Notes for breeders of common laboratory animals / edited by George Porter and W. Lane-Petter.

Date:
1962
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Notes for breeders of common laboratory animals / edited by George Porter and W. Lane-Petter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    11. LABORATORY STANDARDS 205 (ö) Before being considered for accreditation the breeder should be breeding, or intend to breed, not less than 400 guinea-pigs, 200 rabbits or 5,000 mice a year. (In recent years these minimum numbers have been increased considerably.) {b) The stock must be raised predominantly, if not entirely, for laboratory use. {c) The colony must be strictly self-contained; if it is desired to bring in stock from outside, the Laboratory Animals Centre must be consulted beforehand. [d) The breeder must supply only animals of his own breeding to the laboratory, and not those from any other source. Buying-in for re-sale is absolutely prohibited. [e] The standards of housing, caging, feeding and general manage¬ ment and hygiene shall be compatible with the production of first-class animals. Some advantages which accrue from the accreditation scheme are listed below. (a) Arrangenents have been made whereby the breeder can have a free laboratory examination of animals which may die, in order to establish the cause of death. Special arrangements, over and above this, apply to accredited guinea-pig breeders. ib) The Centre publishes a register of accredited breeders to all laboratories where animals are used experimentally (as well as to all accredited breeders). A twice monthly Parade State also goes to labora¬ tories showing what animals are currently available. The breeder thus stands a better chance of making a contract with a laboratory. (c) Although it does what it can to remove any conflict between the interests of breeder and user, the Centre can offer no guarantee that accredited breeders will find a market for their animals. It does, however, encourage the laboratories, in their own interests, to give preference to accredited animals. ■ Further information, and application forms for accreditation, may be obtained from the Laboratory Animals Centre, M.R.C. Labora¬ tories, Woodmansterne Road, Carshalton, Surrey.