I have been researching and looking for a euthanasia chamber for my feeders that fit 2 categories. 1. Must be large enough to fit a good amount of rats comfortably at once, and 2. Must come with a regulator to ensure proper flow so the animals dont suffer.
I have found some pretty expensive chambers but they all barely meet criteria 1, and not 1 has met criteria 2. I dont trust my handicraft skills enough to put a creature in something i make to die hopefully painlessly.
Does anyone have any recommendations? Im sure worst case scenerio i can just get a regulator for the co2 tank and work from there, but you would think they would have something for this for lab rats…
We use these euthanex chambers at work and they’e very effective. They fit the lab style mouse and rat cages, hold a lot of animals and have different run cycles depending on whether you’re euthanizing adults or neonates.
I found them while looking, but dismissed them as an option because i cannot for the life of me figure out how to look at pricing / availability. The link for the catalogie just leads here…
Ahh, fair. I get so much spam email honestly whats the worst that can happen from making an account i just didnt wanna make one for every site i visit haha.
I just need a box with a regulator capable of a 30 70% mix ratio -_-’ this is why people are out here using tubberware. The price is 50$ DIY or thousands of dollars. Is there really no reasonable in between?
I think i will need to do math to get it set up to figure out how much PSI to fill the area at the proper rate, but once set, this combo should theoretically work.
Obviously it isnt as easy as pushing a button, but for a 10th of the cost, ill take doing math. And im sure this container is a bit more reliable than tubberware.
Honestly likely dont even need the bracket. Thats for setup on a cart, though i could wall mount for safety…
At the end of the day as long as the job is done properly and more important humanely, it doesnt need to be fancy. I rag on the tubberware, but im sure people have constructed their own just fine, i am just not handycapable and dont want the animals suffering if i mess it up.
If you use one of the modern “sealed” snap top tubs you get a perfect seal. Buy a rat water system bulkhead fitting, they come with a barbed tubing connection. You can cut the hole for the bulkhead in with a cheap soldering iron.
A couple things to be aware of:
CO2 behaves differently at different temperatures
Cheap regulators tend to self destruct after a year or so, and it can be a little bit dangerous if the seals fail the wrong way. They also don’t have a lot of finesse when it comes to adjusting flow rate. I would highly recommend going for a lab grade one they run just a bit under $200.
I work in a rodent laboratory, and because we study neuroscience we use a…to use the literal name…rat guillotine…because we can’t contaminate the brain tissue with CO2 overdosing. It’s painless for the rat if you’re well trained, but I absolutely would not recommend for home use.
However, my lead research professor used to use CO2 and worked in several labs that do; if you like, I can ask him if he has a well priced recommendation!
All of our lab equipment has to follow IACUC standards for pain and harm, so anything available should have some level of required painlessness if used properly, and there may be some models to use for multiple rats at once.
If you haven’t found anything to suit your needs, I’m happy to ask! Although lab stuff is usually excessive in pricing, but I can still check.
I would definitely appreciate it, while they are being raised for food, i take their quality of life (and death) very seriously. The less pain and suffering the better, and i dont trust myself to make a proper chamber that would work as required by ethics laws.
If nothing else, i think the plexi box for 500, a good regulator for 200, some tubing, a tank, and some maths will work out, i just dont like the idea of dumping CO2 into a unsealed container until it kills them is something i can deal with. Done properly there should be a smooth transition from proper oxygenation to sleep to death.
I’ll reach out to my professor and let you know if he has any recommendations I appreciate your stance on feeders and their health and safety. It’s so similar to the stance that (good, humane, regulated) laboratories take; the animals are for research (or in this case, food), but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a good life while alive, and a peaceful painless death when the time comes.
Humans sometimes need to take a rodent’s life before its natural cause for many reasons, but their lives should be protected and honored as best we can for them.
Goes for any animal imo, food for snakes, food for people, hell, even pest animals dont deserve to suffer, i abhor the sticky traps, or the “water bucket” trap. Miserable way to go.
My lab does have emergency CO2 overdose chambers for immediate and peaceful euthinasea apparently, the undergrads just don’t have access to it. It is generally used in our lab for if a breeding female has a tramatic birth that she cannot recover from/ a litter of pups are born with defects that leave them unable to thrive.
It looks like our set up is not a full apparatus from a single vendor, as apparently the issues you faced apply to the science world as well; expesive machines that don’t work well, blow fuses, and have questionable pain management levels.
I’ll be getting a tour of the process soon, and I’ll try to get specific names for each part, but I believe our lab set-up is similar to your base idea; a solid box for the rodents, a regulator, tubing (similar to aquarium tubing I think?) and a CO2 tank. I’ll make sure to see how our box is sealed for you, since that was your main concern.
I greatly appreciate your help with this, i can commit to my plan with much further confidence if it is in compliance with what professionals use for a standard
Always happy to help! I’m glad that I had some decent information to share, and I’ll try to take a photo of the CO2 overdose chamber next time I’m in the lab.
It’s pretty cool to be able to transfer information from one practice to another, and even cooler to be able to help institute humane culling as the norm, so I’m very appreciative to be able to help in any small way.
i just didnt wanna make one for every site i visit haha.
