Quote:
Originally Posted by patm1313
I don't breed mice, and thus I don't kill them, but I would suggest just doing the paintball CO2 setup. It' easier to control, and is probably easier to get C02 tank refils then it is to get dry ice, and may be cheaper.
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Ok, I have a few minutes and I will jump back into the fray for that amount of time.
I do breed mice and thus have killed many of them. I have cut back a great deal right now but at one time I was selling approximately 1000 mice a week to local pet stores and consuming approx. 300 mice per week myself. I personally have used the dry ice method, the paint ball method, and now use a 20# bottle of co2 from a local welding supply house. Based on that experience, this is my opinion. If you are going to be killing 20 or 30 mice a week, cervical dislocation is probably the easiest and least expensive way to go. Whacking their heads on a table edge works well but is not approved by PETA.
If you are going to be killing more mice than that or don’t like to break necks, then co2 is by far the best way to go. Dry Ice is readily available to me at the local grocery store. For a buck I can pick up a chunk on my way home from work or have my wife do so when she goes shopping (every d*** day of the week). That is easy and cheap.
If you want the convenience of having it at home and ready at any moment, then you need to get a canister to keep the gas in at home. A 20oz paint ball canister costs around 20.00 and you can get the valve and necessary fittings for another 10 or 15. The gas itself is inexpensive to the point of being a non-item.
You can go to much bigger gas bottles from welding supply houses but then you are talking a couple hundred bucks for the tank and regulator.
Which is best is entirely up to you and your personal circumstances and preferences.
Whichever method you chose, the co2 procedure is the same. Put the mice in the container first. Introduce the co2 slowly. It will put the mice to sleep. If they appear to be suffocating, it is probably because you added too much gas to fast. Let them go to sleep, then add enough gas to deprive them of oxygen until they are dead.
Don’t loose site of the fact that the whole point is to kill these animals. There is no nice way to kill things. That is a fact of nature. The methods I have outlined here are probably as close to nice as you can get. If that upsets you, you probably should sell your snake and get a rabbit.