Husbandry

Animal Housing and Daily Care

The Yale Animal Resources Center (YARC) provides for the daily care of approximately 44,000 animals, 95% of which are rodents.  YARC personnel, a staff of 2 managers, 7 supervisors and 68 animal technicians, operate 100,000 square feet of space at the School of Medicine, the Faculty Arts and Sciences, and at a farm in Bethany, CT.

There are 153 animal rooms requiring daily service at 18 sites.                 

Services provided by the YARC staff and included in per diem rates are as follows:

• "Basic" and "full" housing and husbandry services employing standardized food, bedding, caging, and cage changing intervals (typically once per week for rodents), with daily inspections of all cages.
• Sanitation of cages, equipment and animal rooms.
• Provision and laundering of protective clothing.
• Diagnosis and treatment of naturally occurring health problems.
• Microbiological and serological monitoring of animals and rooms for pathogenic and selected opportunistic infectious agents.
• Quarantine and conditioning of newly received rodents included testing for pathogenic and selected opportunistic infectious agents.
• Testing of serum, cell lines, transplantable tumors, and other biologicals destined for use in animals, for opportunistic infectious agents.
• Record-keeping and monitoring associated with federal regulatory requirements for animal care and use.
• Environmental enrichment.
• Decontamination and disposal of biohazardous animal waste.
• Training in animal care and use, and breeding colony management.
• Consultation on animal care and use, breeding, species selection, species specific biology and health care.
• Euthanasia
• YARC initiated relocations of animals

Services available for additional fees (partial list for illustration, please contact YARC for information about additional services):

• Provision of special food, bedding or equipment.
• Provision of special care required by research such as increased cage changes for diabetic animals.
• Sanitation or decontamination of research equipment.
• Breeding colony management.
• Identification of individual animals.
• Correction of overcrowded cages or pens.
• Preparation of animals for shipping.
• Investigator-initiated internal animal transport.
• Other technical services such as administration of experimental compounds, specimen collection, weighing, animal observation, etc.
• Quarantine and conditioning of non-rodent mammals.
• Purchase and/or administration of prophylactic medications (e.g. antibiotics in drinking water).
• Administration of other medications required by or resulting from experimentation.
• Clinical and diagnostic laboratory services required by experimentation.