Hi,

I am working with animals as part of my research collecting behavioural data. I have concerns that I am also acting as primary carer and technician. My question to everybody here working with animals is 'how much of the day to day care of the animals are you expected to undertake? All the feeding? Replenishing of water? Setting up the cages? Cleaning out the cages at the end of the trial?

I can expect to spend 1 week setting up caging and one week cleaning out at the end of each trial and I spend approximately 5 - 10 hours/week on general husbandry stuff (i.e. stuff not directly related to data collection but necessary to meeting the welfare of my charges). Is this normal?

I am not a PhD student in the life sciences so I can't comment on the normality of your role.

But, in my opinion, since your research seems predicated on the observation of your charges, I think you are at least ethically personally responsible for seeing that their basic welfare requirements (and more!) are met. Since these animals are providing you with the 'bread and butter' of your PhD you should have every interest in their welfare.

Also, if you are studying animal behaviour, one would have thought feeding, cleaning, and handling said animals would be valuable contact time.

I am pursuing mine in a Vet school and working with animals.I think upto 10hrs a week is a bit loaded for you I think you need a helping hand. Luckily, we are a research group so we have a rosta that means each of us does the caring for 2 days a week (1 hr per day). The less taxing you feel it is the thorough the quality of care is likely to be...but above all remember we owe it to the animals - and the Ethics Committee that approved our proposals! Good luck

Hi,

I am more than aware of the animal welfare needs of my animals and make sure those, and more, are met!!! I resent the implication that I am unethical to wonder if it is my responsiblility to directly provide that care. NOBODY in my department, least of all the animals, could have any complaints as to the level of care that they are given by me, however is it my responsibility to directly undertake these duties or to simply ensure that they have been carried out? How many research scientists do all their own mucking out of pens, cleaning of food bowls, etc???

Thanks for your reply Kerosen. You roster sounds more reasonable to me. I am currently having to check them 7 days/week and the experiments can be 12-18weeks long. It is not a case of me finding being with the animals taxing - in many ways I actually prefer being with them then anywhere else - but I am finding that I have very little time actually left to do any PhD work. By the time I have gone in to the pens, done the necessary animal care needed to ensure that they are comfy (and it takes a long time precisely because I don't cut corners!), replenished water, etc (upto 58 pens) I can have spent 1 - 2 hours day on animal care. Over 7 days that can be 7 - 14 hours. If there are problems with water delivery, etc then it can go up considerably. For example I was due to start data collection yesterday at 8am. I actually started at 12pm due to husbandry needs. Effectively, this represents 1/4 of my phd time each week before I even start on experimental demands (which are/can be great).

I am sorry if I sounded curt and accusative. That wasn't my intention. I just feel strongly about the use of animals, and expect their needs to be met, and exceeded. I certainly didn't want to suggest that you are callous. If your department/ institute requires you to undertake these tasks, then they might well have to be part of your PhD process. Perhaps talking to them about extra help or clarifying your role and the role of technicans would help.

Still, at the end of the day, what better way for a research scientist to ensure the welfare of their animals than to undertake this care themselves?

That's okay. I might have reacted the same way myself as I tend to get like that about animal welfare too It's just that the time taken effectively is wiping out too much of my phd time.

I challenged my supervisors about it and initially got told that it was all part of learning good stock husbandry (but I have 10 yrs background in animal husbandry and don't need to work 7 days/week to further enhance it) but it then transpired that the grant submission didn't budget for adequate support for me.

But I am getting stressed - you might have read my other posts - on top of which my 1st yr 20 - 30 page tranfer report (inc. lit review) has to be in in 2 mths and I haven't even started it (or the lit review) as too much of my time is taken up on other stuff or which a large part is animal husbandry. I am a nightmare where this is concerned anyway - I used to be boss in an animal welfare organisation and was known for getting on staff backs if animals were neglected in anyway so its a matter of pride for me - I just think that I shouldn't be spending so much time. My funding is for 3 years and people over run enough anyway - but I don't mine to overun even further into ther 'brassic' years due to effectively doing a part time phd! I have complained loudly though so they are looking at ways of reducing the workload but I just wondered what workload in this area is reasonable?

That seems like a huge amount to have on your plate! I can see why you're concerned about walking a thin line between balancing your PhD with welfare provisions. I think it is more than a bit naughty for your grant to be inadequate to support your properly. I hope you manage to find more time for your work. Maybe you could persuade the department to borrow a technicans time for even a third of your current hours spent on basic animal management?
?
I feel quite guilty now I spend my days reading about animals, and looking at pictures of animals!

Hi Blueberry. I am working with snails for my PhD, and because my supervisor never 'bought' any technician time, i have to do all the zoo keeping (cleaning out their containers, replenishing food and so forth) myself. It does eat-up a lot of time (snails are easy to keep, but when you have 80+ of them, all being kept individually it's a real chore) and i can't go away for more than 2 days because there is no one else around to take care of them. I recently had hundreds of snail babies being born, so these days I am spending about 10+ hours a week caring for them.

When my supervisor was doing his PhD (also on snails) he had to do the same thing, so i guess it's pretty normal. Other PhD students i know, who are working on things like Daphnia and fig wasps (also relatively easy to keep in the lab) have to do all their own zoo-keeping unless their supervisor has 'bought' some technician time. it's the same story for people working on plants in the greenhouses, but they have all sorts of automatic watering/feeding systems to help them out. I think the guys who work on mice and wild rodents for cardiovascular and cancer research have full-time animal welfare technicians to do all their ‘dirty’ work.

we have a team of technicians....but anyway during my experiments I check my animals very very often.