We sent a few mice up in the payload capsules on the Estes two stage rockets. One didn't make it as the recovery chute designed to bring the moustrornaut gently back to the surace suffered a catastrophic failure on deployment...caught fire and melted before it could open
Mice, frogs, crickets, ants, and eggs were my biological payloads. Sent a mouse up on an Estes Farside 3 stager with a B14/C6/C6-7 once. It survived but chewed through the cardboard payload tube and escaped before we could get to it. Brothers and I chased it for about a mile to retrieve it. Sent a frog upon a 2 stager with a F100/F100-9, but the results were not pretty as the acceleration of the F100 kinda mushed the frog's innards all over the payload section...