Acquisition of Research Animals

Research animals are acquired from either LARC-approved vendors or animal imports.

All approved vendor purchases must be processed by the LARC office at each LARC site (except LARC Abilene who purchases through the LARC Lubbock campus). Likewise, all animal imports must be coordinated through the LARC office, and approved by the Institutional Veterinarian prior to shipment.

We have created the LARC-Approved Vendor page and the Animal Imports (non-standard) page to help investigators coordinate with the LARC to acquire research animals for IACUC-approved studies.

Upon arrival, all animals require acclimation to stabilize their physiology. The acclimation time periods range from 24-48 hours, or longer, depending on the animal species, age of animals, travel conditions, etc. The LARC Veterinarians are available to discuss what acclimation time is appropriate for the shipment. Further, upon arrival the non-standard animal imports of rodent species will likely require quarantine to verify health status. This is usually done with sentinel animals to help identify any presence of infectious rodent pathogens that are of interest to exclude from the vivarium. The LARC Veterinarians will develop the appropriate quarantine program for each shipment of imported rodents.