Thread: Carbon monoxide in rabbit control.

Hi all devoted pest controllers, in the last couple of weeks! I have been playing with carbon monoxide in rabbit control, with another person of like mindedness.
So far it seems to have good results! Time for each hole depends on blow back of gas, is how I measure it! By leaving just enough gap to see the carbon monoxide escaping and when it's at peak density the hole must be full.
I have increased time of gassing on some areas as I am working in sandy soil.
Also finding that the one main entrance can contain two separate tunnels just inside and these are not connected ! These have to be gassed separately.
Main reason for doing this! is built up area's that can't be shot easily.
My portable unit is adapted to run a hose, could use anything really. First pictures are prototype 2. and there is in the mixed pictures prototype one.
KHv

Many years ago I put down a cat using this method, was the cruelest way I have ever killed an animal, took ages! That cat is entombed in concrete at the bottom of a fence post at the first house I every built!

When I was doing rabbit control and needed to use gas, we used Magtoxin pills. Put one down a hole, cover up the entrance, they reacted with the moisture and it was lights out. Very fast, very effective. And virtually no weight to carry a canister in the bag.

Carbon monoxide poisoning...hmmm, not so sure about using that.

We used to use a two smoke ag100 to get rats at an offal pit. You would fill the bike with a fuel oil mix with excess oil (engine oil too) and it would run really smoky. You ran a pipe from the exhaust into the rat hole and blocked anything that started to smoke and looked for the last few smoke spots. As smoke started coming out the last few holes you would wait and get the rats as they fled. Never would know how many did not get out of the tunnels but we sure kept the numbers down....

I also put an animald own with carbon monoxide gas, never again. Have done 2 incidents when humans did it in themselves,,,,,, why.

Many moons ago we had large numbers of sparrows around the property.
My father built a trap in the shape of an M ( viewed side on) at the botom of the M was a hole big enough for a sparrow and the rest was covered with spare chicken mesh. It would have been 2 M long and 1 M wide and about 750 mm high.

Bread was put inside and over the course of the day it got more bread added as the bird prison numbers increased. That was my job.
Getting on towards evening we had maybe a hundred birds in there.... could be more.
Dad got an old sheet / drop cloth and covered the cage.
Disconnected the garden hose from the tap and ran it from the car to the cage.
10 minutes of that and they were all dead!

Our Polish neighbors were a bit upset, they had numbers down the inside of their arms and had narrowly missed similar treatment.

Your idea has some merit but I would opt for cynogas ( lighter than air ) or Lavacide ( heavier than air ) as was used by pest boards back in the day.

This method is for small blocks, I was using Magtoxin pills it a harsh death and doesn't always do the job! Still it is pest control with follow up.
Shooting is a another topic to some as a control method, hopefully not on this forum.
If in say! Central otago you would need a very large unit the size of a Mac truck to put enough down the warren system.
The carbon monoxide on rabbits, I haven't seen any run out they just go to sleep according to study's. Google.
KH
https://pestsmart.org.au/performance...ren-fumigants/

This a old article on Carbon Monoxide.
During World War 2 when gas pro-ducers were used extensively to keep the farm-wheels turning, carbon monoxide
came into its own as a fumigant.
The practice of using the gases gener-ated when oxygen passed over red hot charcoal caught on and carbon monoxide
soon replaced carbon bisulphide and cyanide as the major fumigant used in Western Australia. When petrol returned many gas producers were set up as trailer units and used solely for this work, giving excellent results. However, the generators
soon become obsolete and many warrens were treated with the exhaust gases of tractors and other farm vehicles.
The volume of carbon monoxide gener-ated by internal combustion engines is not as great as from a gas producer and
the method, like the machine on which it was founded, gradually passed away. This method is still an effective one if enough gas is pumped into each warren. (Lately the method has been modified and is now
being used in the Eastern States—see "New Developments.") In carbon monoxide fumigation the pro-cedure is to seal up about 80 per cent, of the holes and insert a pipe from the gas source into one of the openings of the
warren. This is well tamped with earth to make a seal and the gas is pumped in.
Each opening is sealed as the gas issues forth until all the holes are sealed. The
pipe is then removed and the remaining entrance sealed.
The chief advantage of this method is its cost.
The disadvantages are:
(1) Carbon monoxide tends to escape
readily from burrows;
(2) it is sometimes difficult to know
when the warren is completely
gas-filled;
(3) it is a gas and therefore much
harder to handle than either a
solid or liquid. It requires the use
of some form of equipment (Gen-
erator, etc.

I would also like to add as information.
A number of years ago a friend brought me a wallaby a Joey full size for taxidermy! it was a live.
I put it into a rubbish bag liner and held it over a cold car exhaust! By the time the exhaust was hot it was dead.
Those nails on it could of ripped the bag to nothing, but it didn't.
Carbon monoxide kills by coagulating the blood not suffocation.
My other off sider did feral cat eradication at a freezing works.
He went from shooting to putting the cage in a bag and hose from a exhaust! Which was recommended by the vet at the time.
I no times are changing and some struggle with whats humane...
Nevertheless the method is still! Very acceptable to me.
But the voice of reason doesn't sit with all.

KH

Nitrogen is very humane. The panic and pain of suffocation comes from the lungs reacting to the increasing concentration of CO2 (not a lack of O2). You can displace O2 with more nitrogen, and the lungs work normally, getting rid of CO2 from the bloodstream... but without any O2 it's just hypoxia, unconsciousness, and a quick death without the victim feeling a thing.

Carbon monoxide prevents the haemoglobin in blood from latching onto oxygen, so death is not coagulation.

Originally Posted by Pommy

Nitrogen is very humane. The panic and pain of suffocation comes from the lungs reacting to the increasing concentration of CO2 (not a lack of O2). You can displace O2 with more nitrogen, and the lungs work normally, getting rid of CO2 from the bloodstream... but without any O2 it's just hypoxia, unconsciousness, and a quick death without the victim feeling a thing.

Often wondered why those crazy Americans use all sorts of lethal cocktails to end death row inmates, when they could just use nitrogen gas...

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

Carbon monoxide prevents the haemoglobin in blood from latching onto oxygen, so death is not coagulation.

Thanks Bol Tackshin, I new it was to do with blood and one of those fancy words.
KH