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Guidelines for Animal Users Regarding Pet Rodents
Rats, mice and other rodents, acquired from pet stores, humane societies and other sources, have been and continue to be popular pets. However, research animal users who have such pets may be exposing their own research animals, as well as other investigators’ animals in laboratory animal colonies, to unnecessary risk. Pet store or other random source rodents do not undergo the rigorous screening for bacteria, viruses and especially parasites that can adversely affect or even ruin research. In fact, while tremendous efforts are made to exclude these pathogens from a laboratory animal colony, a single individual with a pet store rodent at home can introduce pathogens that may negate these efforts.
For these reasons, the SVM ACUC recommends that:
- Investigators and facility managers strongly discourage their staff from keeping rodents as pets at home. Each lab should establish a policy regarding the ownership of pet rodents.
- Investigators and facility managers should educate prospective employees during the interview process about the lab’s/facility’s policies on employee ownership of pet rodents.
- As a reminder, all animal users working with rodents at SVM must wear, at a minimum, a labcoat and gloves when working with rodents.
- Individual labs may, as an added precaution, provide laboratory-only clothing, such as scrubs, for those individuals with pet rodents at home and encourage/require showering and changing into these clothes at the workplace.