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One of the worst jobs i ever had, occasionally required us to drown some mice. Excess population / euthanized "feeders" for pet snakes. The method was to put se
by h2odragon 4y ago
One of the worst jobs i ever had, occasionally required us to drown some mice. Excess population / euthanized "feeders" for pet snakes. The method was to put several mice into a small wire cage, and then submerge the cage in water. Usually I filled a bucket with hot water, beforehand, and made this operation fast as possible. Dunk and done.
One day I came across a cow orker attempting to do this job (I had been busy and it was usually my task); they'd put the cage in the sink and were gradually filling the basin with cold water, mice swimming and grasping each other and etc. Panic and horror. Nasty.
Somehow, one mother mouse wound up on top of the pile, holding one almost weaned baby. As the water passed her knees she stood up and held the baby over her head. Prepared to die and use every moment left keeping the kid alive.
I had to adopt her and her baby after seeing that. They were never exceptional as pet mice but I still feel good about saving those two.
- shlant 4y agowhat a rollercoaster of a story. Thank you for sharing.
- michaelgrafl 4y agoFucking hell did I just read? I've just read Flowers for Algernon again a few weeks ago. Don't pull my heart strings like that.
- jklinger410 4y agoI'm not vegan but I think about it all the time.
- Alop3x 4y ago
- badRNG 4y agoSame boat. I'm not a vegan, and I try my absolute best to avoid thinking about what we put animals through. It certainly sits in a specific category of intrusive thoughts. The only real analog to this in my mind is being aware of my own mortality; I just avoid that thought and shove it out of my mind. Occasionally my comparatively relaxed life is harshly interrupted by an awareness of these facts and I'm ripped back to these realities for just a short, terrifying moment. Graciously, a distraction is always readily available.
- jhardy54 4y agoDisclaimer: I’m “vegan”, for some definition of the word. Candidly, I think that reduction in animal suffering is worthwhile, but you get diminishing returns quite quickly. I’d suggest only doing things that are easy. For example: - While grocery shopping you’re choosing between two types of burgers with similar cost and enjoyment: pick the one that causes less suffering. - Your tires need to be replaced for a camping trip this weekend: don’t stress about trying to find vegan tires. - You like cow milk and non-dairy milk the same amount: snag the one that you feel better about. - Your favorite crackers have some trace amount of milk powder in them and all of the alternatives suck. Buy them. Over time, the number of things that are “easy” will increase, and in my experience it’s way more practical than trying to engage in vegan perfectionism and googling things like “which cars are vegan” every time you need to buy something.
- LesZedCB 4y agoI'm strictly vegetarian, I will not ever eat meat, but as for vegan parts this is my strategy and it works really well! it's pretty easy these days, too. veg foods are prolifically available, and oat milk is damn good, even in my morning cappuccino. it becomes something that is positive when it's always a minimization and hueristic rather than a ruleset and guilt-ridden. essentially, "I'm vegan but i don't stress it"
- protonbob 4y agoI am not a vegan but I think it would be useful for every meat eater to humanely kill and prepare an animal to eat at least once in their life. Having done so, I think I learned a lot about death and whether or not I was willing to eat an animal after preparing a few myself. I also think it is important to be aware of our own mortality and to think about it a healthy amount. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori
- shanusmagnus 4y agoI've thought about the mortality angle quite a bit, for the reasons you say, and can see how that would be useful -- even something as simple as fishing can force you to confront some realities about life and death and how we relate to the world. Did your behavior change after your experience?
- goda90 4y agoIf this is such a common need, I can't help but think they should've invested in a controlled atmosphere killing setup to reduce the panic.[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation#Animal_slaughter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation#Animal_...
- h2odragon 4y agoThis was in 1986, in a pet shop. Not large scale enough for dedicated processing equipment, we used the same vacuum sealer for brine shrimp and crickets and mice and etc.
- bombcar 4y agoSomeone I knew caught a raccoon and tried to euthanize it in a freezer which I quickly put a stop to and instead opened a CO2 bottle in the freezer which quietly put an end to the issue.
- acrobatsunfish 4y agoHypothermia is a "better" way to go then co2 asphyxiation if your temperature is sufficiently cold, probably hard to do for a raccoon since they can survive winter. Next time use nitrogen or helium, or like most people do, shoot it.
- geoduck14 4y agoI actually thought that freezing was one of the most humane ways to ... euthanize an animal
- albrewer 4y agoWhy not suffocate them with nitrogen or co2 or something?
- dymk 4y ago$5 Home Depot bucket $189 nitrogen gas tank
- bell-cot 4y agoPlus any regulatory, liability, etc. issues that go along with having & regularly using stuff that could also suffocate your employees.
- BeFlatXIII 4y agoThe things franchise owners will do to save pennies.
- taylodl 4y agoMy daughter got an internship at a research lab this summer - where they have thousands and thousands of research mice and they kill several mice every day. She said CO2 works on adults and therefore that's what they use. But CO2 doesn't work on baby mice and is considered inhumane. Instead they use scissors and cut off the baby mice's heads. It's to be done swiftly so it's like a guillotine. The labs are continually monitored to ensure the animals are stressed as little as possible.
- themanmaran 4y agoI'm curious why the CO2 doesn't work on the babies. Is their rate of breathing just much slower?
- verisimi 4y ago> they use scissors and cut off the baby mice's heads. It's to be done swiftly so it's like a guillotine. Yes, that sounds fine. Much more humane. Carry on. As long as the ethics committee OKs it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- shanusmagnus 4y agoOnce in grad school I went to a talk where another grad student was presenting on his fear research with mice. Many powerpoint details unfold of the hell he and his advisor had contrived to make the mice chronically afraid, and to be able to quantify the fear induced and its effects. I learned that when mice get scared enough they shit excessively. In the presentation of results he lingers on a graph, and says, for effect: "That's right, they were scared shitless." Hilarity. The room bubbles with laughter. Just enough transgression. I remember in that moment bubbling with rage. A famous and well-regarded paragon of the field [1] who had recently come to the university to give a talk spent his career characterizing animal emotions, especially of mice and rats. He revealed their rich emotional worlds in glorious detail. The presentor, his advisor, many of us in the department knew -- or should have -- how un-funny the joke was. We were perfectly positioned to know it. Despite knowing what I knew, I didn't say anything. That silence is still among the top few of my regrets. I guess I learned the weight of doing the right thing in a packed room full of people with contrary opinions, and learned that I was way less strong / bold / principled than I had believed myself to be; which was remarkable, as that bar was already low. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaak_Panksepp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaak_Panksepp
- leaflets2 4y agoIf you could reverse time and say (or do) anything you would have wanted, and it wouldn't affect your future negatively, then what do you wish you had said? (I too find that joke distasteful)
- shanusmagnus 4y agoI had a narrative bubbling in my head at the time; can't remember exactly, but it was something like: "Jaak Panksepp was just here, and you know his work better than I do, which over several decades has established the rich emotional lives of mice. It seems to me that, given that, laughing at the terror you've caused these animals seems inappropriate. What do you think?" It's worth noting that I don't think saying that would have affected my career. I didn't say it because I didn't have the guts to stand up to the mob. Thus the guilt.
- 4y ago
- hanoz 4y agoWhy hot water? I would have thought cold or preferably lukewarm water would be more humane.
- johnsimer 4y agoSwap out the researchers with AGI/ASI robots and swap out the mice with humans, and you can see one of the many scenarios that cause people to be concerned about AGI safety.
- hackflip 4y agoAlmost all of science fiction is "what if aliens/robots did to us what we do to other animals".
- pessimizer 4y ago> I had to adopt her and her baby after seeing that. They were never exceptional as pet mice but I still feel good about saving those two. Weird sentiment. It's like when South American paramilitaries would exterminate entire villages, but adopt one of the children. Does that make it easier to go back to killing them, or harder? edit: I could see it both ways; harder obviously, because you enjoy your pet and you see the other mice the same way you see your pet. But maybe easier, because that mouse earned life by acting in a way you registered as humanlike compassion, and the others failed to, so deserve their fate.
- shanusmagnus 4y agoAlternate take: sometimes you perform whatever small act of grace that you can manage in this world, even if it's futile or inconsistent with your other actions.
- tharne 4y agoVery well said
- Konohamaru 4y agoWhy would you agree to do such a job? "Because it's my job!" <- if someone paid you an obscene sum of money to bonk random people over the head with a baseball bat, would you take it? No? Then what's the justification for torturing mice?
- shard 4y agoI hate to use this phrase, but I think this is what the kids are calling "dripping with privilege" these days.
- jjtheblunt 4y agoWhat kind of hell prevented you from lashing out at this cruelty?
- BeFlatXIII 4y agoWhy not use some more humane method of euthanasia, such as a nitrogen atmosphere?