Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i had to find this out the hardway but DONT FEED LIVE MICE to your hots..this is the second time in a row that in mid strike the mouse has grabbed ahold of my mojave and caused a injury to its mouth..i officialy stop feeding live and only feed prekilled..just letting you know incase you didnt already.

If you breed your own mice, how do you prekill them yourself?

Freeze them...plain and simple.... it helps alot if u can vacuum pack but it really doesnt matter.

YOU DONT FREEZE THEM!!!!! That is totally unacceptable and completely inhumane...

If the animal is smaller then a fuzzy mouse.. simply hold them and throw them on the floor as hard as possible... death is instantanious (sp?)

If the animal is mid-adult size mouse hold mouse by the tail and place on a hard surface, place a hard object behind their head (screwdriver, pen etc) laterally press down with the object as to pin the animal behind the head and pull back on the BASE of the tail until you hear/feel a series of pops, you have then succesfully euthanized the animal via cervial dislocation, also instantanious if done correctly... for larger prey there are other methods.

CO2 is always an option

Think to yourself... how would you like to feel the 60% of water that makes up your blood to freeze and form ice crystals floating around in your blood tearing up everything they touch before you die of hypothermia which isnt a good death as well

if you want other ways to EUTHANIZE animals humanly,
my email is

crtbc001atyahoo.com obviously replace the "at" with the symbol

I agree. Freezing an animal to death is cruel and painful. Thump the rodent first. Just hold it by the tail and fling it's head into a hard surface.Just be sure to use enough force to kill the animal without splattering it all over the place!You could also stick the animal in a pillow case(adults)and thump them against a hard surface.This method kills the animal quick by causing severe brain/spinal injury.

If you are afraid of parasites you can freeze the rodent AFTER you have thumped it. If you are raising your own mice they should be free of any parasites anyway if you are taking proper care of them(clean and healthy enviorment).

I breed my own mice now. I use a 10 gallon tank(for two adult mice),aspen bedding,a hide box,water bottle and feeding dish. I feed them high diet ferret food because it is very high protien.(Plus I have 5 ferrets so I always have it around )I usually let them grow into hoppers before thumping and feeding to my snakes.

Just wondering what the best way is to raise them. You say you have two breeder mice, right? How may offspring do they produce? I was considering breeding many more mice than that, but I dont know about their reproductive habits, like how many babies how often and how fast the babies grow. Any special treatment to the young? Thank you to any advice you have on breeding your own mice, I need to get started on this because the costs are getting too high.

I personally don't freeze live because I have no way of determining for sure that it is NOT painful or otherwise traumatic, but this is one of those situations where comparing humans and small animals is probably misleading. Freezing to death is VERY painful for humans because we have enough body mass to keep our core warm and alive after our extremities and the outer surface have frozen. Something the size of a mouse (esecially a small one) would cool much more evenly and PROBABLY reach a core temperature where the brain ceases to function before any part freezes.

One of these days I'll have to test this with a freshly killed mouse, but I'm pretty confident this is the case.

I feed live once in a while and have never had a problem..... But I guess you do not need to worry much when you are feeding gaboons, puffs, and rhinos...... I cant see how a mouse can bite a snake in mid strike.....

If you do insist on feeding live, even once in a while, make SURE you observe the feeding. Never put a live rodent in with a snake & leave it unattended. The one time the snake does not feed very nearly immediately, & you are not watching, the rodent can do irreparable damage to the snake. Feeding a snake that will accept pre-killed food live rodents is all for the benefit of the keeper, not the snake.

~~Greg~~

You thump them in the head. Sean