killing em

how do you kill em to feed them to snakes? snap neck bb gun etc

bb gun? Are you serious??

you buy yourself some cats :eek1:

I prefer launching them at the garage door with the compressed air mouse cannon, (Thump!), but there's something to be said about the old school catapult... it helps to have someone on the roof to spot the landing site though....

lol

no i wasent siours bought bb gun cuz my snake may eat lead but i do have a tater gun :cheers:

Well "paintballer" the best and most humane way is to make a co2 chamber, using one of those co2 tanks used for...paintball.

crap

i only got hpa

If i remember correctly BB's are brass ...

Co2 and cervical dislocation are considered the most humane. Cervical dislocation takes alot of practice to get right ... I prefer to use Co2.

This link will show you how to build a DIY Co2 chamber

Bryan

I try to use CO2 for mice that I'm going to freeze, though the last time I was unable to get the CO2 to work and ended up having to kill half of them manually. In that case, a good hit to the base of the neck works well for me, I try and get as little bleeding as possible to avoid a mess when they're thawed out. For freezing pinkies, I've tried to kill them before I put them in the freezer...however, that ended up quite messy (not going to go into detail) and I'll probably resort to just a direct toss into the freezer next time. If I'm prekilling a mouse for a snake, I just grab it by the tail and give it a good smack on the edge of my desk. In this situation I don't care so much about a quick death for the mouse as I do about incapacitating it so it can't do any damage to my snake.

Now, commence any flaming about my inhumane mouse killing practices. :grin01:

lol

thats more humane then tater gun

My method, tried and true. Have to be precise though, if you miss the skull and tag the nose, it can be a bloody mess! :grin01:

CARattler40 said:

I try to use CO2 for mice that I'm going to freeze, though the last time I was unable to get the CO2 to work and ended up having to kill half of them manually. In that case, a good hit to the base of the neck works well for me, I try and get as little bleeding as possible to avoid a mess when they're thawed out. For freezing pinkies, I've tried to kill them before I put them in the freezer...however, that ended up quite messy (not going to go into detail) and I'll probably resort to just a direct toss into the freezer next time. If I'm prekilling a mouse for a snake, I just grab it by the tail and give it a good smack on the edge of my desk. In this situation I don't care so much about a quick death for the mouse as I do about incapacitating it so it can't do any damage to my snake.

Now, commence any flaming about my inhumane mouse killing practices. :grin01:

Click to expand...

I agree with you. I almost always feed (stunned) live. I throw them in a plastic bad and thwack'em on the counter. I seriously doubt that the little buggers live through the experience though. Even the ones I freeze get the same treatment. I don't think there is anything inhumane about it.

I was once told about some method involving snapping the neck with a screw driver. Not cutting it off, thought. I think you just use the handle and *snap*

I use a ....

Either a specially designed rodent taser gun - or -

a mouse trebuchet - specially designed to kill them before they even hit the ground, wall, ceiling etc... it even throws them so fast, the force causes them to involuntarily pee and poop EVERYTHING in their bodies...

Or...

I just put the live mouse in my snakes mouth and let the snake kill it for me, then I let him eat it if he kills it and it doesnt escape his powerful jaws... interestingly enough, this method always works and there is little question or doubt left after the process has completed.

I'd only like to comment that the CO2 method doesn't really work all that well on pinkies - something I've read about them being resistant to smothering because of their need to survive while literally being smothered by their mother when feeding. I just plop the new borns pinks and any older pinks that have not yet started to develope fur growth into an ice tray in my freezer and place an empty ice tray on top (to prevent the little squirming buggers from climbing out of the trays - they just don't mix well with the chicken and the otter pops!) They don't last more then a handful of minutes, but I do make sure that they are in the freezer for a minimum of 20 minutes before thawing them out for a snake to eat. (I taketh no chances that one might survive because I slit the back of my F/T pinks for the snakes before feeding.)

As to the rest, I don't think I can compete with all of the suggested methods already listed. *skips away while snickering & snorting under her breath at some people's responses*


Jenn

My snake has just started eating bigger mice and I now have to stun or prekill my mice...I must admit that I am less than enchanted by the idea...

Even though I can't STAND mice, I don't like it much...it's still new to me, guess I will get used to it...

Personally, my feeling is that corns would be catching rodents in the wild anyway and that its my responsibility as a pet-owner to feed my snake and make sure she is in peak condition...as long as it's done as humanely as possible...Helps me feel a bit better about it.

I have heard of three methods...

1. Flicking on the back of the head
2. killing or stunning mouse on a hard surface (like a desk mentioned earlier)
3. putting a pencil on neck firmly and yanking up the tail, so breaking the mouse's neck...

I have only done this once and used method 2, which was quick and worked really well. Personally, I don't think method 1 would work for me, I don't think I could flick hard enough and I want to touch the mice as little as possible!! I wouldn't use method 3 myself as I am scared I would not be firm enough and the mouse will suffer because I didn't do it properly...

Interesting about the CO2!!! Learn something new on this site everyday...

Velvet said:

I have heard of three methods...

1. Flicking on the back of the head
2. killing or stunning mouse on a hard surface (like a desk mentioned earlier)
3. putting a pencil on neck firmly and yanking up the tail, so breaking the mouse's neck...

I have only done this once and used method 2, which was quick and worked really well. Personally, I don't think method 1 would work for me, I don't think I could flick hard enough and I want to touch the mice as little as possible!! I wouldn't use method 3 myself as I am scared I would not be firm enough and the mouse will suffer because I didn't do it properly...

Interesting about the CO2!!! Learn something new on this site everyday...

Click to expand...

Numbers 1 and 2 work perfectly fine and I use them to kill mice all the time. I think the principal behind number 3 is actually to dislocate the vertebra in the neck making the mouse unconscious but I could be wrong. I tried number 3 once and pull a little to hard... but I wont get into that.

If your worried that you cant thump the mouse hard enough or don't want to whip them against something I have another method. First, place the mouse in the feeding tub. Second, Hold one end of a pencil firmly between your thump and first finger on your dominant hand. Third, with your other hand pull back on the other and of the pencil relatively hard. Fourth, place the pencil above the mouses neck and release. If you have done this correctly the mouse should die almost instantly.

CAUTION. If you have bad aim and miss this can get very bloody.

CARattler40 said:

If I'm prekilling a mouse for a snake, I just grab it by the tail and give it a good smack on the edge of my desk. In this situation I don't care so much about a quick death for the mouse as I do about incapacitating it so it can't do any damage to my snake.

Click to expand...

I've been "thumped" before. It only hurts if you wake up from it. :santa:

Velvet said:

1. Flicking on the back of the head
2. killing or stunning mouse on a hard surface (like a desk mentioned earlier)
3. putting a pencil on neck firmly and yanking up the tail, so breaking the mouse's neck...

Click to expand...

#1 works ok on pinkies, fuzzies, hoppers, and young weaned ... not as effective on adults.

#2 The times that I've tried this I had to smack 5-6 times ... twice the bag split upon impact and I had to chase the mice.

#3 This is cervical dislocation. Done right its quite effective. However not yanking hard enough will paralyze or partially paralyze the animal. Too hard and you yank the skin right off the tail.

There are problems with Co2 as well ... if you dont leave them in long enough they "come back to life". Dont use enough and it can be quite painful to the animal (instead of suffocation you are poisoning it).

Pinkies and fuzzies are resistant to Co2. However left in for 4-5 minutes will normally kill them. I place them into a blast chiller. Frozen in about 10 seconds ... this is the most humane method I've found for the smaller ones.

Bryan