RCReptiles.com

[Buck_99]

Found this and thought it might be useful. I plan to try it next week as some of my weaned rats mature. I also have a jumbo female whose time is coming (translation: her usefulness as a breeder is coming to an end).

http://www.rodentracks.com/DIY_Co2_Chamber.html

I try not to euthanize in bulk at all, but sometimes I end up with more rats than my snakes immediately need, and if I don't euthanize and freeze them the population gets out of control. One little bugger got his mom pregnant before I realized he was weaned, so small was the window between weaned and sexual maturity!

Currently I use the cervical dislocation method. It's very quick for the rat but it can get messy. I've occasionally seen bleeding which is inconvenient to clean up (more inconvenient for the rat than for me, of course). It also takes too long when I have to do a whole litter, and I would prefer to be a snake keeper first and a rat keeper second, in terms of how I spend my time. Finally, larger adult rats seem to sense the danger and fight getting into position for the cervical dislocation. I prefer not to stress them like this. If I can get all my snakes on F/T and use the CO2 chamber, I can avoid this altogether.

I'll let you all know how this CO2 chamber works out.

[Buck_99]

Update: this worked great, though how I ended up implementing it based on materials on hand was also very similar to the one Deb posted here:

http://www.rcreptiles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2816

It's very easy, quick, and efficient.