Colony Maintenance

Our 250,000-square-foot vivarium provides ample space and infrastructure for short-term or long-term housing of small and large animals. Animals can be isolated from other groups in the facility if necessary, with expert veterinary care provided for aged or diseased animal models. We also have the capabilities and the veterinary expertise to manage breeding colonies of either small or large animals.

Large Animal Housing
Our large animal colony maintenance space allows us to provide solely outdoor, solely indoor or indoor/outdoor housing for most large species. Animals can be housed in large social groups when appropriate for the study and the animals’ age, gender and temperament. We also have capacity to house nearly 1,000 non-human primates under ETS-123 guidelines, making Lovelace Biomedical an industry leader in this area.

Behavioral Management & Enrichment
All of our colony maintenance capabilities are supported by our world-class behavioral management program, which provides social enrichment, environmental enhancement, specialty food enrichment, positive reinforcement training and conditioning to research procedures. These approaches provide for the psychological well-being and comfort of our research animals, reducing stress and increasing safety. Through behavioral management and environmental enrichment, we provide opportunities for animals to express species-specific behavior, which reduces stress and increases safety.

Veterinary Research
Veterinary Research involves the study and research of the causes, prevention, diagnosis and appropriate treatment for diseases on animals. It shows in-depth focus on the animal biology and recommends ideal caring methods that ensures animal welfare. In veterinary research, the researchers study both naturally occurring diseases as well as induced disease models occurring on animals as well as humans. It further shows keen focus on food safety, zoonotic diseases, public health and safety policies and wildlife ecosystem that play a vital role in animal health. Similar to human medical research, in veterinary research, randomized controlled trials are performed so as to assure treatment effectiveness, but with comparatively lesser trial numbers and lower quality.