Introduction

1. Comparison of Costs Associated with the Preparation of Nutritional Support to Multiple Rodents D. Hickman, VA Medical Center, Portland, OR Introduction Materials & Methods Results Discussion After data collection, we averaged the time spent servicing each cage (preparing, checking and/or providing supplemental nutrition) across all rooms. The average time per cage is as shown below: Providing nutritional support to debilitated rodents is instrumental in minimizing pain and distress. Nutritional support can be provided in the form of oral gavage, moistening of rodent block chow, or via the administration of commercial soft diets that require minimal to no preparation. In this study, we evaluated the labor and material costs associated with the provision of (1) moistened rodent block chow, (2) powdered diet which is reconstituted with water, and (3) a preformulated nutritional supplement. Technicians recorded the time required to prepare and provide one of these three diets in the facility animal rooms. Our study found that the DietGel R/E, without the use of a Petri dish, was the preferred choice for nutritional support delivery for our animal facility. The annual savings ranged from $5,840 to $43,070 when compared to the other methods. The staff reported that the longevity of the DietGel R/E contributed to the cost savings. Any leftover DietGel found the next day was still fresh enough that it did not require replacement. However, after 24 hours, any leftover moistened chow or SoftMix was dried out and beginning to show signs of spoilage, requiring replacement. Because they did not have to refresh the DietGel R/E every day, there was a documented cost savings in labor. This cost savings could be enhanced by providing more DietGel R/E at the initial feeding. Our facility has found that the DietGel R/E stays fresh and palatable at least five days after opening (data not shown). The other advantage to the DietGel R/E was that it was clean to distribute and not easily contaminated with bedding or fecal material. For this reason, the provision of a Petri dish was not required when servicing cages. As the Portland VA Medical Center is committed to reducing the waste produced by the hospital, all of our units have been encouraged to evaluate practices for steps that can be taken to make them “greener.” Decreasing the amount of waste generated by our supplemental nutrition program (e.g. reducing the waste equivalent of an average of 200 empty Petri dishes being disposed daily) represents a significant decrease in the waste generated by this animal facility. However, some of the technicians reported that the administration of the DietGel R/E without a Petri dish sometimes resulted in increased labor required to clean the shelves of the racks. This was because gloves would have residual DietGel R/E from overflow from the squeezing of the pouch which would then get left behind on the shelves and cages when moving those around. However, the staff also agreed that there were work practices that could alleviate this contamination issue. In conclusion, we found that DietGel R/E without the use of Petri dishes was a cost effective way to administer large volumes of supplemental nutrition to rodents. Figure 1: Moistened rodent block in a Petri dish. Materials & Methods We next calculated the average cage cost by multiplying the average time by $27 per hour technical time and adding $0.08 per Petri dish for each of the cages receiving moistened rodent block or SoftMix (this was optional for the DietGel R/E). Because our technicians noted that the use of the Petri dishes may enhance delivery, we also included the cost of DietGel R/E with a Petri dish. The average cost per cage is as shown below: Environmental Assessment: Four rooms were selected to participate on this study. Each room contained an average of 20 cages of mice that required provision of supplemental nutrition on a daily basis. The time was recorded over 31 days. Supplemental Nutrition Options: Supplemental nutrition appropriate for 2 mice was provided by one of the following methods. If there were 4 mice in a cage, the volumes listed below were doubled. 1) Four blocks of 5001 rodent block (LabDiet) were placed in a Petri dish. Approximately 5cc of autoclaved water was added to the dish and the dish was placed in the cage (Figure 1). 2) Softmix was made by mixing 15 grams of the powdered diet with 10 cc of autoclaved water. This mixture was placed in a Petri dish and placed in the cage (Figure 2). 3) Approximately 30 grams of DietGel R/E (Clear H20, Portland, ME) was placed in the cage bottom (Figure 3). Data Collection: Technicians were asked to document how many cages they provided with supplemental nutrition and how long it took to prepare and distribute the diet, plus clean up. For the DietGel R/E cages, technicians were also asked to document how many cages still had DietGel R/E available (and therefore did not require additional supplemental nutrition). Data Analysis: The time spent providing diet to each cage that was tagged to receive supplemental nutrition (including those containing DietGel R/E that did not require refreshing) was calculated and averaged for each type of supplemental nutrition to determine the labor cost per cage. The cost of supplies required for each cage was also calculated. The total of labor cost per cage and supplies required per cage were compared among the treatment groups. Using the average cost per cage, the annual cost of supplemental nutrition for our facility (assuming an average of 200 cages per day requiring supplemental nutrition) was calculated for comparison. Figure 2: Softmix offered to ill SJL/J mice. Because our facility provides an average of 200 cages per day with nutritional supplementation, we calculated the average annual cost for each formulation. The average annual cost is as shown below: Acknowledgements Figure 3: DietGel R/E offered in Petri dish (left) and without Petri dish (right). The author would like to thank Mr. Jason Woods, Mr. Dan Carl, Ms. Courtney Sherwood, Mr. William Beckman, Mr. John DenHerder and Mr. Paul Bui for their assistance in data collection.