Animal facility

Facilities for small animals must be designed to be comfortable and easy to clean and disinfect, and must have adequate equipment and services to ensure that the animals have a sufficiently high level of welfare. They must therefore consist of at least the following

• Living area, where the animals are permanently kept.
• Experiment rooms, where treatments are carried out.
• Quarantine room, for veterinary checks on incoming animals and health assessments before they are moved to the experiment rooms.
• Wash rooms, for cleaning and disinfecting boxes, cages, etc.
• Store rooms for fodder, shavings, wastes and laboratory material.
• SAS (Safety Access System) between the different areas, for material, equipment and persons.
• Independent technical area for maintenance to be carried out without entering the facility.

They must also have systems of temperature and humidity control, and air renovation.

Annex II of Spanish Royal Decree 178/2004, on the contained use of genetically modified organisms, lists the minimum containment conditions for activities in animal facilities, and the different animal containment levels, based, above all, on the risk group that the microorganisms being used belong to.

Virtual tour of animal facility

• Containment standards for facilities handling aquatic animal pathogens. Canadian Food Inspection Agency. 1a edició. 2010.
• Heckert, R.A. & Kozlovac, J.P. "Biosafety Levels for Animal Agriculture Pathogens" Applied Biosafety Vol. 12, No. 3, 2007
• Veterinary Practices: Physical Design and Operational Practices for Diagnostic Activities (PHAC 2017)