Animal Care Services

Policy Description: Animal Care Services currently provides the opportunity for Primary Investigators to rent a half or full ventilated rodent rack. Full and half-rodent racks hold 140 and 70 cages, respectively. The opportunity to rent full or half-rodent racks helps minimize investigator expenses associated with protocol labor and direct per cage financial costs.

The following applies:

1. The purchase of rodent racks and half-racks is strictly limited to a Primary Investigator or their formally authorized fiscal designee.

2. Animal Care Front Office must be notified in writing of request to switch from individual cage rate to rack or half-rack rate.

3. The earliest effective date of the change from individual cage rates to rack or half-rack rates, or visa versa, will be the 1st day of the next calendar month. Requests for retroactive dating of individual cage charges to racks, or visa versa, will not be honored.

4. It is the responsibility of the Primary Investigator to provide Cage Card Request forms to the Front Office for each cage card on the rack or half-rack being switched from individual cage rates to rack or half-rack rates, or visa versa if moving from rack to individual cage rates.

5. When changing from individual cage rates to rack or half-rack rates (or visa versa), a cage card change fee will be assessed as follows: $15 for the first 5 cage cards or any fraction thereof and $2 per card thereafter, to recapture administrative costs associated with programming and reprinting cage cards.

6. The minimum purchase time for rack space is ninety (90) days. Switching between individual cage rates to rack rates, or visa versa, shall be honored a maximum of two (2) times each fiscal year (July - June).

7. Mixed protocol housing on one rack will be allowed only for the same Principal Investigator.

8. Billing will be assigned to one Primary Investigator and one account / encumbrance, regardless of the number of same-investigator protocols mixed on one rack. Each cage on a rack must be identified by a clearly readable, easily accessible cage card. The non-charge cage cards will be identified by either a yellow stripe or a yellow background. It is the responsibility of the Primary Investigator and their staff to conform to the cost accounting standards associated with Protocol accounting, i.e. NIH, OMB, Florida and University of Florida cost accounting guidelines. The responsibility to ensure valid account/encumbrance and appropriate funding levels for per diem charges falls to the fiscal personnel for each Investigator.