How to Kill Rats for a Ball Python

Kangaroo rats will forage and collect seeds at night, storing seeds and beans in their cheek pouches. Extra seeds are stored in their burrows where the seeds can absorb up to 30 percent more moisture. Instead they survive almost entirely on the water metabolized from seeds that are eaten.

This type of rat may not bite, emit venom, or look as threatening as many other rodents.

1. Put on a pair of thick gloves to avoid getting bitten or scratched by the rat.
2. Pick up the rat by its tail.
3. Press a spoon or other similar object down on the rat’s neck to pin it to the table.
4. Pull the rat’s tail or hind legs up very quickly and sharply.

Physical methods include cervical dislocation (breaking of the neck), or decapitation with specialist rodent guillotines (see ‘Methods used to kill lab rats’). CO2 is used to make rodents unconscious. They are then killed by either asphyxiating them with the gas, or by another method.

Prepare the CO2 chamber. Getting the correct concentration of CO2 is key to its humaneness. You want to create a 30%-40% concentration of CO2 in the euthanasia container to cause the rodent to lose consciousness.

The method of stuffing dry ice — frozen carbon dioxide — into burrows to suffocate rats as it sublimates from a solid to a gas proved more efficient at killing rodents and cheaper than using conventional rat poisons in cities such as Boston, Chicago and New York, which all recently launched programs to test the method.

There is clear evidence in the human literature that CO2 exposure is painful and distressful, while the non-human literature is equivocal. However, the fact that a number of studies do conclude that CO2 causes pain and distress in animals indicates a need for careful reconsideration of its use.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) overdose causes rapid unconsciousness followed by death. Exposure to CO2 without removing animals from their home cage is a rapid and humane method of euthanasia, because the animals are not stressed by handling or being moved to a new environment.

Carbon dioxide does not only cause asphyxiation by hypoxia but also acts as a toxicant. At high concentrations, it has been showed to cause unconsciousness almost instantaneously and respiratory arrest within 1 min [6]. Other causes of carbon dioxide intoxication have been identified as well, such as dry ice.