JP3409167B2 - Small animal mating cage - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a cage for efficiently mating small animals, and in particular, male and female small animals separated and housed in two chambers are housed together in one chamber at any time by an external force. The present invention relates to a small animal mating cage that can be mated.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for physiologically active substances such as interferon and erythropoietin as next-generation drugs. Physiologically active substances are originally produced in vivo to regulate biological functions, and most of them exert a remarkable physiological action even in a small amount. However, most of the physiologically active substances are present in the cells in a very small amount, and there has been a problem that a large amount of cells are required for practical use as a medicine.

As one of the methods which can successfully solve this problem, recently, a cell proliferation method using a small animal such as a hamster has been highlighted. In this method, a human cell line capable of producing a physiologically active substance is transplanted into a newborn baby of a small animal such as a hamster, and then the newborn is reared by a general method to form a cell mass of proliferating human cells in the small animal body. It is a method to let. A large amount of human cells can be obtained relatively easily by removing a cell mass reaching a certain size from a small animal and appropriately dispersing it in a medium.

In order to grow cells with good reproducibility and high yield by this method, healthy male and female small animals are always maintained, and if necessary, the males and females are bred to ensure the required number of newborns. Management is essential. However, small animals are living things, and time-consuming daily care such as watering / feeding, ensuring proper breeding environment, and health management is indispensable. Therefore, the number of small animals that should be maintained at all times should be kept to the minimum necessary, and the ability to achieve high mating and fertility rates with good reproducibility from the minimum required small animals is the key to successful implementation of the method. Has become. In addition to the above, for example, also in the fields of medicine and pharmacy, there is still a high demand for small animals, and there is a demand for breeding management that can efficiently and stably secure the required number of small animals.

In the conventional breeding management, males and females who have reached the breeding suitable age are selected and the selected males and females are housed together in a breeding cage for breeding for a certain period of time for mating. This method has a problem that even for small animals that have reached the age of breeding, it is difficult to ensure a uniform mating / childbirth rate and birth period because the sexual cycle varies from individual to individual. In order to secure the rate, small costs of both breeding management were spent, such as keeping male and female small animals coexisting for longer than their estrus duration and keeping more than the required number of small animals at all times.

[0006]

In view of the above situation, an object of the present invention is to allow male and female small animals to be bred semi-automatically under artificial control, and to breed small animals efficiently and stably. The object is to provide a cage for small animal mating that can be performed.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention solves the above problems by a cage main body for accommodating small animals of both sexes, a partition plate disposed in the cage main body to divide the cage main body into two chambers, and a partition thereof. A shaft member slidably locked to the plate; and a gate portion which is provided at an appropriate position of the partition plate and which is opened when the shaft member is urged so that the housed small animal can pass through. The solution is a cage for small animal breeding.

[0008]

In the cage for small animal mating according to the present invention, the inside of the cage body is temporarily divided into two chambers by closing the gate part, and the divided two chambers separately house male and female small animals that have reached the breeding age. deep. After that, at an appropriate time, the shaft member is urged under artificial control to open the gate part, and the male and female small animals are housed in one room practically to be in a matable state. .

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described on the basis of examples and experimental examples. However, in the art, various modifications can be made to the design of the examples. Therefore, the present invention should be limited to the examples. Not to mention it.

[0010]

1 is an exploded perspective view showing an embodiment of the present invention in an unassembled state, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing the assembled state. In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a cage body, which is usually formed by molding a transparent synthetic resin such as polycarbonate into a tray. Other than synthetic resin, for example, aluminum,
A metallic material such as alumite, zinc-iron, stainless steel, or the like can be used, and the shape thereof may be box-like or cage-like depending on the kind of small animals. A partition plate 2 for partitioning the inside of the cage body 1 and a holding plate 3 for supporting the partition plate 2 are detachably installed on the inner wall of the cage body 1 so as to extend from the lower proper position of the inner wall toward the peripheral edge of the opening. Groove-shaped guide members 4, 4 and 4 ', 4'are provided facing each other. The notch 5 and the through hole 6 provided on the side wall of the cage body 1 are for attaching the bait box 7 or the water supply nozzle 8, respectively.

The partition plate 2 is usually a stainless steel plate having an appropriate thickness, an antirust metal plate such as a zinc-iron plate, or a transparent plate such as a plastic plate or a glass plate, which is formed into a cross-sectional inner shape in the longitudinal direction of the cage body 1. It is used in a combined shape. In the vicinity of the upper edge of the partition plate 2, a pair of support members 10 and 10 having bearing portions for slidably locking the shaft member 9 are provided at appropriate intervals. Furthermore, the partition plate 2 is provided with an opening 11 through which small animals such as rodents can pass between the support members 10 and 10. The opening 11 has a groove-shaped fastener 12 at the top. A door member 13 having a shape that closes the opening 11 is rotatably pivotally mounted on the lower side.
The opening 11 constitutes a gate portion.

The shaft member 9 is usually made of a rod made of non-corrosive metal such as stainless steel or zinc-iron. In this example, the partition plate is inserted between the bearing portions of the pair of support members 10 and 10, and the rib 14 is interposed between the one support member 10 and the protruding piece 15 provided on the shaft member 9. 2, the shaft member 9 is elastically locked in place. The protruding piece 15 provided at a proper position on the shaft member 9 is a fastener 12 provided on the door member 13.
In contrast, the latch is configured by allowing it to be fitted and removed freely. The tip of the shaft member 9 protrudes to the outside of the cage body 1, and the synthetic resin or rubber with a rounded tip so that the shaft member 9 slides smoothly and the contact noise when it is urged is minimized. The cushioning member 16 according to is fitted. On the other hand, near the base end of the shaft member 9, the shaft member 9 is urged to move the shaft member 9 to the support member 1.
The pin 17 is inserted so as not to drop from 0 and 10.

Like the partition plate 2, the holding plate 3 is usually a non-rusting metal plate of appropriate thickness such as stainless steel or zinc-iron, or a transparent plate such as a plastic plate or a glass plate in the lateral direction of the cage body 1. A shape that matches the shape of the upper side or the lower side of the inner shape of the cross section is used. Although the holding plate 3 is not an indispensable requirement for the configuration of the present invention, by properly using the holding plate 3, the partition plate 2 can be firmly fixed in the cage main body 1, and a small animal should run wild in the cage main body 1 by any chance. However, the partition plate 2 is less likely to fall off the guide members 4 and 4.

In order to explain the method of use of this example, prior to use, the above members are first assembled into a cage according to FIGS. 1 and 2. Next, as shown in FIG. 3, the projecting piece 15 in the assembled cage is locked to the fastener 12 and the door member 13 is fixed to close the gate portion, thereby dividing the cage body 1 into two chambers. . After the male and female small animals in the breeding age are separated and housed in these two chambers, a wire mesh-like cover member 18 is attached to the opening of the cage body 1 and closed as shown in FIG. Such a large number of small animal mating cages 19 are erected and housed in, for example, a rack device 21 provided with an automatic feeding device 20 as shown in FIG. Preliminary breeding for 3 days. Through this preliminary breeding, females recognize that there is a male of sexual maturity in the next room through their appearance, signs, noises, calls, smells, etc., promoting estrus and making it easy to achieve high mating and delivery rates. .

When the preliminary breeding is completed, the automatic feeding device 20 is moved in the extension direction of the front surface of the rack device 21. As shown in FIG. 6, a cam 23 formed by bending a metal plate in an arch shape is attached to an appropriate position of a hopper 22 of the automatic feeding device 20, and when the automatic feeding device 20 moves on the front surface of the rack device 21, The cam 23 sequentially presses the tip of the shaft member 9 in the small animal mating cage 19. When the shaft member 9 is biased by the pressing force, the shaft member 9 moves in the arrow direction in FIG. 4, whereby the fastener 12 is released from the projecting piece 15, the door member 13 falls, and the gate member of the gate portion is released. The opening 11 is opened. Thus, the inside of the cage body 1 effectively becomes one room, and if either male or female passes through the opened opening 11 and enters the adjacent room, mating is possible. Depending on the type of small animal and the breeding method, male and female small animals in this state are hereafter usually used during the female sexual cycle, specifically 4 to 20.
After being housed together for a day, males are separated from the cage, and only females are bred until birth by the usual method.

In the above example of use, the shaft member 9 is biased by operating the automatic feeding device 20, but a dedicated biasing device may be provided instead of the automatic feeding device 20, and If there are few small animals to mate with, the shaft member may be manually biased.

Next, the results of a hamster mating test using the small animal mating cage of the present invention will be described.

[0018]

[Experimental Example Hamster Mating Test] From a group of healthy female hamsters, 20 individuals each are 8 weeks old (first birth), 14 weeks old (2 births), 20 weeks old (3 births) or 26 weeks old (4 births). Each was randomly selected, and one animal was housed in each of the chambers in the cage body divided into two chambers in the small animal mating cage of the example. Separately, 80 individuals were randomly selected from a group of healthy male hamsters aged 10 weeks or older, and separated and housed in the cage from females. In this state, the cage is erected on the rack device shown in FIG. 5, and after preliminarily breeding for 24 hours while supplying water and feeding by a general method, the automatic feeding device is operated at 10 am on the next day, and the cage for small animal mating is used. The gate was opened. Then, after breeding for 6 days by a general method, males were separated from the cages, and only females were further breeded for 2 weeks. During the breeding period, the state inside the cage was visually observed, and the presence or absence of childbirth, the number of the cage in which the birth was confirmed, the number of births of the female housed in the cage, and the number of offspring were recorded. Separately, 80 groups of hamsters selected in the same manner as above were treated in the same manner as above, except that the gate portion in the cage for small animal mating shown in the example was opened from the beginning, and were raised for 7 days to serve as a control.

The result is that the fertility rate (%) is calculated from the number of females of which births are recognized with respect to the number of females in the same test system, and the effect of the cage for small animal mating according to the present invention is calculated. It was used as a criterion for judgment. The results are shown in Table 1.
Shown in.

[0020]

[Table 1]

As is clear from the results shown in Table 1, the use of the cage for breeding small animals according to the present invention significantly improves the birth rate of hamsters. That is, in the case of the first birth, the birth rate by the conventional method was at most 80%, whereas in the system using the cage according to the present invention, the birth rate was about 96.
It was as high as%. This tendency was remarkably observed in the individuals with 2 to 4 births, which had a high number of births. In terms of the period from the accommodation of males and females to birth, the system according to the present invention showed significantly less variation than the control system.

The above results show that the use of the small animal mating cage according to the present invention significantly improves the hamster mating / delivery rate and significantly increases the number of newborns obtained from a certain number of males and females. . Further, even when a large number of hamsters are crossed, it is shown that the delivery period can be artificially controlled by using the small animal crossing cage of the present invention. Although data are not shown, when similar tests were performed on rodents such as mice, nude mice, rats, nude rats, and guinea pigs in place of hamsters, almost the same results as in this experimental example were obtained. This supports that the cage for small animal mating according to the present invention can be widely applied not only to hamsters but also to other small animals in general.

[0023]

EFFECTS OF THE INVENTION Since the present invention is constructed as described above, by using the small animal mating cage according to the present invention, male and female small animals can be stably mated at a high mating rate. Moreover, even when a large number of small animals are bred, the use of the small animal mating cage of the present invention makes it possible to obtain a newborn baby at a high birth rate at a substantially desired time after mating. Furthermore, when using a biasing means linked to a timer or the like to semi-automatically bias the shaft member in the small animal mating cage of the present invention under artificial control, the manpower required for mating a large number of small animals is required. There is a real benefit that can be significantly reduced.
From these facts, the present invention is extremely useful in the field of small animal production and animal husbandry in which small animals need to be efficiently and stably bred.

The present invention is an invention having such remarkable effects, and can be said to be a significantly significant invention that contributes to the field.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view showing a cage for mating small animals in an unassembled state according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a small animal mating cage in an assembled state according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a partially cutaway perspective view showing a closed state of a gate portion.

FIG. 4 is a partially cutaway perspective view showing an open state of a gate portion.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing a state where the small animal mating cage according to the present invention is installed on a rack device.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing how the shaft member of the cage for small animal breeding according to the present invention is biased by a cam attached to a hopper of an automatic feeding device.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Cage main body 2 Partition plate 3 Holding plate 4 , 4'guide member 5 Notch 6 Through hole 7 Feed box 8 Water supply nozzle 9 Shaft member 10 Supporting member 11 Opening 12 Retainer 13 Door member 14 Spring 15 Projecting piece 16 Cushioning member 17 Pin 18 Cover Member 19 Small Animal Mating Cage 20 Automatic Feeding Device 21 Rack Device 22 Hopper 23 Cam

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Claims (6)

(57) [Claims] 1. A cage body for accommodating male and female small animals,
A partition plate that is disposed inside the cage body and divides the cage body into two chambers, a shaft member that is slidably locked to the partition plate, and the shaft member that is provided at an appropriate position of the partition plate is attached. A cage for mating small animals, which includes a gate portion that is opened when energized so that the contained small animals can pass through. 2. The gate part includes an opening formed in the partition plate and a door member openably and closably attached to the opening, and the door member is provided at a proper position between the shaft member and the door member. The cage for mating small animals according to claim 1, wherein the cage is hooked by a hooking tool. 3. The small animal according to claim 1, wherein a pair of support members having bearing portions are attached to the partition plate at appropriate intervals, and the shaft members are slidably locked by being inserted through the bearing portions. Mating cage. 4. The cage for mating small animals according to claim 3, wherein the shaft member is elastically locked at a fixed position of the partition plate by inserting an elastic body between the support member and the protruding piece. 5. The cage for mating small animals according to claim 1, 2, 3 or 4, wherein the partition plate is removably erected by a guide member provided on the inner wall of the cage body. 6. The male and female small animal is a rodent.
The cage for mating small animals according to 2, 3, 4 or 5.