Apparatus for Collection of Fecal Samples from Undisturbed Spiny Mice (Acomys cahirinus) Living in a Complex Social Group
2009
Abstract
Assessment of fecal glucocorticoid metabolites has become a widely used method for monitoring stress responses. Because most small rodents are social animals whose physiologic parameters are affected by social stimuli, individual housing may compromise these data.
Nevertheless, housing rodents in families or social groups may be an important limitation to the experimental design. The challenge is to collect samples from individual rodents while avoiding stress-associated effects from the sampling method itself.
Here we present an apparatus and protocol allowing routine repeated collection of an individual rodent's fresh fecal samples without noticeable disturbance of any of the study animals;