(a) There shall be standard operating procedures for the housing, feeding, handling, and care of animals and other test systems.
(b) All newly received test systems from outside sources shall be isolated and their health status or appropriateness for the study shall be evaluated. This evaluation shall be in accordance with acceptable veterinary medical practice or scientific methods.
(c) At the initiation of a study, test systems shall be free of any disease or condition that might interfere with the purpose or conduct of the study. If during the course of the study, the test systems contract such a disease or condition, the diseased test systems should be isolated, if necessary. These test systems may be treated for disease or signs of disease provided that such treatment does not interfere with the study. The diagnosis, authorization of treatment, description of treatment, and each date of treatment shall be documented and shall be retained.
(d) Warm-blooded animals, adult reptiles, and adult terrestrial amphibians used in laboratory procedures that require manipulations and observations over an extended period of time, or in studies that require these test systems to be removed from and returned to their test system-housing units for any reason (e.g., cage cleaning, treatment, etc.), shall receive appropriate identification (e.g., tattoo, color code, ear tag, ear punch, etc.). All information needed to specifically identify each test system within the test system-housing unit shall appear on the outside of that unit. Suckling mammals and juvenile birds are excluded from the requirement of individual identification unless otherwise specified in the protocol.
(e) Except as specified in paragraph (e)(1) of this section, test systems of different species shall be housed in separate rooms when necessary. Test systems of the same species, but used in different studies, should not ordinarily be housed in the same room when inadvertent exposure to test, control, or reference substances or test system mixup could affect the outcome of either study. If such mixed housing is necessary, adequate differentiation by space and identification shall be made.
(1) Plants, invertebrate animals, aquatic vertebrate animals, and organisms that may be used in multispecies tests need not be housed in separate rooms, provided that they are adequately segregated to avoid mixup and cross contamination.
(2) [Reserved]
(f) Cages, racks, pens, enclosures, aquaria, holding tanks, ponds, growth chambers, and other holding, rearing, and breeding areas, and accessory equipment, shall be cleaned and sanitized at appropriate intervals.
(g) Feed, soil, and water used for the test systems shall be analyzed periodically to ensure that contaminants known to be capable of interfering with the study and reasonably expected to be present in such feed, soil, or water are not present at levels above those specified in the protocol. Documentation of such analyses shall be maintained as raw data.
(h) Bedding used in animal cages or pens shall not interfere with the purpose or conduct of the study and shall be changed as often as necessary to keep the animals dry and clean.
(i) If any pest control materials are used, the use shall be documented. Cleaning and pest control materials that interfere with the study shall not be used.
(j) All plant and animal test systems shall be acclimatized to the environmental conditions of the test, prior to their use in a study.