The Department of Animal Care operates a central laboratory animal facility at The Oregon Health Sciences University campus and a 178 acre farm near Hillsboro, Oregon. The animal care facilities are AAALAC accredited; however, the twenty-five year old facility requires continual renovation, to adequately maintain the standards of animal care that are described in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. The 43,000 sq. ft. Animal Care Facility is divided into five major animal care sections. 1) The second floor of the central facility houses rodents and rabbits; 2) the first floor of the central facility houses large animals such as sheep, dogs, pigs, and monkeys; 3) the campus quarantine facility at the University Farm houses dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and newborn lambs; 4) the Dental School houses dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, and mice; and the 5) the Vollum Institute houses rats, mice, monkeys, rabbits, and fish. The renovations of the floors requested in this proposal are necessary to improve the quality of the laboratory animal environment to meet the minimum standards for floor surfaces as described in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Approximately, one half (50%) of the existing concrete floors are deteriorating. There are numerous holes, cracks in the floors, and patches of the floor that are worn to the aggregate. These faults make sanitation of the floor difficult, if not impossible. This lack of sanitation is especially critical for animals we house directly on the floor in runs, such as sheep, dogs, pigs, and cats.
