Admission of animals

Admission of animals

The Central Animal Facility (ZVH) is designed to house only „clean“ or specific pathogen free (SPF and SOPF) animals. Admission of animals is allowed only in consultation with the animal house management.

For the admission of new mouse lines we need a current health certificate, a line description, a form S1 work and for genetically modified animals a final assessment .(see downloads on the home page)

In order to maintain the high hygiene status we have established strict rules for bringing in animals from outside:

Mice to be housed in our experimental area (SPF):

- can be transferred from our breeding area (SOPF)

- can be purchased from approved commercial vendors or non-commercial breeders (other scientific institutions).

Prerequisite is a health certificate ≤ 3 months documenting a SPF or SOPF status of the animals.

Infected animals or animals with unkown hygienic status may enter the barrier facility only by embryo transfer rederivation. See "Rederivation of mouse lines via embryo transfer".

Mice to be housed in our breeding area (SOPF):

- can be purchased from approved commercial vendors. Prerequisite is a health certificate ≤ 3 months documenting a SOPF status of the animals.

- can be purchased from non-commercial breeders. Prerequisite is a health certificate ≤ 3 months documenting a SOPF status of the animals.

In addition, before being transferred to their designated holding area they are housed in micro-isolator cages on ventilated racks until their hygiene status is rechecked and confirmed. This health check will be charged to the user.

Transfer of infected animals and animals with unknown hygienic status is done by embryo transfer only. See "Rederivation of mouse lines via embryo transfer".