The Custom Strains department provides breeding and maintenance of customer-owned rodent strains, including inbred, hybrid, congenic and genetically modified strains. All strains are housed in our Custom Strains barrier area under SPF conditions.
What Custom Strains Staff Provide:
- Initial and ongoing advice on breeding program design
- Weekly maintenance and monitoring of breeding programs in consultation with the customer, according to customer requirements
- Experience in monitoring animal welfare of ‘non-mainstream’ strains
- Regular health screening and quality control monitoring
- Date births regularly
- Wean pups at 19-21 days old
- Reserve progeny for future breeding
- Reserve progeny for despatch (as requested by customer)
- Provide weekly breeding and stock updates via an online Web-upload system
- Ongoing advice on colony size management to minimise customer costs
- Privacy and confidentiality of strain information
A maintenance charge is calculated according to the number of boxes maintained weekly for each rodent strain, plus any additional services provided.
The Animal Resources Centre does not provide genotyping services; tissue samples are collected and sent to the customer for genotyping.