How do you mercy kill?

[Phlegethon]

Hmmm....all this makes me wonder, for some reason, if there is a "betta fighting" underground, similar to cockfighting or dogfighting?

 

[William]

There is in the place where Betta come from, Tailand I think?

Not so sure if theres an underground american fighting congolmerate, tho. I rather doubt it, however.

 

[Christmasfish]

I don't doubt it William...
Conglomerate no..underground society..most certainly
There are many americans buying fighters from overseas. They have muddy color, are not like keeping wilds and have no value other than being very agressive.
And there are some buyers who complain to american breeders about how a fish was not aggressive enough.
How can this be an issue ...unless they were trying to use them as fighters? which is a trait to be removed from aquarium fish?

though still perfectly legal for liscensed betta fight houses in asia..it is not here.

Nor are they normally fought to the death on purpose in betting houses anyway. I guess we westerners are the sickos in that dept.
That takes two strong hearted equally matched fish or a large one trained to be so vicious that you could never breed it.
Losers in asia are usually thrown back into the swamps as well as all their progeny.(seems that it has been found the fighting style of a winner wll pass down in away where all his issue can beat all the losers progeny. Kooky factoid, huh?)

 

[trenac]

The best way & fastest way I have found is to put the fish in a cup of water with Alka-Seltzer tabs. This is only after you have tried to save your fish & there is no other options.

 

[Pufferpunk]

As far as the betta fighting subject... I sic'ed the Dept of Agriculture on a very elite store in the Chicago area for knowingly selling bettas for fighting. An Asian guy was buying dozens at a time that I was there & the guy bagging them said the guy was going to fight them. When I confronted the owner as she was ringing the guy up, she said she had no control what folks did with their fish after they left the store! They now have a sign that says--1 betta per person. For a while they even had folks sign a statement that they had none at home.

 

[Lilly]

Now this is going to sound aweful, but it's fast and the fish die instantly. A friend had an over crowded tank of guppys. She boiled water and tossed them in. They died on contact!
If it were me, I would have prefered donating them to a fish store.

 

[Menagerie]

They died on contact!

As a biology, I will tell you they did not die on contact. They went into shock and then died. That was painful and inhumane.

 

[flipz]

they have that one listed on that website that was posted with all the different ways. ive never had to put a fish out of it's misery thankfully. :?

-brent

 

[shawmutt]

Now this is going to sound aweful, but it's fast and the fish die instantly.

As a biology, I will tell you they did not die on contact. They went into shock and then died. That was painful and inhumane.

According to the website I quoted before, boiling is acceptable for cold water fish, but not tropical fish. Unfortunately, life, or such that it is, does not easily extinguish. No matter what method is utilized, it can be argued that there is at least some amount of pain involved. It seems to me that the best way to kill a fish, balancing humane methods and safe methods, is using the alcohol method. It's outlined in the website I referenced before:

Alcohol

As pure as possible - vodka, tequila.

The method is that you have the alcohol at the same temperature as the water in your aquarium - the fish is introduced to the alcohol and immediately becomes overwhelmed by it.

Alcohol works like an anesthetic and is at lethal levels. The fish will instantly be paralysed and unconscious, death follows quickly due to respiratory failure.

An alternative is freezing alcohol as mentioned above - that might, just be overkill.

Recommended for: all fish

Not recommended for: fish who attend alcoholics anonymous

Humane rating: 100%

This is the method I would use. Of course, one can argue that the fish suffocate, but I repeat the argument, life doesn't end without pain. However, I believe if the motives for ending the fish's life are sincere and pure, and the methods used are the most effective available, then the pain is justified.

Sorry to get all metaphysical on you guys. JMHO.

 

[QTOFFER]

I was quite surprised to find that MS222 can be purchased over the internet. I guess the nightclubbing crowd hasn't discovered its recreational potential yet. It's a bit pricey at $40 + shipping, tho.
http://www.argent-labs.com/argentwebsite/trandrug.htm

Fortunately, I have only had to euthanize three serpae tetras that were practically near death anyway. I netted them, gently wrapped them in wet paper towels, and placed them inside a plastic bag. A flat wooden board and a hammer finished the task. I know it sounds gruesome, but it was a lot faster than having them swim around in a poison like alcohol for however long it would take them to succumb.

In my previous lab job, I had to euthanize dozens of mice every week. Years ago, the institutional animal care committee recommended cervical dislocation as the best method to dispatch rodents. When used by trained personnel, it was lightning fast and reliable. Now, they want researchers to use CO2, which is supposed to have a narcotic effect as it kills. My experience has been one of panicked animals gasping and trying to escape for several minutes until the gas finally suffocates them. Sorry to have shared this with you, but my point is faster=less pain/stress=more humane - JMO.

And I would cross out freezing as an acceptable method unless you have access to liquid nitrogen. Freezing takes an excruciatingly long time and the brain is the last organ to die from exposure to cold.

 

[jsoong]

I would cross out freezing as an acceptable method unless you have access to liquid nitrogen. Freezing takes an excruciatingly long time and the brain is the last organ to die from exposure to cold.

I disagree. If you drop the temperature slowly, the metabolism slows, and the fish gradually slips into unconciousness, then death by freezing. Nothing inhumane about that.

Two things to support that. One - Goldies go into hibernation as the temp drops, without any apparent pain. Two - Humans resuscitated from cold induced coma reported a pleasant sensation as they slowly drifted off. For Inuits (in the past) exposure to cold is the preferred method for the eldery to end their life.

 

[QTOFFER]

I don't think goldfish ever really freeze during their winter hibernation. They stay in the water below the ice a few degrees above freezing. And they don't even seem to lose conciousness! I was completely freaked out to see the goldfish in my brother's outdoor pond slowly moving about beneath four inches of ice this winter!

Fish are coldblooded, so you are right about the metabolism slowing down as the temp drops. Perhaps their ability to sense pain decreases too - I really don't know. I'm just considering the likely physiological damage caused by the slow freeze cycle that takes place in a residential freezer. (That's why they flash-freeze frozen veggies.) I would imagine that slowly growing ice crystals would burst cells (including neurons) open long before the animal was truly dead.

 

[Guest]

I chop off their heads with a very sharp knife. I see no reason to mess around with chemicals or stick them in the freezer. The knife is fast, humane, and I take personal responsibility for my actions.

Then, yes, mine go into the flower garden. Native americans used fish for fertilizer, tought the pilgrims to do it also. I find it to be a fitting memorial to my fish. Just to be extra careful, only the flower garden for my fish, not the veggie garden. i seriously doubt I could introduce disease into my veggies that would hurt humans, but I'm just extra careful.

We ought to make a sticky on this topic, I've seen it come up a ton of times in the past couple years.

 

[Mr Burns]

i didn't have enough time to 'freeze' the vodka before my RTS died, but it did go into the flower garden (the fish, not the vodka.)

 

[coldsteel]

why shouldn't you flush fish :? :?

 

[coldsteel]

oops, i didn't see that there were more than one page here...but in that case, the whole flushing thing doesn't affect me, I have a septic tank at my house.

I don't have the heart to kill my fish, I had a tiger oscar for almost a year, went from a 10 gal to a 56 gal...I was very excited, and so was he, but anyway, he got some kind of disease, and I couldn't even identify it. I tried to help him, and he seemed to be doing slightly better until I went camping for a weekend, and he didn't make it while I was gone. He was such a great fish, but I moved on; now I have a beautiful community tank, but I still don't have the same kind of connection with any of my fish like I did with my oscar.

 

[shawmutt]

why shouldn't you flush fish

I think people are referring to flushing a fish that is not dead--in hopes that the toilet water or something else will kill the fish. In the best case, the fish will die within minutes, but in the worst case, the fish can linger for hours or even days.

Most here think of fish as pets, and having a pet involves many responsibilities, some pleasant and others not so pleasant. If the fish is injured and/or sick, and recovery is just not going to happen, the responsible thing to do for the benefit of that fish and the other fish in the tank is to end its life in the quickest, most humane way possible (what is "possible" depends on myriad situations). Flushing a dying fish is a cowardly, irresponsible thing to do. Once the fish is dead, then flushing is fine--since I live in an apartment and my wife and cat might have something to say about me burying fish in the houseplants, they get "buried at sea".

Sorry... getting off now. This topic gets me a little fired up sometimes.

 

[AdamsZoological]

I'm finding the idea of Betta fighting laughable. I just dont see how anyone can find such a small, delicate fish, exciting to watch them fight. I mean, Bettas are small, cant last long, and usually stress out pretty quickly, so actual aggressive fighting doesnt last all that long. Not condoning anything used solely for fighting, bit, would make a bit more sence to use big Cichlids, Wolf Cichlids, Blue Freckled, etc, those things are the most insane fighters I've seen out of ANY fish, in my life. Even plain ol' Oscars are very hardy fighters, I had a pair that I tried introducing to each other, fought pretty well non-stop for about 12hrs. I hate to see them get beat up, but Cichlid dominance displays, displays of aggression, and fights are very interesting to observe. Anyway, just had a little laugh, thinking about underground Betta fights, had to add my two cents.

 

[bobtrop]

how do you mercy kill?

I've used boiling water on small fish and it seems to work VERY fast. Seems to be just as humane as freezing or cutting the head off.

 

[sofia]

i almost puked after reading that post