Australia's Science Forum

Hi everyone,
I am in an independent school in NSW and we were thinking about doing some RAT Dissections with our yr 8 class. Is there any laws we need to be aware of as dissection connection do not sell them due to ethical reasons and diseases that may be passed onto students as a result of not being bred in lab conditions.

Thanks Superbug

We sometimes buy rats. We get them from Southern Biological. We have to buy the ones in preservative because we are too far away to buy frozen ones. They would thaw on the way here apparently. The preserved ones are ok as far as dissection goes, but the preservative they use is disgusting!!
I hate buying them, but from a dissection point of view they are ok.

Hi guys
I buy my frozen rats from the local pet store. A lot of pet stores now carry them because of snake owners. Its worth looking into. You can't get pregnant rats however.
cc

Rat dissections - really? We have kids here that can't deal with kidney dissections, no hope getting them in the room with a rat dissection!
I'd only have to buy half a class worth because there would be so many sitting it out, one way of saving on the budget. Fortunately, rat dissections have never been discussed anyway.

J - what are they preserved in? ie is it safe for the kiddies?

We also buy preserved rats from Southern Biological. The preservative isn't that bad, and yes it is safe for the kiddies.

They sell pregnant rats as well, although they are more expensive. The last pregnant rat we dissected yielded 12 lovely babies. We have preserved them in a 50% ethanol solution and 18 months later they're still fine.

Mel

If you go to the ASSIST website they have a SOP for rat dissection which may answer your questions.

Get a plastic rat. They can remove the bits & pieces without gloves, and swap the sex organs. And it smells like plastic, not rat.

We buy ours from Southern Biological also. Just this morning I washed the toads ready for dissection. They are preserved in Perfect Solution which is safe but it does smell. The students will have to wash the toad or rat on making the first cut or two to remove the last of the preservative. Hope this helps.

We were told that it is unsafe to buy the dead rats from a petshop as they are not laboratory grade and free from diseases and can potentially pass it on to the kids during dissection.

I was hoping the dissection of rats was obsolete now. If their is anything that I equally hate with cleaning up eyeball dissections is rat/toad.

I was told to get them from research at westmead hospital, as they are bred for that purpose. But I just tell me staff no. I am not tying up rats to boards!

(or going in my time, car, fuel etc to pick them up)

Narelle01 wrote:I was told to get them from research at westmead hospital, as they are bred for that purpose. But I just tell me staff no. I am not tying up rats to boards!

(or going in my time, car, fuel etc to pick them up)

I used to get them from the local university, but the supply became haphazard, then stopped. so I told them they either have to get them preserved from a supplier in Melbourne for a fortune, or do without.

Your rats MUST be free of any gems etc, Southern Biology have breed them for schools. The Hospital may be fine, guess they would not incorrect one, but not too sure about pet shops. I do believe it is coming out of the Biology must do thingo.

We use the stillborn piglets from Dissection Connection. It freaks out some of the kids (and teachers) because some of the piggies are so cute.

We use the piglets, too; much better than rats!!

we looked at piglets -stillborn but they are very expensive.
We too were going to do half class rat dissection the others would watch a video on rat dissections.

We use Southern biological for Rats too.
Does anyone know of a good supplier of kidney, hearts & plucks in Sydney that deliver?

We have to use places that our animal ethic committee( Catholic Edu) have ticked off as good to use in the ACT . So we get our frozen rats from the Reptile Zoo, they are fantastic specimens plus much cheaper than Southern Biological. A pack of 5 large rats is $40 , there breed for food.

We use the piglet also,and the students are more engaged than with the rats.
Previously we purchased from Westmead Research but thy use mice now.

me too - piglets -except you have to cover their faces because they are so sweet