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For experiments requiring repeated venipuncture or prolonged intravenous infusion or sampling techniques, the ferret can serve successfully as a surrogate nonrodent animal model. Because experimental protocols must be suitable for the test system or model used, the author describes specific restraint equipment designed to facilitate the use of ferrets in the research laboratory.
The process most commonly used in small rodents to harvest bone marrow requires the excision of the femurs and tibias, resulting in the death of the animal. There are several methods to harvest bone marrow from rats without killing the animal, but these tend to allow for the withdrawal of only very small amounts of bone marrow—suitable mainly for microscopic examination, but not for culture. The authors describe a simple and minimally invasive technique for harvesting bone marrow from rats; the procedure involves widely available equipment, does not require femur excision, and allows the user to harvest quantities of bone marrow suitable for culture.
