Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How do you kill rat? They are big not like mice easy to kill. What is the good way to kill them without getting blood everywhere? Thanks. Eric

There is no real way to guarantee the rat wont bleed as you are rupturing blood vessels unless you gas it. What I do is (and be careful they pack a mean bite) I have a smooth wooden stick the handle of a wooden kitchen stirring spoon or something like that works to and you can get one cheap. Just push down on the rats neck with the stick and hold the rat down with the stick at the nape of its neck then with other hand pull the tail. If done right the rat passes quite quickly. Be careful to not pull to hard on tail as it is somewhat fragile.

What I do is take them to the back patio which is concrete. Grab the rat by the tail and throw it hard to the concrete. Kills them instantly. Sometimes there is a small amount of blood that drips from the nose.

Small amount???? the red cross gets jelous, i have tons of it when i do that, i will place my foot on it's head and take a stick and press down hard on the neck, did the tail and tail came off, eewwwwwwwww. i always get blood. What if one were to freeze them from the start, do they last too long? Has anyone done that?
-----
My roomates are 1BP,1BCI2corns,Rotti,3cats,desert scorpions, and snake food AKA the food chain. See my kids at: http://community.webshots.com/user/diggy415

I just buy frozen rats now but before I would put them in a plastic shopping bag an wack them on a cement wall and i never had a problem with blood.

me too reball great minds think alike lol

i take 2 bags ( double bag so its thicker (ive had the rats fly out befor)) put the rat in it, go to the side of my house. get in my base ball stance, and wack the bag aginst the foundation of the house. kills them quick. but do it hard, beacuse sometimes it doesnt kill them all the way.

Geez that all seems a little violent lol. The tail pull method works well for me and I hardly ever make them bleed. Yes the tail can come off but if done right it doesn't unless you are using small mice and even then just grab the tail higher up and not by the tip.

I have a rigid peice of PVC tubing, about 1.5' long. Ive threaded some nylon string down the tube through a washer and then back up thru the tube. I can use this like a noose around the rats neck and choke it to death. Ive never gotten blood this way. it takes 45 seconds to a minute for it to suffocate.

Oh my! I hope the ANIMAL RIGHTS FREAKS don't read this thread.

I had a biology teacher who was raised in Canada. Well he said that in his Advanced Biology class they had to disect cats but they had to kill them first. He said the ONLY "Legal" way to do it was the "hold head and quick sharp pull of tail method"as mentioned earlier). They even had some kind of animal police there to give citations to students who didn't get it right the first time. It's supposed to be "instant death" but if you did it wrong the animal would be in obvious pain.

With that said this method is probably best and second only to "CO2 kill chambers" in terms of "humane kills".

Just my 2 cents....
-----
0.0.2 Bearded Dragons(Ziggy and Stardust)
0.1.0 Royal/Ball Python(Not named yet)