How to sacrifice adult rats - (Aug/15/2006 )
Could you put them under a light dose of anesthesia? Enough for them to be down while you place them in the device. I know Isofluorane leaves the system rather quickly and would probably be an easy way to put them down so you can set them up and avoid them reacting severely to the stress. Or would any level of anesthesia cause problems for your experiment? Once again I think talking to your animal facility and vet will help you avoid problems and mistakes that would cause pain or undo stress to the animal.
Our neighbouring lab uses isofluorane to knock out mice and then kill them. Its quite safe and easy.
The animals r quite relaxed and not stressed.
i overdose animals with ketamine/xylazine.
I had a very short experience doing primary hyppocampal neuron culture of rat embryos.
My lab-mates used ether to anesthetize the animals before cracking the rat neck.
One of them pressed a thick metal stick on the neck and then a collegue took the rat from the bottom and "stretched" it with a strong quick movement, cracking the neck.
Maybe this procedure requires a certain practise. I don't know if this is difficult to do, but it seemed to be quite painless and rapid. At least because the rat was sleeping...
Hi,
I need to sacrifice adult rats to isolate microglia for primary cell culture purposes. I am reluctant to use an overdose of anaesthesia or CO2, etc. as these may have an affect on the cells. What do you all think about using guillotines? I've done cervical dislocation on mice before but I'm afraid doing the same for adult rats may prove difficult.
I had a practical course (disecting animals) where the professor broke the neck of the rats by smacking them on the edge of the table. This needs practice, but very impressive for students how then have double respect before him
.I witnessed a rat got lose and hit the celing once. It was quite a scene.
Y not jsut do cervical dislocation???
a very humane and a shock death.. dun think that will affect cells..regardless the postmottem effects...
you even dun need a licience to do it.. thou a bit scary , it s fine ....get ur technician in animal house.. i bet they can do that without blinking the eyes!
a very humane and a shock death.. dun think that will affect cells..regardless the postmottem effects...
you even dun need a licience to do it.. thou a bit scary , it s fine ....get ur technician in animal house.. i bet they can do that without blinking the eyes!
cervical dislocation is okay for mice and baby rats but very difficult to perform on adult rats.
Y not jsut do cervical dislocation???
a very humane and a shock death.. dun think that will affect cells..regardless the postmottem effects...
you even dun need a licience to do it.. thou a bit scary , it s fine ....get ur technician in animal house.. i bet they can do that without blinking the eyes!
cervical dislocation is okay for mice and baby rats but very difficult to perform on adult rats.
Just dicovered "youtube" for me. By chance I found this method to sacrify a mouse (for rats it would not work): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTEqR4zv4C0
.Mice lovers do not watch!!
Dear all,
Update: we have been using a CO2 overdose to sacrifice our rats (pups and adults) and its working well. The subsequent cell cultures are not affected so problem sorted. Don't you just love happy endings? 
If the rats are big it could sometimes help to (instead of the two fingers behind the neck) put a pen horizontally across the back of the head and do the dislocation. Fast and humane!
Iīve done different types of cell culture and different methods of euthanasia for rats and mice.
Please, if you can, use CO2, at a good enough rate, the rat will not notice and you should get good cell cultures. This applies particularly to pregnant rats.
Anesthetics are good to use, but hard to come by and you need permits. They also go into the CNS and can pass into the uterus.
Cervical dislocation works fine for mice and very young rats. 1 day old pups can be sacrificed by decapitation, but you would do well to put them on top of a paper covered bucket of ice as to cold anesthesias them.
Decapitation of an adult rat is something you should only do if you will be working with material that will spoil if in contact with anesthetics (for example, if you are working on respiratory response neurons and/or pharmacology). If you use this system, be next to a sink and have the faucet running, if you are well versed in handling a rat, you can pin its legs to the sides (crossing them) with your left hand placed behind the neck. You should be very efficient in the decapitation and immediately put the area of the cut under the faucet. The body will keep moving and the tail will twirl for 20 seconds. Itīs a strong image and I do not recommend it.
Do not attempt to kill a rat by swirling and slamming the neck into the border of a table, I saw someone who used to do this all the time and He missed the spot, smacking the ratīs back into the table. He then had to face a very angry rat that had escaped from his grip.