Research housing
Laboratory Metabolic Cage
Collecting one animal's urine and faeces
What it is
A cage holds a single animal on a grid floor above a system that separates urine from faeces. Food, water and everything the animal passes are measured.
Where it sits in the system
Balance, pharmacology, toxicology, nutrition and renal studies need clean per-animal figures. Getting them means housing the animal alone, on a grid, over a collection funnel.
Welfare concern
The animal stands on bare grid in a small empty space, alone, with little nesting material and little room to move or hold a normal posture. Stress and discomfort follow, and worsen the longer it is kept there.
Worth being precise about
The cage does a measuring job that ordinary housing cannot. Refinement means justifying each use, keeping it short, improving floors and enrichment where the measurements allow, and monitoring every animal.
