[BriGuy]

Hello all

I'd like to find a simple and repeatable  ways to make Co2 without any dangerous or messy byproducts and without the mess and ooze of baking soda and vinegar.  Someone told me that baking soda  mixed with lemon salt and then mixed with water would do it (?). 

The reason i'm doing this is to euthanize mice humanely to be fed to a snake.     The snake will eat them dead or alive, so there is no sense of sending the little guys off painfully and in terror.  So  I've seen folks do it with the baking soda route, but it is messy and there is an initial rush of CO2 created... this is very irritating to the respiratory tract of the critters.   They've got to pass away so the snake can live, but i just want them to drift off to sleep completely unaware.   

If there are safe dry ingredients that will react without any liquids or heating, that would be awesome.  If a liquid is required then i'm hoping good old h2o will fit the bill.

The second part of this would be (assuming this is doable) to ask how to be able to calculate or at least approximate the amount of co2 being produced.

Thanks in advance!  I really appreciate any guidance


 

[opsomath]

Can't you get dry ice at the store?

[BriGuy]

I have a restaurant supply nearby opsomath, i think they carry it...otherwise i'm sure i could find it fairly easily.  However, what i was hoping to do was do this with common ingredients that i can store indefinitely (and of course, dry ice can burn if mishandled).  Thanks for the reply!

[Enthalpy]

To euthanize, I'd use nitrogen gas, certainly not carbon dioxide that lets the mice suffocate.

Nitrogen is available as a (very cold) liquid, which you can store for weeks in a can of polystyrene foam and evaporate as needed in small amount.

Removing the oxygen from the box where the mouse is would be acceptable too. I don't know exactly how, but other people here probably do.

[Arkcon]

The problem is that mice are exceptionally sensitive to CO2, as given by this PDF link. 
{click}

A compressed CO2 tank, with a regulator, will allow you to get the CO2 level in an enclosed space to be above 70% rapidly.  That will leave minimal time for them to suffer.  Pretty much the best you can do really.

*[EDIT]*

Reading the pdf carefully, it seems the humane way is to raise the CO2 level gradually, to insure sedation, then death.

[Corribus]

Just learn cervical dislocation method. No gas necessary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cervical_dislocation

[billnotgatez]

In a lab where I worked for a while we used bottled CO₂.
It was easier and cheaper than making our own.
I do not remember where we got it, but I think welding supply stores have it.


By the way cervical dislocation method on 100+ mice would have been time consuming.