Post-mortem examination in Laboratory Animals

Laboratory Animals

All the laboratory animal should be examined post-mortem whatever the cause of death. If the dead is unexpected, or among stock animals a full post-mortem report for the cause of the Death should be recorded and precaution taken to prevent other death.

When it is expected that the post-mortem will depend on the experimental protocol.

Necropsy or post-mortem examination may sometimes be necessary, for example, to recover organism previously injected into the animal. It should be performed in a safety cabinet under strict aseptic precautions. The material used for necropsy must be either autoclaves or incinerated as appropriate and the investigator performing necropsy must wear gloves and gown.

Disposal of dead animal

Acceleration is the best way of disposal of dead animals. It must be carefully checked that the animal is dead before incineration.