Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi there,

I was reading something on guinea pigs, and I have many. They keep having babies, but i had never thought about feeding them. I fed a live one to my savannah monitor, But the damn thing lmost bit him. Oh well, *CRUNCH* Bye bye mr.guinea pig....lol
So i wanna feed him freshly killed ones now. But since they have no tails, i cant break their necks...Just swing em into the counter then, right? Oh well. BTW, can you drown them? Guinea pig skulls are tough, so it might take more than one wack to knock em out long enough...

invest in a Co2 type chamber in which to place the guinea pigs to kill them humanely.

Drowning is a horrible way to die, even for a "feeder". I would suggest you do alittle more research before making them suffer in such a horrible way.

The key is the have the animals death be as close to INSTANT as possible. Drowning can take several minutes, and the whole time the animal is alive and terrified (by the sounds of it, you dont really care one way or the other.)

the "whack" method for a guinea pig would need to be more in the line of a large dowel (closet type pole).. about 1.5' long.. swing it into the back of the head where it connects to the back.. death SHOULD be instant if you do it properly. I still suggest CO2 however

dan

I used to take care of a lot of guinea pigs. When I had to put an animal down, I put it's neck between my first two fingers with it's head in the palm of my hand. A sharp down swing and a flick of the wrist will dislocate the neck. This was the preferred humane way, twenty years ago, to put a guinea pig down without the use of drugs. It works real good, but maybe someone has come up with something better since then.

DeMak

np

Both the Univeristy of Minn. and Stanford do not allow cervical dislocation of lab rodents without sedation.

http://labanimals.stanford.edu/Guidelines/Cerv_Dis.html

http://www.ahc.umn.edu./rar/euthanasia.html

This used to be an accepted method. I have used it many times and my personal experience was that it worked quite well. I'm not sure whether it was changed because it was a bad method or because, with out training, it could be done improperly.

Of course, giving a sedative is out of the question.

DeMak

one of the best ways to cull any small animal, rat or bird is to wring them by the neck. hold the animal by the head and wring their neck. for mice it is easier to hold their neck in a pair of hemostats and pull their tail. both are quick, somewhat humane and not too messy. just the way i do it. chris