Animal Procurement

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY

Starting July 1, 2002 all orders received after 10:30am on Wednesday will have a $25 fee charged to their account. 
 

The Department of Comparative Medicine is the only department authorized to order animals.

NEW ELECTRONIC FORM AVAILABLE - October 6, 2003

Animal Requisition Form

Rate Schedule Fiscal Year 2002

To meet reporting and record requirements placed upon UT by federal legislation (e.g., Animal Welfare Act) and granting agencies (e.g., NIH), all animal orders and/or acquisitions must be placed through the DCM. Animals may not be purchased or otherwise acquired until a fully approved animal use protocol is on file. Also, DCM must be notified of any animals brought onto the campus (such as those legally trapped by investigators with approved trapping permits) or taken off campus. This includes all mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs, nonhuman primates, or any other vertebrate species used for research, testing, or education.

The DCM uses three major criteria to determine which vendor will be selected to fulfill an order and to ensure the procurement of healthy animals from licensed vendors:

• The ability of the vendor to supply healthy animals. DCM encourages the use of virus titer free rodents for research purposes. Rodents with viral titer WILL be maintained in biocontainment.

The University requires any potential vendor to provide several animals for serology testing and submit regular health status reports of their animal colonies to the university. DCM monitors the health status of rodents by conducting random serology testing on incoming animals, and performs additional test on an on-going basis using a sentinel program. Research animals are not tested without prior approval from investigators. Rodents not meeting the requirements listed above may be purchased or acquired but will be housed in containment facilities.

Investigators can request that animals be supplied by a vendor which they have used at previous research facilities. These requests are made so the investigators can continue their work without additional variables in the research projects that can result from animals being supplied by another vendor. DCM will honor these requests once the health status of the animals has been determined and if appropriate containment facilities are required and available.
 

• The ability of the vendor to transport animals by means of an acceptable carrier. DCM inspects all arriving animals and will reject any filter container that has been compromised. The vendor will be required to replace animals that arrive in damaged filtered containers, do not meet purchase order specifications, or are sick or injured. DCM prefers to use vendors who can transport animals using their own environmentally controlled vehicles and using specially trained personnel.

• The vendor must become familiar with, and satisfy, DCM's requirements and to work to meet the needs of the research community. Vendors must be willing to meet delivery schedules. They also must be willing to notify DCM whenever there is possible contamination of their facility. Failure to do this could ruin projects in which substantial amounts of effort and resources have been invested.

 

To minimize the possibility of introducing disease into campus animal facilities, all arrangements for acquiring and housing live vertebrates must be made through DCM. DCM can assist investigators in determining when permits are needed and in obtaining them. All arriving animals are delivered to the Nash receiving area. Each shipment of animals is inspected by personnel to verify that order specifications have been met, and that the animals have arrived in good health.