hopefully someone with legit facts will chime in on this.

personally, i've always just put the animal in question in a pillow case and placed it in the freezer. my thinking based on what I was told by several herpers years ago was that the animal basically slows down and drifts off into death without any pain or panic. I used that method 3 times.

however a couple years ago I heard that ice crystals can form in the snake's brain using that method and it can be painful. luckily I haven't had to euthanize and animal in quite some time.

my gut feeling is that decapitation is probably the most humane for the snake, but could be rough on the keeper, not to mention if you get it wrong on the first attempt the snake would certainly be in a great deal of pain.

a CO2 chamber has the possibility of working well, but with the super slow metabolism of a snake, it would probably take a while if you didnt increase the amount of CO2 quickly, but that would cause stress and panic.

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