Week 1 (January 4-8)

After some preliminary work completed during the holiday break, the lab is about to begin a collaborative study with Dr. Matt Allen. We will be analyzing the effect of saline IP injections on the long-term stress levels on mice, as well as the effect that this stress has on thier bone density. We will also be using a scruffing group to compare the stress of handling with the possible effects of the saline itself and a control group with no scruffing and no injections. This study will go on for eight weeks and I will be taking the lead on this particular study.

Week 2 (January 11-15)

IP injections have gotten much easier after a few days of practice. After some confusion in the first day on the job, the study is moving fluidly. I have identified that I definitely enjoy working with rats more than mice. Mice are just too...bitey.

Week 3 (January 18-22)

The essential oils experimentation began this Thursday with an unexpected start. While we were excited to begin seeing how the aggression of the male mice were affected with the essential oils being experienced for a week in the face of an intruder, we had very unexpected results. Males should be very offended and aggravated at the presence of another male in their cage, as mice are very territorial. However, even the control mice slept through several of the intruder tests.

Weeks 4-7 (January 25-February 19)

Intruder testing continued this week, as well as IP injection study. The essential oils will continue for another 2 weeks. The IP restraint study will continue for another 6 weeks. This IP injection study has caused me to wonder about how scruffing effects the connective tissue in mice, as our injected study with saline seem to have looser skin, which I'm not sure if the cause is the saline or the daily scruffing. I'd like to explore this.

Week 8 (February 22-26)

All the mice were processed for essential oils this week. It went quickly with so many hands, but it will never be easy to see that many animals sacrificed for science at one time. Organ weights were collected, as well as full body weights after a cardiac stick. It has been brought to my attention that not all labs do their cardiac stick after euthanasia, but get blood under anaesthesia, followed by euthanasia. I guess I don't really understand why that is, but I'd love to explore it.

Week 9-11 (February 29-March 18)

The IP injection study completes during this time period. We will be processing all of these mice with Dr. Matt Allen to benefit both of our labs. We will be taking organ weights, body weights, long bones, and corticosteroid levels to determine how stressed the animals were, in total. The processing shouldn't take too long with only 60 animals.

Week 10

All mice were processed on Monday, March 14. All 80 animals were processed. Long bones, organs, corticosteroid samples, and animal weights were collected during processing. This was a difficult processing day, but we completed the day.