Production and Supply of Specific Pathogen-Free Experimental Animals

CH Wu*, CY Chiang, CC Chang, RS Chen

Animal Drugs Inspection Branch, Animal Health Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan

Abstract

This project aims to enhance maintenance and operational protocols for experimental animal production facilities employed for breeding high-quality experimental animals used in vaccine trials, drug assays and biomedical studies. A total of 85,592 specific pathogen free (SPF) chicken eggs, 14,176 SPF chicks, and 803 SPF rabbits have been produced during the fiscal year of 2012. Our primary goal is to maintain animal housing facilities using automatic controls at high levels while at the same time reducing energy use and carbon dioxide release to the environment (as is our national environmental standards policy). Ultimately, the main aim of this project is to establish our institute’s capacity to provide high quality SPF experimental animals to supply for researchers in a cost-effective and efficient manner that also reduces our carbon dioxide footprint.

Keywords: specific pathogen free, chicken, rabbit.