Moral dilemmas

So I own a pair of leopard geckos.  I've had lizards since I was in college and really enjoy them.  Occasionally I'll splurge for them and get them a pair of pinky mice which are baby mice at the mostly hairless stage.  The extra fat and protein the pinks give them is a really good thing once a month or so.  Usually my lizards will eat them up really quick but I screwed up this time and had fed them some crickets early yesterday and they weren't hungry. 

I left the pinks in the tank over night hoping that since the lizards are nocturnal they'd feel more like eating sometime during the night.  This morning? no luck - pinks are still squirming around the tank getting hungry now.  They are too young to survive without their mothers and if the lizards don't eat them soon - they'll die of starvation or exposure.  I found myself left with a really tough choice.  The pet store is closed, I cant bring them back, and I know they won't live till morning. 

I had bargained for a quick relatively painless death - the lizards swallow them whole so that isn't too bad.  I feel that just leaving them in there to expire from starvation would really be wrong, that somehow the quick death of being eaten was better.  How perverse is this really?

After consulting with Mr. Bird on deciding what would be the best way to put them down, I went for the freezer route.    They would lose consciousness quickly and die after just a little while.  So here I sit at my counter with a tupperware of baby mice in the freezer debating on how long to wait before checking to see if they are dead yet.

Comments

[jillian]

That sounds sad...I feel for you. My sis had snakes gowing up and we used to have a lizard in the office. It's a strange thing to have pets that feed on other animals. I'd say just wait until there is no possibility that they hadn't expired. You did the courageous thing to make sure they didn't suffer needlessly.

[kim]

:(

I had to freeze a goldfish once. I had to research for a while, and really, the freezer is the best option for us non-vets although people who aren't "in the know" look at you like you're crazy/evil.

[Martha]

I think that there is a lesson here. No crickets until you've finished your mice. No, really, it's good that you can feel compassion for even little beings. It's a hard situation.

[Cristina]

I can't answer your question, but I'm glad that you didn't leave them in there. This is why I'm glad my pets are vegetarian ;)

[Mary-Kay]

Oh dear. Poor thing. I would have done the same thing. I used to work at a museum in the Live Animal section and we got all of our "food" from the freezer like this. The snakes ate them just fine.

Ack!

[Heidi]

Gah!