Getting Animals Into the Facility From Commercial Vendors

Purchasing Animals

1. All animals purchased for use at the College of Veterinary Medicine must be done through ARF. Investigators should submit a completed ARF 90 form to the ARF office along with any special instructions they may have. Order forms for rodents should be received in the ARF office by noon Wednesday in order to receive the animals the following week. Rodents ordered from the National Institute of Aging (NIA) should be placed by 5pm on the Monday before the week that delivery is anticipated in order to meet the NIA order deadline. Larger species may require several weeks to arrive. Please contact the ARF office for details on ordering other types of animals and the time required to receive them.

2. A standard part of the ordering procedure is an assessment of housing space availability. An investigator who bypasses this process may have the animals rejected upon arrival. Space is limited in some of the facilities and may not be available upon the animals' arrival. No animal orders will be placed unless adequate and appropriate housing space has been identified, the PI has an approved IACUC proposal listing the animals to be ordered, and the ARF Director has reviewed the order.

Allocating Space in the Facility

1. The ARF Director and Animal Facility Manager determine the policies for space assignment.

2. Space is limited and investigators are urged to manage their colonies efficiently to minimize the amount of space needed.

Per Diems and Inventories

1. Per Diem is the cost an investigator pays ARF to care for the animals for one day. Mice and rats are charged per cage; all other species are counted as individuals.

2. The time an animal is housed is called a Care Day. If you have 10 animals (or cages) for 30 days, you would pay for 300 Care Days.

3. In many cases, ARF provides different housing methods for the same species, depending on the protocol's and/or animal's needs. For example, mice can be housed in a small cage or a large cage. Obviously, the large cage can house more mice, but more food, material, and labor is used, resulting in a different per diem rate. The ARF office staff can provide you with a per diem list or it may be accessed on the ARF Homepage at: http://www.vet.ksu.edu/depts/arf/index.htm. When experimental design does not dictate the housing requirements, ARF makes the determination on the size of cage based on what is most efficient and economical for the PI and ARF, as well as cage availability and regulatory requirements.

4. A single investigator may have more than one Inventory Sheet, even though the species is the same. An inventory sheet is maintained on each protocol for each room where animals are housed.

5. ARF conducts a physical animal count and cage inventory each weekday morning. It is important that the PI communicate in some way to ARF when they take an animal from a room permanently so it can be removed from inventory. The best way to easily communicate this is by writing the date of removal on the cage card and removing the card from the holder and leaving it inside the empty cage. When there are remaining animals in the cage, the number of animals in the cage must be updated on the cage card to reflect the change.

6. Whenever an investigator or staff member permanently removes or adds animals to the room, they can adjust the inventory that day. If the animal is removed after the care for the day has already occurred, the protocol is still charged for that day for that animal or cage.

7. Inventory Sheets are turned-in on the 27th of each month for processing and billing.