Choosing the Type of Euthanasia

I found this article about using CO2 for euthanasia very informative...

http://www.alysion.org/euthanasia/index.html

Also after reviewing more articles, it is interesting to note that in most "research" facilities, the use of "freezing" is not listed as a method of euthanising their animals. Here is a link to an example of one research universities standard operating procedus.

http://www.asrc.agri.missouri.edu/so...B/B-EUTHAN.pdf

Now my own opinion, since I grew up on a farm in the heartland, we had to put down many animals, for birds; decapatation was used or gun shot, for the larger animals, a quick hammer blow to the brain did the trick, or in some cases, we used a 22 calibur bullet. Rodents, and other small critters, a quick blow or usually a clean break of the neck would work.

Rarely, but I have used the "freezer" method on occasion to euthanasize a critter. I do think the best method is the use of CO2 as outlined in the link. It is a very easy, effective and the most humane way that I know.

I know they are not human.... but nonetheless.... do onto others as you would have them do onto you... seems rather fitting.

So, using an anasthetic such as CO2 for cessation of pain, then cessation of conscious followed by death is the way to go for me.


Jeff

As a minor point, nothing in that list of accepted forms of euthanasia mentions anything about reptiles in general, or snakes in particular. Further, for those lists of animals where CO2 and other forms were described, reptiles were absent from the lists of life forms that were acceptable candidates for those forms.

Now, it may simply be that herps are not common enough lab subjects to have been covered, and they would have been included, if they were. However, that list does not say that, so it seems inaccurate to suggest that the list cited has anything substantive to add to the discussion here.

I found it interesting that one zoological research site in Great Britain had the following to say in its guidelines for reptile euthanasia:

"Confirming death:
Death (loss of brainstem activity) is difficult to confirm in reptiles. Suggested criteria to evaluate include:
· Lack of external reflexes (Righting, Limb withdrawals, Cornea-third eyelid response)
· Lack of detectable respiratory activity (no spontaneous breathing movements, Larynx open, flaccid and unresponsive to touch)
· Lack of detectable cardiovascular activity (Doppler ultrasound, ultrasound, ECG)

Reptiles which are heavily anaesthetised, severely ill or even just very cold will have few, if any, outward signs of activity; and appear dead by the criteria above but may regain consciousness (e.g. after metabolising anaesthetics or warming)" http://www.bvzs.org/euthansiaguidelinesreptiles.htm

Now, I have no real issue about freezing an animal or not. I have never had to euthanize a large snake, and freezing of smaller snakes (deformed hatchlings and such) has only rarely been an issue. If hitting a snake in the head with a hammer is more humane, that's fine with me. However, that referrence cited above clearly states that overly cold snakes that are warmed "may regain consciousness" ... How do you accomplish that without first having been UN-conscious? And, if the snake that is cooled sufficiently is unconscious, how can it not be humane to then freeze the anesthetized animal?

Just a thought ...

Ok, so I generalized, "animals" to include reptiles. Yes I will admit that it is much harder to diagnose death with a reptile due to lack of "apparent" visual cues. None the less, I believe using CO2 method, and with the suggestion that after 30 min. using freezing to ensure death... would be humane.

here are a few more links more specific to reptile euthanasia types from Melissa Kaplan.

http://www.anapsid.org/euth.html

http://www.anapsid.org/co2.html

http://www.anapsid.org/decap.html

jeff

Jeff, I wasn't attacking you, so please do not misunderstand what I was saying there. I was just pointing out that even the experts don't have much to say about reptile euthanasia, because, as it appears to me, they would like to think that reptiles are self-aware as are "higher" orders of life, but they have no evidence of this being the case.

As for Ms. Kaplan, her I do attack as an anti-pet animal rights activist disguised as a herper. Her care sheets are full of inaccurate "information," so I cannot count her sheets on euthanasia as being any more reliable.

Again, I really don't "have a dog in this fight." I just think it's interesting how proclamations are made by the "experts" without specifics cited as evidence in most of these pieces of information.

This is drifting back towards my argument made on page one so I think I'll chime in a bit once more...

As I said, I have frozen reptiles in the past and likely will again in the future should occassion arise when I feel it's appropriate. I do so because it's the quickest method for many which I am certain will cause death- as I said, I have no idea how to best go about disloacting the spinal column from the brain for most species and wouldn't care to attempt it in that the idea of euthanization is to end suffering or cull and it's not something I find myself doing frequently enough to find it worth practicing.

I also noted that evidence strongly suggests that consciousness remains during the freezing process up to a point for herps but that brings up a really big question... What exactly is consciousness? As Darin noted it can be very difficult to determine if a reptile is even ALIVE given certain standards at certain points (c'mon now, for all of you who have dealt with large numbers in a resale/import situation, how many of you have had to poke something to see if it was alive? I know I have and I'd like to think I've got a better grasp than most) but further it leads to questions about how we define pain.

This is going to be a lot of conjecture on my part, it's an opinion and a really poorly formed hypothesis and all my evidence is pretty circumstantial, if you want to debate it, please feel free but bear in mind that I'm not going to be married to the following statements and might just stop arguing because it no longer interests me to continue...

I submit that pain is merely sensory information, what any given organism DOES with pain is more important than the condition of pain existing. For organisms which can be said to be sentient (if not always very bright) and have self awareness, there is an emotion associated with the physical sensation, that is SELF which is being damaged, it's frightening, it raises doubt about the future it's a major issue... For organisms which are not self aware, it's pure sensory imput with no more meaning than visual stimulus or scent. It *might* trigger a behavioral response if a cause is immediate and the survival instincts have developed one. Meaning if a response to the sensory information was appropriate and animals which developed it ended up forming a larger part of the breeding population, in example, something bites a reptile, escape is a successful response, animals which escaped survived, the instinctive response grew stronger and more dominant within the population. For situations outside such immediate sensory information or where no instinctive response could be developed, the pain is meaningless. As an example... most reptiles equate heat with light intensity to some degree (some don't of course) and will thermoregulate based on light intensity rather than temperature, such as a bearded dragon basking under a flourescent light, even though an area with heat tape under it in the dark is warmer... Given a removal of the associated conditions (light) a diurnal species will burn itself to the point of death on a hotrock or malfunctioning chunk of flexxwatt and not express ANY noticeable response to the sensory information (when the gut is cauterizing, I think it's safe to assume it causes pain). There is nothing in the behavioral pattern which can identify the proper response to end the sensory information so the animal cooks.

I'd place freezing to death in a similar category, it may cause pain, but given a basic premise of non-self awareness (another debate if it's a point of contention) and no instinctive response towards the pain information, it's meaningless pain because it doesn't cause any distress. Yes, this means I'm arguing that it's okay to cause pain IF it can be reasonabaly believed that the pain is not understood. I think I explained what I meant fairly well, but if there's someone who wants clarification, I'll certainly try to explain it better if it'll cut down on the hate mail.

Oh yeah... One more thing...

Kaplan is an anti-pet trade activist, she wants to see animal captivity and use stopped completely. She's proved this many times over, including on this site (she IS registered and posted once), a subject like animal euthanasia is exactly the sort of thing she likes to twist and use to misinform in a manner which encourages her political views.

While I understand that some people may not yet know her for what she is, I gotta say she has no place whatsoever in any rational intelligent discussion of the subject.

I did not know that...

thank you for your information / opinion.

oh and no worries... i rarely if ever take offense! LOL

I don’t think I could ever bring myself to euthanize a beloved pet by slamming it against a wall or the floor, or snapping its neck with my hands. I don’t think I would be able to live with myself. My personal feeling is that I have taken on the responsibility of caring and loving this pet and in its final time of need I would want it to be as painless as possible. Therefore I would opt to take my pet into the vet and have it euthanized by them. I know I would prefer to be put down by a lethal injection than suffer by being frozen or beaten in the head with a hammer.

The only way I could accept freezing to be a humane form of euthanasia is if the animal was anesthetized first then the entire animal immersed in liquid nitrogen for rapid freezing. This method instantaneously inactivates enzymes in the brain. When put into a refrigerator freezer the reptile starts to freeze way too slow. As the reptile starts to hit low temperatures they go into a state or torpor then ice crystals start to form in the tissue internally and externally which is quite painful. Refrigerator freezers should not be used because they freeze way too slow and are in no way considered to be humane.

Maybe I would feel differently about my answer if I was raising mass quantities of mice to be used as feeders but I will probably never know.

I just read through this whole thread, and I wanted to add my 2 cents and some food for thought. I want to say that I am in no way an expert on any of this, most of it is my opinion. So I invite anyone to correct me if I am wrong in anything that I say. I am always open to learning.

To touch on a few things, if I remember correctly, the difference between CO poisoning and breathing CO2 is that CO binds to the red bloodcells and does not release. This is why CO can build up in time in a persons system. CO2 however just places the O2 in the air... so basically it comes down to as an animal receives less and less oxygen, it will slowly pass out, and if no oxygen is administered at some point, will die from asphyxiation (sp?)... So from both CO poisoning, and say a CO2 chamber, the effects may look the same, but achieved in a different ways.

Now as far as freezing a creature for euthanasia, I have done it, that was also before I was told a few things about it from a friend that is a vet assistant. The problem with using a home freezer is that the level of cold is not fast enough to cease brain activity before the body actually freezes, so it may happen the the animal will actually feel its limbs crystalizing before the brain "goes to sleep".... now I would be more comfortable with it, as someone else has mentioned, if there was some sort of anastetic done first.
And a topic that may be cause for a new thread, is reptiles and feeling... pain, fear, anxiety, are all learned feelings in my opinion. I agree with what Seamus Haley said that pain is sensory information. The feeling pain is the taught response to that type of information. Examples for me are how some people can get piercings and they don't hurt, and the next person can get the same thing done and it hurt worse than anything they have felt before. I believe that reptiles behaviour is much more instinctual than say mammals... reason being... the mother lays the eggs and leaves them.. ( I know that this does not go for all reptiles, I have only had personal experience with geckos at this time ).. so they come out of the eggs with "preprogramed" behavioural patterns... they don't have mom and/or dad to learn from... making it possible that through the years of herp evolution, pain may not have been learned. So in this case why would a reptile take what we conceive as a painful situation, and have the same reaction... couple that with the assosiation of heat with light and it makes sense to me why a bearded dragon or a ball python among the others can climb up on a heat rock and burn themselves. They do not understand what is happening, so as someone else mentioned, there is no reason for them to move.

Jason

On my end of the stick, I have had to put down a lot of snakes. I used to do the freezer method, but now the freezer if full of rabbits, so doing this with a 11ft snake, no matter how emaciated it is, just isn't possible.

I now take them to a vet's office. Thirty dollars is not what I am charged here on the PA/NJ border. I am charged $85 to walk in the door and $45 for the injection.

Since I wholeheartedly agree with Seamus on this, I don't have to bore you with a repeat of his post, although it would be less articulate.

More food for thought, when I had my dog put to sleep he was given two injections. One was a "pain killer". When they gave this to the dog, he slumped down and fell unconscious. The second injection stopped his heart. When I have snakes put to sleep, they are not give two injections...