Author(s) : Zeyi Cheng 1
1 Department of Cardiovascular Surgery , Sichuan University , China
Mod J Med Biol
Article Type : Editor Note
Rats are the most important and commonly usedexperimental animals in biomedical research; they havemade great contributions and sacrifices to our scientificresearch activities. Therefore, during the experiment, weshould abide by animal ethics and treat them well. After theexperiment, we should properly put them to death.
As bioscience and medical research workers, we mustkill rats after the experiment, but which method should wechoose? There are currently several ways to kill rats [1].
Grasp the tail of the rat with your right hand and pull it backward, while holding down the head of the rat with the thumb and index finger of your left hand, pull off the spinal cord and the brain, and the rat will die immediately, which causes rapid death, but skill must be learned and well grasped, otherwise, you can be bitten by them, I observed that many my colleagues/classmates are afraid to grab the rat with their hands, and then send the cervical dislocation to kill the rat.
The experimenters put on cotton gloves, hold the head of the rat with your right hand, and hold the back with your left hand, exposing the neck, the assistant uses scissors to cut off the head of the rat with scissors. It is a useful method when tissues must be free of euthanasia chemicals.
Grab the tail of the rat with the right hand and lifted it and slammed it on the head, the rat died immediately after the spasm. Or hitting the rat's head with a small wooden hammer can be fatal. This method seems ruthless.
The acute massive blood loss of the orbital arteries and/or veins of the mouse can be used to make the mouse die immediately.
Inhalation of carbon monoxide, rats and mice can be fatal in an environment with a carbon monoxide concentration of 0.2% to 0.5%. Subcutaneous inhalation of ether and chloroform can be fatal.
We tend to recommend cervical dislocation to kill rats, because it no risk of blood contamination, there is no need to consume anesthetics, and it also avoids the possibility that experimenters may inhale anesthesia and save money. It feels rough to kill with a wooden stick, and the body may be incomplete. The rule of cervical dislocation can avoid the above shortcomings, but many colleagues around me, especially female colleagues, dare not use their hands to catch rat directly for fear of being bitten, some of them have been bitten by rats. So in order to overcome those problems, we have already created a very simple method named Modified cervical dislocation to kill a rat without any other tools or drugs (Table 1).
Methods |
Merits |
Disadvantages |
Cervical Dislocation |
No need for anesthetics, economic,
guaranteed results |
Mass killing of rats, risk of being
bitten |
Decapitation |
Fast and simple |
Risk of blood contamination;
additional blood further processing |
Hitting |
Do not touch the rat directly,
avoid being bitten |
Cruel and inefficient |
Acute Massive Blood Loss |
Fast and easy |
Risk of blood contamination;
additional blood further processing |
Chemical Lethality |
Euthanasia, avoid being bitten |
Cost of anesthetics, environmental
pollution |
Modified Cervical Dislocation |
Safe and effective, economic,
simple and easy |
Mass killing of rats |
Table 1: Comparison of rat killing methods.