Metabolic Cage for Urine Collection from Small Animals with High Level of Performance and Low Cost

Abstract

The results of designing the original metabolic cage for urine collection from small laboratory animals consisting of a case, a cylindrical animal chamber with the floor, a funnel, a urine collection vessel and two graded drinking bottles that can be placed at a different height depending on animal age are presented. The case was made of laminated particle board; a cylindrical animal chamber was made of polyethylene terephthalate; a circular floor of the animal chamber was made of stainless steel wire cloth mesh. As a funnel for urine collection, a ribbed glass funnel SIMAX (Czech Republic) was used. To prevent rat feces from entering the urine collection vessel, there were installed two stainless steel wire mesh filter discs, namely a larger disc located on the internal ribbed surface of the funnel and a smaller disc located close to the hole of the funnel tube. To support the urine collection vessel, a metal vessel stand with a deepening was made. Between the vessel and the funnel, there was placed a fine stainless steel metal cylinder preventing urine evaporation.
 In addition to low cost, the proposed design of the metabolic cage provides high levels of performance as confirmed by its high ability to allow urine to flow freely, as well as to collect urine, significantly smaller volume of urine evaporated, improved housing conditions for animals and allows us to collect the amount of urine more fully reflecting animal diuresis.