Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well tonight is Rocky's feeding night...so I bought a cute little brown rat for him. Once I got home...I got Rocky's feeding container all set up for him and after warming it up, I placed Rocky in the cage. Now it was time to kill the cute little rat. So I put him in a brown paper bag, and lifted it in the air like an executioner with his mighty ax. After a count to three, down came the bag, but as the bag was coming down, the rat burst through the bottom of the bag! My head is looking everywhere thinking, "Where the *expletive* did that rat go!?!" I soon look down to my right side and there was the rat, which was fortunately stunned.

The lesson here...if you gotta kill your snake's prey, always double bag.
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Scott

Reptiles
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1 Colombian Rainbow Boa (Rocky)
1.0 Ball Python (Sultan)
0.1 California Kingsnake (Leota)
1.0 Eastern Painted Turtle (Yugi)
0.1 Red/Gold Bearded Dragon* (Irwin, R.I.P.)

Other
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1.0 Betta Fish (Tyrone)

..the rat was DEAD...not stunned...my mistake.
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Scott

Reptiles
--------
1 Colombian Rainbow Boa (Rocky)
1.0 Ball Python (Sultan)
0.1 California Kingsnake (Leota)
1.0 Eastern Painted Turtle (Yugi)
0.1 Red/Gold Bearded Dragon* (Irwin, R.I.P.)

Other
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1.0 Betta Fish (Tyrone)

Heh, one reason I why I just hang onto the tail and give a good whack at the point where the neck joins the back of the skull with something heavy. Kills instantly. Not perfect, as the rats tend to move at the last split second and I wind up clobbering their front foot instead or miss altogether. One of these days I am going to have to build a gas chamber, save me a lot of cleaning blood off my floor. If I can only figure out an easy and relatively cheap way to build a CO2 chamber which is big enough for half a dozen rats or more, at a time. The diagrams so far I have seen online are only dinky little jars, I doubt I can get more than 2-3 rats in at a time and with 11 snakes to feed, will take too long to put down all my litters when they are at the right size.

I don't hold the rat by the tail for three reasons:

1)I've always had to kill rodents by putting them in a bag, so I'm pretty much set in my ways.

2) It's utterly disrespectful to the rat. They absolutely HATE being held by the tail. I don't care if they're about to die, I still hold rats in some respect.(Sorry if I sound so defensive..I'm just getting some rats for pets soon hahaha).

3)I just recently heard of the rat's tail ripping off the body...not a pretty picture..
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Scott

Reptiles
--------
1 Colombian Rainbow Boa (Rocky)
1.0 Ball Python (Sultan)
0.1 California Kingsnake (Leota)
1.0 Eastern Painted Turtle (Yugi)
0.1 Red/Gold Bearded Dragon* (Irwin, R.I.P.)

Other
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1.0 Betta Fish (Tyrone)

The way the people I know(including myself when I do it) kill rodents for snakes is to just hold the tail, place a screw driver shaft across the back of the neck pining it to the ground and pull up to break the neck.

It's quick, prolly about as painless as any method, and minimizes blood spray.

I have some degree respect towards the rats I kill...and I know rats absolutely HATE being held by the tail. You're the second person that has commented on my story, and again I am offered a different method for how to kill a rat. I do not find this annoying or insulting in anyway, however, I did post this story with the intent of entertaining the people of this forum, not to have my killing techniques analyzed. So please, just enjoy the story!
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Scott

Reptiles
--------
1 Colombian Rainbow Boa (Rocky)
1.0 Ball Python (Sultan)
0.1 California Kingsnake (Leota)
1.0 Eastern Painted Turtle (Yugi)
0.1 Red/Gold Bearded Dragon* (Irwin, R.I.P.)

Other
-----
1.0 Betta Fish (Tyrone)