Animal welfare is crucial in the laboratory animal industry for several key reasons:
Prioritising animal welfare ensures ethical treatment, enhances research validity, meets legal requirements, maintains public trust, and improves economic efficiency, making it fundamental to the integrity and sustainability of scientific research.
In the Digital Vivarium, once a cage is registered, it undergoes continuous monitoring around the clock. This surveillance includes checking for the availability of food and water, detecting any potential water leakage from bottles or Automated Watering Systems (AWS) valves, and identifying any unusual changes in the animals' activity levels within the cage compared to established baseline behaviors.
Crucially, this involves a sophisticated Welfare algorithm that operates on a global scale, analysing data from all registered cages across various facilities. Each morning, it generates a report highlighting cages that require closer inspection due to observed anomalies in animal behaviour. The specific types of irregular activities detected by the Welfare algorithm include:
This comprehensive monitoring approach ensures early detection of potential welfare issues, allowing for timely intervention and maintenance of optimal conditions within each cage.
Fig. 1: All the cages that need to be carefully inspected are grouped by DVC® Rack level
Fig. 2: The cages with welfare issues are directly illuminated at DVC® Rack level
Fig. 3: In the DVC® Operator User Interface, while performing the assigned task and physically removing the cage from the DVC® Rack, the reason behind the triggering of the Welfare task is shown with clear charts to the Operator. The red line represents the last 24 hours of circadian rhythms compared to the green line, which indicates the previous 9-day baseline.
