When I was in my fourth year of veterinary school, I wanted to take as many exotic animal related rotations as I could. This led me to take a rotation in Laboratory Animal Medicine. To this day, I am very grateful that I was able to take that rotation, as many of the principles I learned are immensely helpful in general exotic animal practice. It was also good to understand the safeguards in place to protect the welfare of the animals that give their lives for the advancement of medicine and general science.
The stated purpose of this book is to provide basic information about the anatomy, physiology, care, maintenance, common diseases, and recommended treatments for rodents, rabbits, ferrets, and non-human primates. The target audience includes practicing veterinarians, veterinary students, veterinary technicians, and researchers. I feel that it does a very good job of accomplishing the stated goals, and providing a relevant and thorough presentation of the basics of laboratory animal medicine.
The first 3 chapters are dedicated to general information about the history of laboratory animal medicine, the organizations involved in laboratory animal medicine, laws and regulations, facility design, and housing and management. The remaining chapters are in-depth examinations of the anatomy, physiology, breeding, husbandry, enrichment, uses, techniques, diseases, for mice, rats, gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, chinchillas, rabbits, ferrets, and primates. Each chapter ends with references, further reading recommendations, and a review quiz.
A fair amount of the information regarding husbandry is applicable from the laboratory to privately owned exotic mammals. It is a sad irony that there are guidelines for how laboratory animals should be housed, and yet, there are very minimal standards for how pets should be kept, and that as a result, our laboratory animals may actually have better standards of living than most pets. For example, there are requirements for social housing for social animals, like mice, rats, and guinea pigs, and yet, many of these animals live in isolation in homes.
Each chapter includes several tables of drug doses, which I found useful. I often struggle to find good sedation protocols for very small animals, and this book offers many different suggestions, including doses and routes that are not available in other sources. There were also tables of maximum volumes that could be injected through each route, which I also have not seen elsewhere.
One thing that I found a bit disappointing was the mammal-centric focus of the book. Fish, amphibians, and reptiles are also used in research, and yet no mention was made of them. The welfare of these “lower” species of animals is a passion of mine, and I would like to see increased awareness of this. You might be surprised to know how many people believe that fish do not feel pain. I also found it strange that the book did not address the specifics of the use of cats and dogs in research, aside from a discussion the ethics of sourcing of these animals in the first chapters.
Overall, I found this book to be interesting and useful, even though I work in private practice and not in a laboratory setting. Whether or not to buy this book would depend on the amount of exotic mammals you see and your propensity for collecting books. It is not the first book I would recommend for a private exotics practitioner, but I would say that it would be somewhere in my top 5 to 10. It would be an excellent resource for a veterinary student or veterinary technician interested in going into laboratory animal medicine.