# Dispatching mice or rodents. CO2.vs nitrogen.



## robhoski (4 mo ago)

While it's true you breathe CO2 that is present in the air, the quantities of CO2 required to cause breathlessness are greater than what is naturally available. That's why you don't feel oxygen starved in a normal environment. CO2 in quantities large enough to kill you (or rodents) will make you feel like you're suffocating.

The human body uses CO2 concentration levels as the trigger to cause you to breathe. So you when you elevate CO2 levels (such as by holding your breath) your body begins to panic as it tries to get more oxygen, and you'll feel like you're suffocating - because you are.

Nitrogen doesn't have this effect of panic and suffocation. Because breathing nitrogen does not raise the CO2 levels in your body. Nitrogen will kill you in the same way CO2 does (by displacing the available oxygen) but you won't notice it. You'll get disoriented, pass out, and eventually die.

If you ever watch pilots and astronauts being trained for how to deal with oxygen deprivation at elevation it's nitrogen they put into the room where they sit with oxygen masks on. They are then instructed to take off the masks and they begin to become disoriented. If the trainers were not in the room with them and able to make sure they put their masks back on they would eventually pass out and die. But you'll also notice that during this training exercise they are not struggling to breathe and that's because the oxygen is being replaced by nitrogen. If they replaced the air in the training chamber with CO2 they would be gasping for air and would feel like they are suffocating when they took their masks off.

Nitrogen is definitely a more humane way to dispatch any air breathing animal. This is why it is being considered as a method of execution for death penalty cases.

And now you know.


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

robhoski said:


> While it's true you breathe CO2 <SNIP>
> 
> And now you know.


Why thank you for that statement....


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## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

Neither the American Veterinary Medical Association nor the UK government allow N2 anoxia as a humane form of companion animal euthanasia. 



https://icwdm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2020avma-euthanasia-guidelines.pdf



https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/619140/ConsolidatedASPA1Jan2013.pdf 

Pilot training is irrelevant, and to presume that execution practices in the US have an uncomplicated connection to humane treatment is unwarranted. To state that there is a universal method of humane euthanasia for "any air breathing animal" indicates serious ignorance of the various physiological considerations in euthanasia. 

There are citations for scores of legitimate studies in the AVMA report linked above.


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## Crablet (Dec 27, 2012)

The OG post is a really good example of taking an unrelated anecdote as evidence and then applying it to something completely different.


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## Swindinian (May 4, 2020)

Skim read bits.
So N2 might be suitable to euthanise poultry, but definitely not suitable for rodents due to their aversiveness/ability to detect and prolonged duration before succumbing?


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