Freezing a Tarantula to end it's pain - is that a good idea?

[gvfarns]

We don't know that CO2 actually renders them unconscious. We only know that it prevents them from moving. It could well just paralyze them.

Freezing to death is not the same for a T as it is for a mammal. Their body doesn't shiver and feel uncomfortable like ours does. Their processes just slow down until they stop. It's as likely to be anesthetic as CO2 is.

Furthermore, it is likely that tarantulas do not feel pain. Their brains are very, very primitive by comparison with us and other mammals.

Freezing is widely accepted as humane and is the most convenient way to kill a T. Arguments against it pretty much always rest on making false comparisons to how we would experience it. Just as solitary confinement and boredom are not cruel to tarantulas, as they would be for us, freezing them is not either.

 

[MizM]

...Like I said, it all boils down to which way makes you feel less crappy for having to end their life.

Cass

Which I feel totally silly about, because snakes eat mice in the wild every day and it's totally natural!!

 

[codykrr]

what about boiling water? that would be quick...

they do it to hundreds and thousands of lobsters each year....its pretty much instant.


i mean..i havent put a T down..but im definatly not going to squish it...the mess. and after all. it is just a bug. as much as you all dont want to hear that...its true.

i wont freeze mice though. i have a C02 chamber for that. nice and quick.

and id rather be froze to death for the record. or randomly murdered by gunshot or hot girls molesting me to death. but thats me.

 

[Ictinike]

and id rather be froze to death for the record. or randomly murdered by gunshot or hot girls molesting me to death. but thats me.

Touche Cody with a C :worship:

 

[endoflove]

freezing it is the way i went with my T. i miss him but it was his time and he wasent getting anybetter...fungi started to eat him alive ! but thats a story for another day. just do it like old yeller

 

[cacoseraph]

i'm not even bothering to read past the first five or so posts


do some research on pain threads. look at the hippy undereducated yabo posts from ppl who just know that their spider can feel pain... and um, look at the science




but if you want to be that masochistic to yourself and to be worried about something this silly... the hammer thing is your best bet. or a big fire cracker. but all you... folks want your cake and to eat it too. the answers that are scientifically the best are not palatable to you. making the silly assumption spiders feel pain... the best way to make a painless kill is utterly and instantly scramble their ganglia. that's going to make a mess and make you feel sad. but it would be the best way to make it "painless"



lol. i need a super derisive smiley

 

[codykrr]

Touche Cody with a C :worship:

LOL...wouldnt that be nice

 

[Hedorah99]

I'm always hearing about bleach and ammonia mixing to create Chlorine gas. Though I guess it'd be impractical to use something you need special containers and safety precautions for.

Unless you feel like taking the risk of accidentally killing yourself and anyone else in the house or surroundings, I wouldn't try this one!

 

[cacoseraph]

lol

the chlorine thing is a horrible idea unless you really know what you are doing.


you can easily melt plastic bottles and stuff like that, iirc it's a fairly exothermic reaction. or to spell it out for those sounding it out at home... i believe it gets really hot. hot like fire

i've done it before to clean certain things and it is certainly doable if you freaking read up on it first. it wasn't even that hard... but suprisingly enough, you can make bad mistakes with a highly toxic, heavier than air (iirc), caustic gas.



unless you mix a lot or have abnormally potent reactants you probably wouldn't make enough gas to really do a lot of collateral damage... but it would probably gas *you* out rather annoyingly, stink, and possibly bubble over and wreck a bit of near stuff. and it definitely isn't something to mix up in your basement


also, i am pretty sure the bug would "go insane" where you to chlorine gas attack it. dropping them in pretty high % rubbing alcohol makes them convulse and spasm pretty crazily for a surprising (to me) amount of time






if one were really that concerned i would just look up the stuff that the butterflies guys stamp their catches with. they don't want the wing scales to get damaged *at all*, so likely it will make you all feel all warm and fuzzy about the whole thing. of course, if you do believe bugs are advanced enough to feel pain you probably should know that in high animals their are usually three phase anesthetics applied for general surgical anesthesia. 1) a paralytic to hold the patient in place 2) a anesthetic to remove the pain and 3) a sedative to knock them out. i hope you can see how if you are actually not applying all three it would be a most grotesque way to die. if you believe you need to humanely kill bugs and are smart enough my little spiel should give you some nice nightmares. thanks for enjoying the show and *do* try to do the prereading before coming to class next time.

 

[jonnyquong]

Don't try this at home!!

I'm always hearing about bleach and ammonia mixing to create Chlorine gas. Though I guess it'd be impractical to use something you need special containers and safety precautions for.

Always hearing??? :? (it was used as a chemical weapon during World War I and later by Nazi Germany in World War II) :barf::barf::barf::barf::barf:
Probably not only not a very good idea, a pretty dangerous one.
DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!!!

CO2 is safer, and you can make it at home. Won't burn you, blind you, or blow up your house. Just place the spider in a container and replace the oxygen with CO2. Night night.

Jon

 

[Mack&Cass]

Always hearing??? :? (it was used as a chemical weapon during World War I and later by Nazi Germany in World War II) :barf::barf::barf::barf::barf:
Probably not only not a very good idea, a pretty dangerous one.
DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!!!

CO2 is safer, and you can make it at home. Won't burn you, blind you, or blow up your house. Just place the spider in a container and replace the oxygen with CO2. Night night.

Jon

Just have a book ready with you to read so you don't fall asleep waiting for the CO2 to kill your T. Ts breathe so passively that using CO2 to kill the tarantula would take an extremely long time. I'm not saying which method is right or wrong, but I don't recommend using CO2, just due to the fact that it would take forever. Also, if you're making it yourself, you'd have to make a ton of it. If you have a CO2 tank, it would use a lot of it, and around here it costs $40 to fill a CO2 tank, so it would be better just to put it in the freezer. At least then, too, you can leave it in overnight and know that it will be dead. If you take a T out of whatever you're using to CO2 it, it's possible that it could just be unconscious/paralyzed and you'd be throwing out a T that isn't dead. Just my opinion.

Cass

 

[Scorpendra]

the chlorine thing is a horrible idea unless you really know what you are doing.

you can easily melt plastic bottles and stuff like that, iirc it's a fairly exothermic reaction. or to spell it out for those sounding it out at home... i believe it gets really hot. hot like fire

i've done it before to clean certain things and it is certainly doable if you freaking read up on it first. it wasn't even that hard... but suprisingly enough, you can make bad mistakes with a highly toxic, heavier than air (iirc), caustic gas.

unless you mix a lot or have abnormally potent reactants you probably wouldn't make enough gas to really do a lot of collateral damage... but it would probably gas *you* out rather annoyingly, stink, and possibly bubble over and wreck a bit of near stuff. and it definitely isn't something to mix up in your basement

Always hearing??? :? (it was used as a chemical weapon during World War I and later by Nazi Germany in World War II) :barf::barf::barf::barf::barf:
Probably not only not a very good idea, a pretty dangerous one.
DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!!!

For quickly killing specimens for insect collections. It's a bit of a...different...context, and I've never done it, but I have heard about using Cl2 for a killing jar if you know what you're doing. I'm not advocating it, of course; I said in my post that you'd need all kinds of precautions which would make the process cumbersome and likely not worth all the effort in the end. I was just thinking out loud (so to speak). If you inhale it or get it in your eyes or anything like that, it mixes with the water in the mucous membrane to create hydrochloric acid. Which is why it's bad, not because Nazis touched it

if one were really that concerned i would just look up the stuff that the butterflies guys stamp their catches with. they don't want the wing scales to get damaged *at all*, so likely it will make you all feel all warm and fuzzy about the whole thing.

Ethyl acetate. They still spasm, though. And that bumblebee of mine still has a wet look on its thorax..though I guess that doesn't matter in this situation.

There we are making the mistake comparing them with us.

Its irrational to say "I would rather". You are a human being with an inteligence. A lot of things go thru your mind if you were freezing to death, way more than if you just suddenly die. But in terms of spiders...Cold temps slow them down, we dont know if they even suffer at all with that method and just simply get lethargic and die in a "sleeping way alike situation.

Squeezing them might be not painfull for them too (we dont know either) but for god sakes is way more disgusting and painfull to look at.
It just doesnt seem too civilized, if you ask me.

+1. Seriously...How about you run over your dog when it's time for it to be put down? If you're willing to do something like that, it's a testament to how little you cared about the animal from the get-go. I know the analogy's a little off since I'm comparing a dog and a T, but that's not the point. If you can't give emotional value to your possessions, that's another problem entirely.

I'm not going to get into my own personal tastes about T euthanasia. Only that I wouldn't smash it with a hammer, stomp on it, light it on fire, or anything else that sounds like it came from an arachnophobe.

 

[curiousme]

Didn't we just have a long thread about this?:?

I don't feel like there is a need to euthanize a cold blooded arachnid. They are not human and you cannot simply put your feelings on to them. I would do everything in my power to help the T make it through, but nature will take its course; without me killing my own pet.



(edited to add a big +1 to all of cacoseraph's posts)

 

[sAdam]

take em out back like Old Yeller and use a 30-30, or maybe a 12 bore if its a blondi or sumthin

 

[cacoseraph]

(edited to add a big +1 to all of cacoseraph's posts)

*you* would have said it in a much nicer manner, i am quite sure =P

take em out back like Old Yeller and use a 30-30, or maybe a 12 bore if its a blondi or sumthin

heh

if you blast their kinda central ganglia that is a very good suggestion. all firearm safety stuff aside, of course.






with the understanding that i believe, of coure, it is idiotic to make the assumption they feel pain, but aside from that...
really... you have no guarantee with any of your sissy slow methods that it is painless. they only SEEM nicer because you don't really understand how bugs work. i do. i've told you a couple ways that work for actually doing it "painlessly" but no, the ppl still looking actually just want a method that lets them feel nice w/o actually caring about the science behind it

and i bet the nancy posters aren't even reading my posts all the way, or understanding them if they do read them.. so i don't even get to make them feel bad. oh well... *i'm* still having fun =P

 

[Arakatac]

Hey all you Dr Kevorkians out there (and I say that with a wink) - With all this talk of nerve gas and freezers and sledge hammers, I understand everybody wants to do what's best for the spider, but I believe that the most appropriate way to go, as unpalatable as it seems to be to everybody, is to let nature take its course.

 

[Mad Hatter]

I believe that the most appropriate way to go, as unpalatable as it seems to be to everybody, is to let nature take its course.

You and I agree on that...

I was surprised to see this thread back on the first page.

 

[pwilson5]

ok so i havnt seen it mentioned... but what about flash freezing them?

upside-down office duster... can flash freeze them in an instant.. would kill them a load quicker than the freezer and leave the body in tact if you wanted to preserve your T

 

[scar is my t]

How on earth does anyone think freezing something to death(not instantaneous) is more humane than stepping on them? I hate the thought of having to do it, but it sure seems more logical.

I've been lucky though and haven't ever had a situation arise that came to this end result.

How about lighting them on fire? I'm just sayin'!! If your willing to freeze your T's to death you might as well go to the other extreme and let 'em go out in a blaze of glory. I personally wouldn't want to die either of these two ways. I'll take a bullet to the head any day.(foot stomp for T's)

Good idea. I might do the same and cook it and eat it kinda to remember it in some weird way..... More likely I would do what people do to kill Mealworms for bird food. Put it in scortching hot water. Hopefully get it hot enough to kill it instantly so you can save the body and have it be painless.

 

[What]

ok so i havnt seen it mentioned... but what about flash freezing them?

upside-down office duster... can flash freeze them in an instant.. would kill them a load quicker than the freezer and leave the body in tact if you wanted to preserve your T

Having frozen parts of skin and such accidentally... I really dont think you could flash freeze a T very quickly with one, and you would blow right through the abdomen with one.

IMO, the correct procedure for freezing a T should be to put it in an opaque sealed container, then into the fridge for 30-40 mins. From there into the freezer. This lowers the Ts body temperature to the point that they are not active and will not thrash around upon being put directly into a cold environment. But that is just my opinion...