killing fish in the freezer?

[fluff34567]

hi all,

more of a discussion point than anything else.... i have read many many forums where its suggested that if you need to kill a fish you should put it in the freezer......

why is this? wouldnt knocking it on the head be quicker?

[psalm18.2]

Yes it would. Some people just can't do it.

[ngrubich]

Originally Posted by psalm18.2

Yes it would. Some people just can't do it.

+1 with the above comment. Some people see this as a "more humane" way to put their fish down. I've seen quite a few people do this with their larger fish, like discus or cichlids. If they have a large tank with an expensive stock, they will then take the fish to a vet to test to see what the fish had (if it was a disease and not old age), so they could treat their tank as such.

[fishyfish22]

i'm not 100% sure, but it seems that it would torture the fish before killing it slowly. it would be easier to get it over quickly, because if someone tried freezing the fish, it meas that that they probably cared for the fish and don't want to let it go so easy. they would check on the fish every few minutes, and they would suffer slowly too, though not like the fish. like i said, i'm not sure if what i said is true, but it makes sense to me.

[kevmo911]

There's always the garbage disposal method. Yes, it's horrifying to think about. But, unlike a hammer, a disposal won't ever miss. If you can do it, this is the quickest, most assured death I've ever heard of.

[Edub]

I feel like "can't do it" shouldn't be an excuse for anyone to extend the time it takes to kill their fish. If it becomes necessary to kill your fish (or anything, for that matter) you shouldn't be concerned about how it makes YOU feel, instead you should be thinking about the quickest and most painless way to dispatch the poor creature. Anything else is incredibly selfish.

Put yourself in the fish's shoes. If you had a choice, would you rather go out quickly and painlessly or die a slow death in the freezer because someone "wasn't comfortable with killing?"

[Vincent Tran]

Originally Posted by Edub

I feel like "can't do it" shouldn't be an excuse for anyone to extend the time it takes to kill their fish. If it becomes necessary to kill your fish (or anything, for that matter) you shouldn't be concerned about how it makes YOU feel, instead you should be thinking about the quickest and most painless way to dispatch the poor creature. Anything else is incredibly selfish.

Put yourself in the fish's shoes. If you had a choice, would you rather go out quickly and painlessly or die a slow death in the freezer because someone "wasn't comfortable with killing?"

I personally don't do it, but I thought the freezer method was used because the lower temperatures put the fish to sleep and then would keep them in their sleep.

[NWA-Planted]

Fish are kind of like reptiles right? In the sense their body temperature is controlled by their environment.


As such a freezer is very humane their body cools and they slip into a coma so to speak before they die, so pretty humane.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong

Sent from a dark corner in my happy place

[brogan]

Originally Posted by NWA-Planted

Fish are kind of like reptiles right? In the sense their body temperature is controlled by their environment.


As such a freezer is very humane their body cools and they slip into a coma so to speak before they die, so pretty humane.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong

Sent from a dark corner in my happy place

+1 I Think it is more humane to put them down this way.

[starrlamia]

Reptile breeders advocate against using freezers as it is seen as inhumane FYI.

Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2

[CatB]

the thing about freezing is it slowly rips apart the cell structure as it works, think about how meat burns in the freezer... and try and decide if you'd want to die like that.

besides the pain factor, it's not instant at all and being instant is the only way to be humane. somewhere, there's an ASPCA (or someone? i forget who) official list of methods of putting animals down, i referred to it when i had to put down a very sick frog and freezing (for any animal!) was strongly discouraged...

[storrisch]

Freezer FTW

[wendyjo]

I use the garbage disposal as well - it's over in a split second.

[DogFish]

When the water temps drop the metabolic rate lowers. At a certain point reduced blood flow to the brain induces coma, then the organs shut down and the the heart stops. There is no over stimulation to the nerves.(what we call pain)

As death go that's about as low drama as it gets.

Nothing other than instant traumatic destruction of the brain is more humane.

I put the fish in a small bag of water in the freezer before I leave the house for the day. When I return the frozen bag & the deceased go out to the trash and life goes on.

When I was breeding cichlids I had an Oscar that was my Quality Control Mgr. he handled the culls.

[HighDesert]

Euthanizing anything via freezing is painful and distressing. We had a client that put down a sick bird in the freezer then brought it in for necropsy (pretty efficient way to ensure we wouldn't be pulling accurate swabs!) and the horribly contorted state the bird was in gave every indication that it was NOT quick and painless. The only time I have ever used cold to euthanize was when I got a baby turtle that was so horribly mangled that it was a crushed mess. Rather than try to pull its head out to get to the base of its neck and cause it more pain I submerged it in an ice bath and the sudden shock of temp changes literally killed him instantly. I learner that from a visiting wildlife biologist at one of our clinics. This little turtle probably weighed 70 grams, though. The short of it is that freezing fish is not a desirable means of euthanization. There is also the fact that they can't breathe adequately adding to the pain of cellular destruction.