Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Greetings. I have always purchased frozen feeders for our herp collection before we started producing our own this past year. Easy enough freezing pinkie mice and rats but I now have several hundred adults I need to freeze up as our mouse and rat colonies have been far more productive than I originally had hoped.

This brings me to having to use some type of chamber in the hopes of euthanizing these numbers as humanely as possible. Would anyone have info. of one they have constructed that has been working functionally?

Thanks, Rich

http://www.junglemistreptiles.com/co2.html

Go there, they tell you what to do.
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0.0.1 Common Columbian Boa (Damian)
0.0.1 Amel Cornsnake (Kernal)
0.0.1 Okeetee Cornsnake (Guido)
1.1.0 Lhasa Apso's (Monkey, Tiffany)
1.0.0 Rat Terrier (Ricky)
1.3.0 Mice (nameless)
0.0.4 Goldfish (nameless)
0.1.0 Beta Fish (nameless)
0.0.1 Snail (Gary)"Meoow"

Also Canibal the Musical is just about the the most funny movie ever!!!

Something I have always wondered, is why the kill tank has to be so tall? Why not a wider lower container instead since CO2 is heavier than air? A wider lower container would have more room, allowing for more mice to be killed at the same time and accommodate larger rats.

I have been thinking of making a CO2 tank out of some plexi-glass I have left over when I had my dragon's tank built, but want to make it more rectanular with more width than height. If this won't work because it isn't tall enough, though I don't see why it wouldn't, be nice to know before I build it.

Any insight would be nice.

I built mine out of a 9oz paint-ball canister and a stainless steel "remote" hose from www.actionvillage.com . The hose was the cheapest there that I could find. Just look up "remote kit". They have several.

Then, I bought a package of the rubbermaid disposable food storage containers. The quart size, I believe. It's great for a few adult mice but you could get the bigger one for rats. Of course, this setup is not designed to handle hundreds of mice or rats.

I did NOT go the route of using the hose and water thing. I felt it was a waist of time and to many parts. What I did was very easy and works great.

Attach the CO2 hose to the top/side of the container. Then drill a small 1/4" hole on the bottom of the container. That works to allow the oxygen to escape as the CO2 is coming in. Then, I fold a paper towel so it covers the bottom and up the side that the CO2 is coming it. Put your mice in there and slowly introduce the CO2. Keep your hand on the lid so it doesn't pop off.

Troy