It sounds like it is just down to individual funding/your supervisor. I had to prepare all my laboratory materials as a PhD, but in other labs this would be done by a technician for me, but my supervisor wouldn't pay the money to have someone do this. Well, our technician ended up doing research, eventually registered as a PhD and wasn't really a technician. My friend who worked with animals assisted a postdoc and sounded like she had less animal work, athough was doing immunology not studying the animals directly.