Animals for research : principles of breeding and management / edited by W. Lane-Petter.

Date:
1963
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Animals for research : principles of breeding and management / edited by W. Lane-Petter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    6 W. LANE-PETTER different from that of the human worker. The latter also deserves considera¬ tion, and the provision of conditions of temperature and ventilation within the limits of the comfort zone will be appreciated. Is it possible to reconcile the optimum conditions of Arbeitsraum with those of Lebensrauml If the human conditions are acceptable outside the cage, can the Lebensraum within the cage be made acceptable to the animals? 1. Heating and ventilation For most people an ambient temperature of 20-21 °C (68-70°F), give or take a degree or two either way, is within the comfort zone, and this is easily attainable in a modern animal house without any very elaborate or expensive means of control. Although frequent changes of air are necessary in living rooms, spacious offices or workshops, the conditions in this context in an animal room resemble more closely a crowded office, or perhaps a cinema, and require from five to ten air changes every hour if staleness is to be avoided. Some authorities recommend even fifteen or twenty changes, but this would seem to be excessive in the absence of inconvenient overcrowding or indifferent sanitation. This number of air changes is not, of course, governed by the need to replace oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. Even in a crowded animal room a fraction of one change an hour would suffice for this. The air needs to be changed to remove moisture and odours, and to dilute the bacterial and dust content of the air. The means adopted to produce the required temperature and ventilation in an animal room will depend on the external climate. In temperate climates with no excessive variation between summer and winter, the provision of heat in winter, with little or no cooling in summer, may suffice. But in most parts of the world such simplicity will exact a penalty in temperature ñuctuations outside the acceptable range, and even in the English climate there are sometimes spells of hot weather in the summer that will take their toll of comfort and efficiency in both man and animals. The choice of methods of heating and ventilating is more the province of the engineer than of the biologist, who should be content to submit the following specifications to the engineer. a. The normal temperature range desired, and the upper and lower permitted limits : taking into account the heat produced by animals and by those working in the animal rooms. b. The number of air changes required—say six per hour. This must apply to every part of the room equally. c. An ability to vary the temperature of each room, within the permitted limits, by individual room thermostats. d. The differential air pressures in the rooms and in adjacent areas. For example, in breeding rooms, the pressure should be slightly higher than in the
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