Research of differentiations in physiological parameters of rats which were housed in different facilities under different care conditions

In scientific studies in which laboratory animals were used, the repeatability of experiments and obtaining reliable results have basic importance. It is assumed that physiological characteristics of the animals included in the experiment are the same, but if housing conditions are not the same this assumption is mostly wrong.In developed countries, to obtain standardization in experimental studies, the research centers that animals are used and the firms that breed laboratory animals were separated. But in Turkey as nearly every medical faculty has laboratory animal breeding facility, housing conditions of laboratory animals might be different from each other. Therefore, to make research results closer to each other even if the study repeated in other countries and to increase the reliability and standardization of the researches done in Turkey, we compared conventional rat breeding conditions in different laboratory animal breeding facilities of the different medical faculties with the conditions that accepted as standards.After approved by the ethical committee, 7 laboratory animal breeding facility were included in this study. In animal breeding rooms of each facility it was measured that room temperature of one facility was higher than the others, humidity was low in each facility, noise and light levels were standard. Although, blood glucose measurements of adult male and female Wistar and/or Sprague Dawley stocks bred in the facility were observed within the standard parameters, in one facility it was observed higher than others. In one facility erythrocyte counts and in other facility hemoglobin counts were observed higher than the standard values In, 2 facilities Giardia sp., and in 1 facility E. coli were determined by the parasitological examination of feces samples.The main reason of these differences was that none of the laboratory animal facility building was built specially for the facility. Therefore, even if the standard housing conditions are known technical problems make difficult carrying it out.