Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have always purchased frozen. I thought i would try raising my own rats to save on $$. I don't want to feed my boas live so i was wondering the easiest / best way to kill a litter of young rats. (7 or 8 at a time).

Thanks

Christian

Works great, you can use dry ice or a tank to a paintball gun or you can buy a 20lb tank of co2 from airgas or praxair
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True Redtails

CO2 sounds perfect. I'll have to make some kind of chamber and gas them.

Thanks!

Christian

>>I have always purchased frozen. I thought i would try raising my own rats to save on $$. I don't want to feed my boas live so i was wondering the easiest / best way to kill a litter of young rats. (7 or 8 at a time).
>>
>>Thanks
>>
>>Christian
>>

Hold a screwdriver down on their neck[behind ears]an add pressure,An then grab it by its tail an pull[severs the spinal cord]Don't pull too hard or you'll pull its tail off!This is the fastest neatest way I have found to kill them!Hope this helps you out!Eric[Hypoboa]
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E&C's Exotic House of Reptiles

n/p

you are feeding right then and there then i just wack them against the tub i am carrying them in , grab them by the tail with long tweezers..wack them..feed...young rats arent that aggressive and if you are presenting them on long tweezers you shouldnt have problems.....large one i hold by the tail and let them get footing on the ground then a swift blow behind the head with my long tweezers stuns them nicely

If you are looking to kill one at a time, I take them by the tail and wack them on an edge of a table or adjoining walls. I wack them once with enough force to kill them instantly without any twitching in most cases. When I put down larger numbers I use dry ice I purchase from my local supermarket, placing it in a cannister with hot water then plaacing the cannister in with a group of rats. It's fairly quick and painless for the rats. The Co2 tank is a great way and I plan on getting one set up as soon as the production in my colony is up to where I want it to be.

good luck.

If you use dry ice or C02 to kill the rats before feeding, would they smell any different to a snake to make them refuse it? or would there be any remaining vapors that could be harmful to the snake? I'm just curious because I have been feeding my boa live for close to two years now and I would rather feed freshly killed if I could. I just don't know if he would take it since he's always had live. Any responses are appriciated. Thanks.

Dry ice is the liquid frozen state of CO2. CO2 is Carbon Di-oxide and it is a totally harmless gas that dissapates very quickly in air. Normal air you breath is 70% or more CO2 gas.

CO is what is called Carbon Mon-oxide...This gas is deadly poison to humans as well. This is the gas that exhaust pipes give off. You do not ever want to use this gas for killing rats as it does not dissapate well.

Carbon di-oxide is by far the safest, fastest, most humane method of dispatch.

Of course a good wack on the table always works too, just a little too much blood to clean up.

Hope this helps, Andy

Dry ice is not a liquid form Andy. It is a solid and one unique fact about it is carbon dioxide goes directly from a solid phase to a gas with no liquid phase in between. Because of the drastic difference in volume when going from a solid to a gas carbon dioxide can potentially be an extremely dangerous material if not handled properly. It must never be sealed tightly in a container or pressure can build up. With pressure comes heat and with heat comes even faster and violent expansion. By definition an explosion involves the rapid expansion of a gas. Trust me I found out the hard way when a plastic container filled with dry ice blew up like a bomb in a fraction of a second. Dry ice is fine if handled correctly. Just make sure it's vented properly or you'll be in for one heck of a big surprise.

Standard atmospheric carbon dioxide content is 0.03% You may be thinking of nitrogen as it runs 78%.

Kelly

You'd be very surprized to know how easy it is to get a live-eating boa to eat dead or even straight to frozen/thawed. I'd say just try it once, you'll be very surprized. It might take a few extra seconds, or you might have to wiggle it a little, but you boa will probably take it the first try even with frozen/thawed.

I dare you to try it : )
Caden

I, like many others, others hold the rat by the tail and whack it hard against a sturdy shelf corner. You don't want to whack the head (thats how I was taught) unless you want a big ole bloody mess. I aim for just above the shoulder blades and whack em and throw them in the pile.
My rage came out one fine day when I returned from a shop about 45 minutes away to find that a group of mice had gotten out of their box, and into a bag of rat pinkies and ate them alive. I dropped the box in my lawn , and punch all of the mice to death.
It seemed worse than it was. They all died with the first punch, and probably quicker than most other methods, but I was soooo disgusted by the site of them eating the pink rats(some of them still alive) that I just went at it.
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Davey Giltner

You might want to seek some kind of help. I have a mouse loose in my house and it ate up my PS2 cord and I am thinking evil things that I would like to do to the mouse but I think I am just gonna let the trap do the trick.......

I used to whach & stack, which was great for entertaining spectators : ) Then I went to mouse traps. I cannot believe that all you expert herpers never thought of mouse traps. It's also cervical dislocation (breaking the neck). Very clean way to do the same thing in case you stop enjoying that whack & stack method, easy clean up too. (your bookshelves might look better too).

Caden

you guys need to get vegetarian snakes like mine
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THERES NO BEAUTY LIKE THE BEAUTY OF A TRUE REDTAIL

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hey dont laugh, i had a person try to buy one of my Hungarian Vizsla pointer pups last spring and wanted to make it a strict vegetarian.....soy milk....she was an elite city type....thats fine but she didnt get one of my pups!! wait one more vegetarian story.... i was at a BBQ once with a bunch of half drunk L.A. cops, guys that risk their lifes and proudly eat meat so we have enough protien to sustain ourselves in a fight to save some pale frail vegan.... have to set the stage for you....this new guy shows up with his poet singer vegan wife who makes a show of the fact that she is a "vegetarian" and wants her veggie hot dog to not get close to the slowly charring meat......as one of the hot dogs hits the grill it rolls forward, the half drunk cook didnt have the motor skills to stop the "hapless hotdog wannabe" which hit the ground right in front of a waiting labrador retreiver.....the dog grabbed the hot dog as everyone watched and promptly spit it out and walked away.......the crowd ERUPTED in laughter!! she never showed up at a BBQ again. thanks, john yocum

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THAT WAS JUST WRONG !! MAKING A CARNIVORE A VEGETARIAN IS JUST CRAZY !!
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THERES NO BEAUTY LIKE THE BEAUTY OF A TRUE REDTAIL