How to keep track of your mice.
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How to keep track of your mice.
Breeding mice can be very challenging, particularly when you have to breed complex genotypes.You need a way to identify the mice permanently and a way to record birth, genotypes, date to tail, mark, wean, separate and mate.
Toe clipping mice for identification.
Toe Clipping is a method that involves a numerical scheme in which the first bone of certain toes is removed with a sharp instrument. In mice it is not practical due to the small size of the toes and difficulty in reading the code. As a method of identification of small rodents, it should be used only when no other individual identification method is feasible (tattooing, ear tags, or subcutaneous implantation of a transponder identification chip) and should be performed only on altricial neonates, 7-10 days post partum (1996). In the event toe clipping has to be undertaken on other than neonatal rodent models, the principal investigator must provide a strong scientific reason for using this technique in the experiment. The procedure must be done on an anesthetized animal and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.
Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1996).
Microsoft Excel sheets to record data.
Microsoft Excel sheets can be used to record mouse data such as birth date, and to alert on scheduled date of toeing, weaning, separating the sexes etc.Here are two files with examples that can be downloaded and used as a template or copy.
You need a good knowledge of the program to make major alterations, and a moderately good computer skill to use it.
The two files are: (download) (download)
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a file to keep track of the breedings and of the litters produced.
a file to keep track of the single mice of each line.
The first file is composed of two parts, exemplified here below.
Top part: matings. In yellow automatic fields calculating date, expected DOB and proximity of birth (± 10 days: arrow <- ).
Bottom part: litters, sequentially numbered. In yellow automatic fields calculating age (days, weeks), deadlines for toe clipping, tailing, weaning, sex separation, phenotypic analysis of PB etc.
