eat its prey right away and is left in its container with a live rodent, the rodent feeling threatened can attack the snake- and the snake would have no where to get away from it.

 

[LHP]

I believe most of the big rodent dealers use the CO2 method; I've heard of some private collectors that have set up small CO2 gas chambers in their homes for this purpose but it seems impractical.

Breaking a mouse's neck (the screwdriver method) is fairly easy (and a quick death) and seems to be pretty standard for smaller scale operations. It gets much more complicated with large rats however (necks are much stronger).

Unless you have a problem feeder, frozen/thawed is always the way to go (especially for rats.)

Lindsey

 

[Hedorah99]

they all use CO2. either they use gas or lock them in a tupperware or other air tight container and drop in some dry ice. one breath of CO2 to a mammal is usually fatal.