Today gerbil and hamster pair introductions were made. Unfortunately grey female purchased 2 weeks ago had a stroke today and so the mate I saved for her is alone again until I get a replacement. I paired up my new dark eyed honey with a white male and the rest of the males of litter 1 are being culled in to cat and possibly dog food. Their cage is over crowded and smelly.

So as some have seen my debate of how to humanely kill gerbils and not agreeing with co2 chambers and questioning my ability with a knife I got out the electric rat trap. Clicked it on, gerbil went in, nothing... Hmm... maybe it's too dusty. Clicked it off, wiped the front plates with my hand, clicked it on, gerbil went in, nothing... Hmm.. did not click it off cause all light and sound had stopped, wiped the plates off with my hand, nothing, still saw some dust, reached farther back to hit the last plate, and *wham*. 15mins later my hand is still tingling. I do not suggest testing rat traps by hand. It seems the last plate has to be hit to trigger it. A little cookie dough on the back vent lured the gerbil that far and *zap* instant death. No squeak, no wiggle, just zap, and I dumped out a body. Seems humane enough. I don't think I could kill it any faster and I doubt it had time to really feel the electricity. No more so than a bullet or cervical dislocation of larger stuff.

Gerbils were served to cats. However while cats have eaten very young rabbit kits that was smaller, without fur, and wiggling. Everything else has been skinned or plucked. The female who has caught mice carried it off but wasn't sure how to start eating it. She's not a good hunter and generally only caught bite sized baby mice. I finally sliced them in half with the gamebird shears and hope that will show them how to get through the fur. Otherwise I'll be having to portion up gerbils like I do rabbits.

Now I'm off to zap a few for the dogs. Gerbil and then dwarf hamster production should be increasing by a lot over the next month. Enough to make pounds of small prey for cats and dogs.

I still can't feel my fingers.

__________ Tue Jan 24, 2012 5:43 pm __________

I went to see if the cats had attempted to eat their cut in half gerbils and well... we need a new plan. The bathroom looks like a horror movie with blood 2' up one wall. Gerbils will either have to be in more bite size pieces or we'll have to get some dog crates to feed them in. I gotta clean that up before Josh gets home.

Im sorry about the gerbil, is that the one you got at the trade that was in another post?
I wondered how you would cull a gerbil or somthing similiar, and I guess you just answered my question! I have also wondered how to cull hands....

The grey was one of the new ones I got. I've had them in split cages (if you don't know rodents that's where you divide the cage with wire so they can see but not touch for introduction or they are likely to kill each other) and switching sides every other day. Today was to be meeting day when I found her curled up cold and barely breathing. I was gonna just leave her to stop breathing since she was unconscious anyway but I decided to warm her up despite having no hope and she blinked one eye and then started having spasms. The warmer she got the more her muscles twitched and jerked seemingly with no control and her right side eye never responded despite the left being open when I touched her. About the time I got her finally warmed all the way up she went limp.

Strokes and seizures are common with rodents especially if not bred well and I'm guessing there was too much brain damage either from that or from however long she spent cold and unconscious. Certain colors are so hard to find here that I got one line of very healthy gerbils that I know are good but not useful for the colors I want and now I'm just taking gambles planning to breed in to the healthy line with the odd color I find here and there that has what I want. Then I can keep the 2nd gen to start producing the colors I want while culling for health and temperament. Gerbils have sure fallen in quality around here since I bred them in highschool. It's truly sad. They were such wonderful pets and now I can hardly find one that is more than a show piece (can't handle them), makes even a decent parent, and who isn't at risk of dropping dead at any moment. Since the whole system is for pet food all the culling and failures aren't a huge deal while I work with the genetics.