I never thought I'd see the day that I would spend hard-earned money to make an annihilation chamber to put rodents down with, but after raising a few litters, watching them grow & play, I grew tenderhearted. And I hate PETA.

I mean, after all, that's the reason I raised 'em, to feed 'em to my snakes & monitors. What the heck, they're gonna die anyway, right? It's not bad watching one or two suffer a lil' bit, but the more you do it, the more it should affect you (seeing 'em suffer).

Nobody can consistently whack a rodent to death with a single blow every time. Yeah, yeah, I know there's a few that can't click the "Reply" button fast enough just to tell me that they can. Save it for somebody else, I ain't fallin' for it. Ha! Ha!

"EricIvins" got it right, as far as I'm concerned. Dry ice in a bucket can not be controlled, regulated, and usually causes a horrible death just like "MikesMonitors" said.

Do yourself, and your mice, a big favor and spend $50 - $75 to build a CO2 chamber. It's simple to do and keeps things humane. A slow, steady stream of CO2 released into a tub of rodents will first put the rodents to sleep to where they won't feel a thing or know what's going on. They eventually peascefully suffocate due to lack of oxygen.

Personally, I suggest you learn to control your mice population to where you won't need to feeze them, but feed them as fresh-killed. It wouldn't hurt to freeze some for emergency situations, though.

And as for freezing rodents, I've never used any type of vacuum sealing. I don't need to. I've got rats in my deep freezer right this minute that have been frozen for almost a year, and I guarantee you that they're still good. I've used some that were just over a year old before and never a problem. I can get at least 10 large rats in a good gallon-size freezer bag, squeeze out excess air and slap 'em in the freezer.

I've found it best to let the rodent bodies cool to room temperature before freezing them. I've been raising/freezing rats for 3yrs now without the first problem.

Here's the annihilation chamber that I made. It's not perfect, it's not an air-tight container, but it works very well.
www.happyhillbilly.com/co2/

Have a good one!
HH
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

[ Show Entire Thread ]