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Yes, Freezing to death is a horrible death for anything. When fat and other cells begin th freeze, the crystalize and rupture and the pain is great and death is relatively slow. I have heard and seen where some have euthanized reptiles this way too. Please never do that, it can take from several minutes to over an hour for them to die this way. It's too easy for us humans to close that freezer door and declare our job done and put it all out of our minds...meanwhile, there is a little mini holocaust going on in the freezer and the suffering is great.
C02 is by far the most humane way for small mammals. It's too slow for euthanasia of reptiles though.
I know this sounds brutal but blunt force head trauma is a fairly humane death if done right. I don't like the pillow case thing because you are just slamming the whole rat against something and beating it to death. One swift well placed whack to the back of the skull and lights are out for good and they never know what hit them. Kinda like when we get a head injury in a car crash..."I saw headlights coming, heard tires squeeling...then I woke up in the hospital and don't remember anything else." When the brain is sloshed during head trauma, nothing is recorded during that time to memory. The difference here hopefully is that the rat doesn't wake up.
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