Lecture: Animal husbandry
Physical facilities
In the European guideline of 2010 it is stated that animals must be housed according to
their animal’s needs.
- They should not be able to escape their cages, especially when working with
transgenic lab animals.
- Pest animals must be prevented from entering the facility where you house your
lab animals. Not especially because they might start mating with your animals
but these pest animals most of the time carry diseases with them and they will
infect your animals and change the sanitary state of your animal unit à increase
variability in your results and thus you will need more animals.
- In- and outgoing personnel must be monitored à schedule
- Cleaning schedules and waste management à according to several SOPs
- Building material of your animal unit:
o Must be resistant to heavy wear and tear
o Not harmful (contain toxic compounds)
- Never mix prey and predator species in your animal units
- You need to think of how to design the other rooms in your animal house facility:
o Think of other labs
o Store rooms
o Technical facilities
Points of attention are:
- Active pest control: prevent the entrance of pest animals but if they manage to
enter, make sure there is poison to kill these pest animals.
- You need to define the different zones in your animal house facility:
o A clean zone
o A dirty zone
o A technical facilities zone
- How are these different zones organized, will determine if you have a:
o 2 corridor system
o 1 corridor system
o Mixed corridor system
- And of course will determine the type of building you are going to have:
o Conventional building
o Barrier building
o Containment building
à The type of building will influence the sanitary state of your animal
housing facility
Saif Haify Laboratory Animal Science – Summary 6-November-2015
, Conventional building
You can only house conventional animals in these mainstream buildings.
Two corridors conventional building
People enter the building for example from the left and leave the building from the right
door or visa versa. There is a dirty area and a clean area separated by animal rooms
and a wash area. All doors are protected with an alarm system and sensors to make
sure, once you enter or leave a room, you can’t re-enter it from the same door. In these
kinds of buildings, every area has its own sanitary state! This system can be used to
maintain a pathogen free status.
If you want to enter an animal room (unit), you first have to enter the wash area where
you for example can take a shower and change clothes. You then enter the clean area
from which you can enter an animal room (unit). After you finish, you leave the animal
room via a second door to the dirty area. If you forgot something in the clean area, that’s
too bad. You have to leave from the door on the side of the dirty area, go back via the
wash area and then you can enter you animal room again.
Disadvantage: people try to keep the doors open by using a brick or something heavy to
put between the doors. This is of course not good and should be prevented at all time!
One corridor conventional building
In a one-corridor system you don’t have the separation between a clean and dirty area.
You can enter an animal unit and leave it via the same door and visit another animal
room. Of course you understand that the sanitary state (e.g. bacterial flora) is going to be
the same in all of the animal rooms as well as the entire facility. There is a mechanical
transfer of certain bacteria, viruses and so on when people working in the different
animal rooms have contact with each other.
Saif Haify Laboratory Animal Science – Summary 6-November-2015
Physical facilities
In the European guideline of 2010 it is stated that animals must be housed according to
their animal’s needs.
- They should not be able to escape their cages, especially when working with
transgenic lab animals.
- Pest animals must be prevented from entering the facility where you house your
lab animals. Not especially because they might start mating with your animals
but these pest animals most of the time carry diseases with them and they will
infect your animals and change the sanitary state of your animal unit à increase
variability in your results and thus you will need more animals.
- In- and outgoing personnel must be monitored à schedule
- Cleaning schedules and waste management à according to several SOPs
- Building material of your animal unit:
o Must be resistant to heavy wear and tear
o Not harmful (contain toxic compounds)
- Never mix prey and predator species in your animal units
- You need to think of how to design the other rooms in your animal house facility:
o Think of other labs
o Store rooms
o Technical facilities
Points of attention are:
- Active pest control: prevent the entrance of pest animals but if they manage to
enter, make sure there is poison to kill these pest animals.
- You need to define the different zones in your animal house facility:
o A clean zone
o A dirty zone
o A technical facilities zone
- How are these different zones organized, will determine if you have a:
o 2 corridor system
o 1 corridor system
o Mixed corridor system
- And of course will determine the type of building you are going to have:
o Conventional building
o Barrier building
o Containment building
à The type of building will influence the sanitary state of your animal
housing facility
Saif Haify Laboratory Animal Science – Summary 6-November-2015
, Conventional building
You can only house conventional animals in these mainstream buildings.
Two corridors conventional building
People enter the building for example from the left and leave the building from the right
door or visa versa. There is a dirty area and a clean area separated by animal rooms
and a wash area. All doors are protected with an alarm system and sensors to make
sure, once you enter or leave a room, you can’t re-enter it from the same door. In these
kinds of buildings, every area has its own sanitary state! This system can be used to
maintain a pathogen free status.
If you want to enter an animal room (unit), you first have to enter the wash area where
you for example can take a shower and change clothes. You then enter the clean area
from which you can enter an animal room (unit). After you finish, you leave the animal
room via a second door to the dirty area. If you forgot something in the clean area, that’s
too bad. You have to leave from the door on the side of the dirty area, go back via the
wash area and then you can enter you animal room again.
Disadvantage: people try to keep the doors open by using a brick or something heavy to
put between the doors. This is of course not good and should be prevented at all time!
One corridor conventional building
In a one-corridor system you don’t have the separation between a clean and dirty area.
You can enter an animal unit and leave it via the same door and visit another animal
room. Of course you understand that the sanitary state (e.g. bacterial flora) is going to be
the same in all of the animal rooms as well as the entire facility. There is a mechanical
transfer of certain bacteria, viruses and so on when people working in the different
animal rooms have contact with each other.
Saif Haify Laboratory Animal Science – Summary 6-November-2015
