Unfortunately this would mean testing different methods of euthanasia, some of which will be found to be painfull.



In herptiles, often the heart will beat for hours after the animal has expired. (I personally have necropsied a 3/4inch tree frog 6-8hrs after death and the heart was still beating--creepy).



Much work has been done on anesthetics and analgesics in reptiles, however euth. agents have been left out. It's not work many are happy to do. Monitoring brain electrical function would probably be the best way to define death, and thus speed of euthanasia can be compared to time of pain endured. It may be possible to measure what would be defined as pain, but that would include a whole other experiment. Perhaps Mader will have revealing evidence in his new text due out this fall I believe.



As mentioned below, I still believe a clean IC injection is the fastest way to go.



Ian

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