Department of Laboratory Animal Resources

The DLAR office will be closed on Monday, September 7th in observance of the Labor Day holiday.

Animal care staff will be onsite as scheduled.

Animal orders will not be scheduled for delivery the week of September 7^th.

We will resume normal buisness hours on Tuesday, September 8th. 

Beginning with the August 2026 billing cycle, DLAR will discontinue the 10% Processing Fee for purchases made on behalf of research labs. This decision was made to make the charge more cost efficient and fair to the labs.

Instead, these purchases will have an Administrative Services Fee based on the time required to complete the purchases, charged in 15-minute increments at $8.44 per 15 minutes. This charge will be applied per total purchase, not per item.

Example:

• 10% Processing Fee:
  Supply Purchase  $489.00 + 10% $48.90 = Total Due: $537.90
• Admin Services Fee:
  Supply Purchase  $489.00 + Admin Fee $8.44 = Total Due: $497.44
• Lab Savings: $40.46

Supply purchases will continue to be allocated through Concur, and the Administrative Services Fee will appear on your DLAR invoices. For diet and bedding purchases done through DLAR, both charges will be on your DLAR invoice.

This change allows for fees to be based on the work involved for each purchase rather than the total cost of the item(s).

We are in the process of upgrading our euthanasia units.

Operation will remain the same, with a few changes:

• Cycles will now have a gas time and a dwell time.
• During the dwell time, you will NOT hear gas flowing. This is normal. Do not  stop the unit.  You must allow the
• New units can euthanize up to 3 rat/vole cages at once, instead of 2.

For more information about the upgraded units, visit the product website at https://www.ezsystemsinc.com/product/ea-36000p/.

DLAR is introducing new and improved ways to objectively score the health of your mice. The Hunched Posture Score Chart is new. It shows mice with various degrees of hunched posture, which can indicate dehydration, pain, and/or illness. The new Body Condition Score Chart gives real-life examples for each score. Finally, the Mouse Health Score Sheet 2026 can be customized for any experimental model, such as aging, cancer, infectious disease, etc.

All of these resources are available in the DLAR Researcher’s Z drive, Z:\DeptLabAnimalResearch\UTResearchers\Supplemental Information.

Please refer to the image examples included with the newsletter emailed to you on August 31, 2026.

If you need to update your index number, please do so before your invoice is published. To do this, please use the Account Authorization Form on the DLAR Website at https://www.utoledo.edu/depts/dlar/account-authorization-form/. You can update multiple protocols on one form.

If we publish your invoice and a revision is needed due to an index change, you will be changed an Administrative Services Fee of $33.75 per hour (charged in 15 minute Increments.

An RO expansion project began in early August and will continue in 3 phases over the coming months. As part of the project, automatic watering lines will be added to each room within each phase. There will be intermittent construction noise and some temporary animal relocations along the way. We’ll reach out directly to researchers affected by each phase with more information.

• Phase 1 - August
• Phase 2 - September
• Phase 3 - October

Please refer to the map image included with the newsletter emailed to you on August 31, 2026.

The DLAR website has been redesigned as a part of the Research and Innovation website redesign. Many of the webpages have been moved off of the menu and are now on the main page. These pages include:

• Room Reservations Instructions on how to schedule your time in DLAR.
• Emergency Contacts - DLAR Contact Information includes
  Dr. Root’s and Ashley Kurth’s contact information.
• Emergency Contacts - Medical & Safety Information - Campus Police, Environmental Health and Radiation Safety office and the Facilities and Construction office.
• Business Operations Billing, per diems, purchasing, facility access and contact information for Marcie Ferguson and Justine Farmer.
• Animal Procurement Animal Requisitions and Import/Export of Live Animals.
• Resources & Disaster Preparedness DLAR Disaster Plan, DLAR Supplemental Resources, Cryopreservation Services and References and Resources from NIH OLAW Disaster Planning and Emergency Preparedness.
• Accreditation & Regulatory Information DLAR accreditation, regulatory requirements, and animal care standards.

DLAR Website