Children’s Hospital Boston

Ed Delaney
Director of Facility Operations – ARCH

We have had Optimice system in our facility for well over a year now. This design has allowed us to double our density. We now can get 200 cages in the same footprint as a 140-cage IVC unit.

Currently we are housing normal adult mice, moms with litters and experimental animals from our Neuroscience and Surgical Research groups.

The clear cages allow for easy observation of mice, such as health checks, birthing and experimental observations, reducing the amount of stress on the animals. Animal behavior has remained normal even while the racks are being gently turned to access other cages. This is an exceptional rack system, and we have seen the mice acclimate better to these cages, have greater breeding success and the floor plan suits them well and gives them more security for nesting and hiding.

Overall the system has proved to be beneficial to our facility, allowing us to hold more cages in the same footprint than our previous racking system with the added ease of handling and health monitoring, with little maintenance to the units themselves.

The customer service from Animal Care Systems has been excellent from the first contact point. They have worked closely with me to design additional items for the cages, and this service has continued to this date.