Hi Lorraine,
We just went live with animal inventory this month and decided to stick with our former practice for extra cage card requests. Investigators request pre-printed breeding cards by submitting a Word doc with a simple table requesting pertinent information (PI, protocol #, investigator name, room number, cage type, etc.). These breeding cards are printed and picked up by the investigators. The cage card is white and there is a yellow tear-off strip that is filled out and returned for processing when the cage card is placed on a new cage.
We required the Word doc after trying to decipher handwritten requests that were not legible. This was an easy transition to make.
We'll likely move to breeding card request functionality in Cayuse at some point in the future.
We don't many issues with compliance when putting the breeding cards on cages - requesting and using breeding cards are part of the culture at this point (we have 25,000+ mouse cages). We do keep a very, very small supply of blank temporary cage cards in each suite for investigators to use in a pinch, but they're rarely used. There are some folks who "forget" to return the activation strips. If it's a chronic issue for an investigator or lab, we'll meet with them to review what's expected of them. After each audit, there are always cages across the facilities that need to be activated because the tear-off strips weren't returned, but it's usually a relatively small number.
Happy to chat offline if you have additional questions.
Best,
Dave
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David Goldberg
Associate Director, Research Operations Systems & Animal Protocol Support and Assurance
Boston Children's Hospital
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-12-2021 08:22
From: Lorraine Bell
Subject: Vivarium Operations - cage cards for new cages
Evins,
Thanks so much! That is very helpful, especially the image of the card you are using. Do you have a fairly high rate of compliance from researchers as far as placing and activating cards?
Also, what do you use the blank cards for?
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Lorraine Bell
Training Program Coordinator
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Original Message:
Sent: 10-12-2021 07:48
From: Evins Wardlaw
Subject: Vivarium Operations - cage cards for new cages
Good Morning Lorraine,
We have 4 cage card types (USDA/Procurement Card, Breeder Card, Weanling Card, and Blank Card). We use both, RFID & Barcodes, on the cards - RFID for census and location, Barcodes for Vet Care, etc. Our Cards contain three sections - an activation tear-off strip, a deactivation tear-off strip, and then the body of the card.
For the weaned cages - we provide preprinted, but inactivated, cards to the Researchers. They are kept in shielded bags, which are stored in shielded cabinets within the rooms. As cards are needed for weaning, they pull cards from cabinet... write the number of animals weaned on the activation strip and remove the activation strip... then place the remainder of the card in the cage card holder. When they have completed all weaning activities, they place the activation strips in a collection box in the hallway. We empty the collection boxes every morning at 7am, activating the cards for the previous day.
I've attached an image of the card design that we use. The diagonal lines on the back just represent where the modified metal cage card holders are positioned in relation to the RFID tag.
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Evins Wardlaw
Database Analyst of Bioresources
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Original Message:
Sent: 07-06-2021 06:28
From: Lorraine Bell
Subject: Vivarium Operations - cage cards for new cages
All,
For those of you who are using Cayuse for animal inventory, how do you handle the creation of new cage cards for weaned or separated cages? Do you have pre-printing of cage cards for protocols? Do you have paper request forms or electronic request forms?
Currently we're using paper request forms and as I'm sure you can imagine deciphering handwriting can be a challenge. Toss in the occasional researcher who will appear to just make up their protocol numbers or account numbers and it can be a real headache. So I'm interested in how other facilities solve those problems.
Thanks much,
Lorraine
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Lorraine Bell
Training Program Coordinator
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
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