One of the ways to mark lab mice is to punch their ears. #1 would have a hole on the right, #2 would be one on the left, etc etc.
I’m not the biggest fan of animal experiments. I think these should be done as humanely as possible and only when absolutely necessary. I thought punching the ears would be like piercing our ears and thought that wouldn’t be too bad. However, I saw mice squirming their faces as their ears get punched (not by me) today. It occurred to me then that if 1/10 of my ears get punched, that would hurt like “a” hell (Mako likes to count hells).
If this procedure is necessary, at least put them to sleep…
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Mika, I might be mathematically challenged. Well, I AM mathematically challenged but still, maybe you can explain this to me.
How does this work if there are over 4 mice?
Mouse 0 has no holes
Mouse 1 has left ear punched
Mouse 2 has right ear punched
Mouse 3 has both ears punchedDoes Mouse 4 get 2 holes in his right ear, and Mouse 5 get 2 in his left and so on? With 2 holes, that gives you a total of.. uhm… 9(?) mice total that can be marked. Some mice have 2 in one ear, 1 in the other, etc, and one has no holes. You can’t really punch more than 2 holes in 1 ear, can you? I mean… they are kinda small. What wrong with just using a little non-toxic magic marker dot, anywa? Too unscientific?
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Yep. You are right. They punch mice that way up until 5 since they are only allowed to put no more than five mice per cage. You can punch three holes but then, it gets harder to count since they move around so quickly.
I’d rather use non-toxic magic markers too but they don’t do that. I don’t know why…
Another horror story is..well maybe I’ll write in another blog…
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