killing mice with 70% ethanol.... - ethical issues... (Mar/29/2006 )
a post-doc in our lab uses 70% ethanol to sacrifice newborn mice for neuron culture, because it's better than CO2 (why, i'm not sure, the language barrier prevents his explaining and my understanding). a couple days ago one of the summer interns in another lab saw him killing the mice this way and completely flipped out 
uh yeah, sounds like your lab is cheaping out by using some regular everyday ethanol,
A labmate does the cervical dislocation on newborn rats 1-3 ds old by simply pressing down hard at the base of the skull with a tweezer. Sounds better than ethanol to me .... 
I kill newborns by cutting their head with a pair of scissors... I've been told that for culturing nerve cells it's the best way.
I've never heard of killing mice with ethanol, but I do submerge them in EtOH 70 before cutting their head, to minimize tissue contamination. How long do you leave them until they are dead?
We used to gas them with CO2 or give an overdose of anesthetic.
One of the labs, kills rats with a guillotine.
In my friend's lab, they kill rats by banging the head to the table pretty hard.
OMG! i think it's totally unacceptable to do in this way
back to the topic, cervical dislocation is a common method to kill mice in my lab. for newborn we use isoflurane. my boss has the experience in using CO2 and deep freezing but both are not that good. CO2 needs very long time to have effect. deep freezing makes the mice harden and difficult to dissect. more importantly, the mice are still alive and may become conscious when you manipulate them......
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more importantly, the mice are still alive and may become conscious when you manipulate them......
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Oh my, did this really happen? I thought only fish can do that.
In my friend's lab, they kill rats by banging the head to the table pretty hard.
OMG! i think it's totally unacceptable to do in this way
In the hands of someone who really knows what they are doing, it's quick and painless.
With a novice, it can be a bit, errm, hit and miss. If you pardon the pun.
b3ka
I would guess if you were squeamish and hesitant, it could be drawn out and therefore a bad experience for the mouse/rat. if you were quick about it, I don't see how it's any worse.
my neighbor brought me a baby bird last year that her cat had dragged into the house; in typical cat fashion, she hadn't quite 'finished it off'. my neighbor was a very sweet person and couldn't muster the guts to make it quick for the bird, so she brought it to me. there was obviously nothing that could be done, and she knew that I was a pretty cool customer...I took care of it for her by crushing the skull as quickly as I possibly could
this does NOT make me heartless; heartless would have been sitting there in indecision, watching it expire from it's many injuries, instead of making it as quick as possible. yeah, crushing the head is a little gross, but it's compassionate and humane if it's over quickly and I would rather do that, than feed it ethanol.
severe ethanol toxicity can't be a pleasant way to go, even if it only takes several seconds