Boiled my Axie <IMG SRC="http://www.caudata.org/forum/clipart/sad.gif" ALT=":-(" BORDER=0>

I bought an axolotl (salamander) about 3 months back. He was a happy healthy plump little thing... I fed him worms and feeder fish and stuff. He was going well until about three weeks ago. He stopped eating. I tried everything but no matter what he wouldn't eat. The vet said one of the feeder fish probably was carrying a parasite and it was inside my axie eating away his insides. So anyway he has been getting skinnier and skinnier, weaker and weaker. I found him on his back a few times but he wasn't dead.... I've almost been waiting for him to die... So today he hardly moved and I found him on his back so I took him out of the tank and put him in a container and put him in the fridge - it didn't help as he was still upside down. So I decided I should put him out of his misery. I didn't know whether I should hit him on the head with a rock or put him in a boiling water so in the end I picked boiling water (you have to understand I don't like hurting even an ant!) -

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The graphic details describing the death of this axolotl have been removed as requested by members of this board.
-Cynthia

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Obviously the boiling water thing doesn't work with axolotls....

I don't think I can get an axie again. I'm too scared So sad. I wish you all the best with your axies. They all look so beautiful and healthy.

Fee

(Message edited by cynorita on August 31, 2005)

Ack. I'm sorry about the pain, both for the axie and for you. You really should have asked here first; there are other much more humane methods of euthanasia.

Next time you get a pet, whatever kind it is, get some better advice on how to care for it. Don't trust what a pet shop tells you (I assume that's why you were feeding it feeder fish, which are not a good staple diet).

I know how to look after animals! I love them I own 2 beautiful healthy pedigree cats, a tank full of beautiful tropical fish and a gorgeous bird until recently when she died from old age. I just failed with the axolotl which is sad.. He was a really gorgeous colour and had a real sweet personality until he stopped eating.

They are quite a fickle creature! Certainly one of the slightly more difficult pets to look after - not difficult if you have the expertise and this forum to help out though! Anyway thanks for responding. I still feel terrible but at least now he is in fishy heaven!

I am NEVER using the boiling water method again - I am seriously traumatised!

All the best,
Fiona.

personally,i found that story sickening,i was picturing him in pain and it made me sad,who are we to have the power to do such things to a helpless living thing??!!even though he was ill that seems extreme.please get advice before taking such drastic action.all the same,sorry for your loss

FeeO I understand how you feel, as you were deeply confused at the time, and out of desperation and love for your little axie to be happy and in a better place, you did at the time what you thought was best. It is very understandible, truly is. I believe that is is sort of an instinct deep inside of humans to want to put their little animal friends down if they understand their little friends are in dire need for the after life and can't make it therr on their own. I believe it is truly a kind thing to help animals pass if they cannot and need to, as they are suffering terribly and is a cruel fate of nature to continue to live in such pain. My advise to you would be to next time take your little animal friends that need to pass to the vet, as the vet will inject it with euthanasia, it will be quick and painless. I know that is what you were going for as you believed the hot water would be quick and painless. Please feel free to visit this site anytime, everyone here will happily and quickly assist you in any further advise on Axolotls. They are truly one of natures most amazing creatures, cute, playful, curious and outstandingly beautiful. Good luck to you in the future, FeeO, and don't be afraid to get another Axolotl after you have learned about them and how to take care of them as they very easy to care for once all of the basics are down and visiting this site also will help you gain good Axie Mentors, advice, and you get to see all of the cute little axie pictures! ^_^ I am very sorry for your loss.

Can I just suggest to anyone thinking of putting anything out of its misery that a sharp blow with a brick to the head works the best. That's what the slaughter houses use as the humane way to kill food animals and I have used it several time with seriously injured pets. Trust me, a brick to the head = no pain.

While it may be effective, the blow-to-the-head method is somewhat risky. If the animal squirms at the wrong moment, the brick could land in the wrong place. This would be especially likely to happen if the person doing it were a bit tentative or hesitant. There are better methods here:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/euthanasia.shtml

I agree with Jennifer - If you are in ANY way hesitant - then don't use that method. It only works if you can follow through, otherwise you will just hurt the poor thing.

With axies there is a way of adding a type of alcohol to the water in slow doses. It doesn't hurt them and they die within a couple days. I don't know how to do it (never done it before) but I've heard about it on this forum. But I raise hogs and I have never heard of any slaughter houses doing a "quick blow to the head" lol. They either put them in some low water in a special room and do a quick high voltage electricution or shoot em in the head with a plastic bullet. But I wouldn't use those on axies :\

Maybe, i don't really know, but what if you froze him, it may be slow but it would be a painless death.

theres no point going over and over again on this she did what she did its done and over with, i am guessing you are just gonna make the person feel worse.

DO NOT FREEZE. Blood is mostly water and when water freezes it forms crystals. This shreds tissues from the inside out. The main advantage to the freezer method is that the human feels removed from the act of euthanasing, but that doesn't make it humane.

When I read the original post on this thread, I actually felt sick and emailed a moderator to remove it because it was too distressing. I will relate an experience here with putting down an axie. While it's not so distressing as the original, I give you warning that it ain't pleasant.

When I had to euthanase my baby axies because they were damaged, not eating or just too poorly, I asked a lecturer at my Uni what the best method was. He replies - Carbon Dioxide. Get some Alka Seltzer tablets and put them in the water. The gas wil knock them out and then suffocate them. I tried it and it wasn't terribly effective. They thrashed for a good while and then died, open mouthed. This lecturer is above reproach, he actually in his career came up with a new pain-killer for reptiles which was more effective for them. But the point is that what people tell you is humane for one species, isn't necessarily humane for another.

This is a very controversial subject - I believe in putting an animal (or human for that matter) out of it's misery if there is no chance of improvement. The alcohol method seems to be the best available to the hobbyist for putting an axolotl down.

there are several articles on fish euthanesia i have read that suggest clove oil as a very quick and kind method. never heard of the boiling method and ive been keeping fish for over 8 years. clove oil is used in fish surgery as an anesthetic so its just like putting any animal down with an overdose of the anesthetic. im not sure if it is used with axolotls or not but i would imagine so. ill get the link up to the euthanesia article for you. its quite relevent to axies too so its well worth a read. im so sorry about your axie though. must have been awful

"Euthanasia prelim results (not for the squimish)


there has been loads on the board lately over this and some very wrong info here and there so i decided to do some fairly rougth experiments tho the results should stand as a good starting point for more in depth reaserch.


first the setup and problems faced.

first i tried to decide how you could measure in some way the level of pain a fish is feeling so various methods could be evaluated. after alot of thought i decided the simplist yet most accurate way to do this was to measure different stress level hormones both before and and directly post mortem. the hard part is getting a base reading from the fish, as any form of penetration with a needle will induce stress that will show in the blood 15-20 seconds later and this could skew the results. however if u tranq the fish first then it's an invalid test.

so it was decided to house the fish seperately in small 18"x12"x12" tanks for 48 hours with 70% water change daily with water taken directly from the sterile chamber of a central sump filter. then just before the test on each i sampled there water and tested for the hormones secreted in there urine useing a Gas Photo Spectrometer and Radon Gas Ioniser. this gave good non stress load levels on each subject.

It was decided that rather than just post a long list of data that wouldnt realy mean much to most i would use a scale of 1-10 to describe the humane index of each method if you like with 10 being the most humane.


the subjects chosen were 3" Gold fish all of wich were happy and healthy before hand.

the methods tested were Co2 (will count for all types) Clove oil, MS222, Freezing,Pure Ethanol Bath (98%), Para formaldahyde (cranial injection and submersed bath in 30% solution),Potasium permanganate cranial injection (is of use to me on the very big fish we sometimes have to deal with), spinal cord seperation,decaptation and hard blow to the head.


the following results were acheived

Co2 7
clove oil 7
MS222 9
Freezing 1
Pure Ethanol bath 2
Para Formaldahyde Bath 6
Paraformaldahyde crainial injection 9
Potaasium Cranial injection 9.5
Spinal Cord 3
Decapitaion 4
hard blow to the head (varied results from 10 experiments rageing from 1 to 8 )




ok this isnt conclusive science the experiment has a couple of flaws but the data is valid test data, and would server as a good start for more extensive research by someone with alot more time than me. i wouldnt recomend decapitaion as the results are very varied there it cant be described as a predictable method.
as for the rest that is for others to argue over"

Amy did you do that test or did you find it somewhere?

Amy put the information in quote marks, so I'm sure she found it somewhere. If this was on the Internet, can you please give the link, Amy? If someone quotes MY website, I'm quite offended if they don't explain where the information came from.

Hi Amy,

The problems with looking at stress hormones post traumatic seperation is that the nerves to the brain are still capable of recieving pain stimulus until such as time as oxygen deprivation pushes the brain into unconsciousness but as they are capable of withstanding relatively substantial oxygen debts this can take awhile. Clove oil is also currently considered unacceptable as a method of euthanasia. (2000 Report of the AVMA Panel on Euthanasia, JAVMA, 218(5))
Benzocaine suspended into a gel like pain reliever can be dissolved into water and used as a method to euthanize or to anesthetize the fish/amphibian as needed.

Please review the link Jen provided earlier in the thread as at this time, these are the acceptable methods of euthanasia for amphibians (and to some extent fish).

Ed

I found the original story pretty awful. May I suggest that someone includes "boiling" as an "Unacceptable Methods of Euthanasia" on the www.caudata.org/cc/articles/euthanasia.shtml website.

As I need to update it as benzocaine has now been accepted as an appropriate method of euthanasia I will include boiling as unacceptable for amphibians.

Ed

(Message edited by Ed on August 27, 2005)

could we please just remove the first story about boiling the axie, i think it is the most horrible story i have ever read and it makes me feel sick knowing other people can still read it. im not being rude or nasty but wouldnt you know that boiling water was inappropriate. that story just made me cry, at first i thought someone had made the story up.