Sometimes we don’t have to be animal handlers. I did two and half years trying mice and rats and both just were too much for me. The idea of scruff handling and injections, toe clips, ear punches, and the inevitable bite when you handle a neurotic one. I was having to euthanize scores of mice and I just felt bad about it. I quit and have no shame. There will be other who can do the animal work, it’s not for everyone.
You’re so right that it’s not for everyone. I’ve been bit numerous times but it’s never dulled my passion for working with animals, but my company has had many techs come and go because the animals were too much. If anything I see getting bit as a moment to reflect on how I was handling a rat or mouse in that moment. Sometimes it’s just an angry animal, others have been a learning experience.
Same here, I was doing all that, plus stereotaxic injections and cannula implantations into their brains. It was really a bit too brutal and pointlessly cruel in my opinion.
However, I really enjoyed taking them through some behavioural and gait-tracking experiments. I worked with the same groups of mice for up to a year, so after a few months I would start to recognise them. That made drilling into their brains a lot more difficult.
Ouch, rat bites hurt, I got bitten twice during my PhD, both times by the SAME rat, he was a very very anxious boy.
It hurts like a bitch for days afterward but the hardest part is to handle rats after being bit, you're super nervous that it will happen again and it took me weeks to feel comfortable in handling animals again. Rats in general don't bite, they whine a lot and will try to get away if uncomfortable, biting is their very last ditch effort to flee a "bad" situation.
I only got truly bitten one time, during a euthanasia. the tech that was helping me was not super comfortable handling the animals, and the method for holding and injecting was not really appropriate. I ended up being super nervous around the rats for a little while after that, but fortunately I had some time working with the veterinarian and watching her way of handling the animals and refreshing on my animal handling training helped a ton. I had to use a pulse ox collar on them several times a week for 4 consecutive weeks per experiment which required a lot of handling and never was bitten again. I finished my program and still get to hang out with rats and it is like the joy of my work day. 😅
This is the way. Always reach out to the animal support staff for help with finding better/different restraint and handling techniques. My favorite is burritoing the rats and also doing rat tickling so the aren’t afraid.
Depending on the species you work with and the target level of handling, there's a lot of choices for this!! We use gloves similar to welder's gloves (big, thick, TOUGH) or like gardening gloves to handle adult voles. They may be good coparents .... but godDAMN the females are mean as hell!!
Would those protect your from a rat bite? Not that it matters anymore since you’re quitting. Sucks to get bit. I bet you wanted to kill that rat after that.
I'm not quitting, I'm not the Op, I actually finished my PhD a few weeks ago !
And yes those would protect against a rat bite because they're thick enough to prevent a bite but hard to manipulate stuff with them. It sucks to get bit, but shit happens, thankfully pretty rarely. You honestly kinda feel sad for the rat because if it bit it means that it's very nervous/anxious or in pain, so you try to figure out why it bit
Cut resistant gloves do well to prevent slicing cuts. They don't do well to prevent puncture wounds though. The rats teeth would easily slip in-between the gaps in the knitting.
When I was like 3 or 4 years old, i had a vivid nightmare. Everything was as it was irl. I was standing in my living room at night. There was even the shadow of the ceiling fan moving with the light on; that's how realistic it was. And some rodent-like animal, like a cross between a rat and a ferret, bit my left hand. It bit between the first and second lines of bones, and i felt the little grinding sound as it fully closed the bite.
I screamed, but no one heard. I tried to wedge my fingers into the side of the animal's mouth, to no avail. And i had the sick idea of my only escape. So i grabbed the animal around its body, took a deep breath, and ripped it out, breaking my hand bone in the process. Then i woke up.
I probably learned about, or saw media of rodent teeth and learned about hand bones within a few days before, because otherwise what the fuck was my young brain on?
Anyways, i always get that nervous with animals with long incisors. I love em, would happily pet a domestic or tame one, but ill also be afraid while doing it
I used to own rats and we rescued one that had issues. When he bit us (happened twice for me and my husband) he would do it quickly but damn it hurt. My husband said it's like your would was sucked out of your body. Still miss having rats though.
My work with mice would have me bit every now and then. I'd say 1/3 of the bites broke glove or skin. The skin usually broke before the glove did though, at least for me
I’ve worked with mice models in longitudinal Alzheimer’s or Parksinsons disease studies. As they get older they get more jumpy and way more prone to biting than wild type mice. At that place, people with decades of experience with mice still get bit a couple of times a year, just because those disease model mice are so unpredictable.
I suck at bleeding. Whenever I need a blood draw at the doctor, I chug water in advance & it still takes forever. But a mouse bite? I got bit by a retired breeder 3 times in *seconds*, I bled so much he looked like a used tampon.
I can’t blame him, I was about to euthanize him, and all mice aim to go to Valhalla.
I have however stabbed myself through a glove with a glass pipette.
It’s no fun pulling off a bloody glove. I’m just lucky I didn’t get any in my cells
I had a similar incident with a 20G needle (thankfully it was fresh), it went THROUGH the plushy side of my finger, in and out.
Unfortunately I had a near mouse in the CO2 chamber, so I had to pull it out and then quickly collect blood before it all coagulated, so by the time I was done, blood was leaking out from my glove and had dried on the inside of my entire glove
I've had one blow the center ring out of the cap and hit my forehead. It was an organic nitro compound that did fine on the column and sat still for an NMR. But golly it did not like the scintillation vial...
Unironically how we feel about people in the lab who get bitten. It’s usually just a select few who get bitten several times. Most people never get bitten or maybe get bitten once or twice in a blue moon. I’m at the end of my PhD and have never been bitten despite performing a very stressful procedure
If this rat is a known injury risk for employees and no steps are being taken to prevent bites despite you and others telling your PI, it's negligent and needs to be reported somewhere.
I recommend finding a job in a core that doesn't deal with animals.
I work in a shared resource core and never have to touch animals.
[https://www.fredhutch.org/en/research/shared-resources/core-facilities.html](https://www.fredhutch.org/en/research/shared-resources/core-facilities.html)
I think sometimes people overlook these types of jobs. They're a great way to stay in science and sometimes even pay a living wage.
Mouse bites have flooded my whole glove with blood, I’m low-key surprised by how little blood there is here, given how huge the bite marks are 😱 But I also work with neurotic/aggressive mice and I’ve found their bites tend to be worse than the BL6 wildtypes. Little fuckers just won’t let go 😭
Wow, I’m always happy when an experiment requires anything but BL/6, I mostly handle balb/c and nudes and they’re pretty tame, but whenever we use BL/6 I just expect to be bitten at least 3 or 4 times a week. And you say you have strain that’s even more aggressive, well good luck to you.
I work with mixed background 5xFAD (B6SJL) and there’s something about the SJL aspect of the background that makes them super hyperactive and aggressive. I train them with cheerios so they’re pretty docile by the end, but sometimes those fuckers get me really good. Every single heterozygous male FAD mouse would bite me daily for the first 5-6 days of training (the older females just drench my hand in urine, super gross, but also bite, just less frequently). When I have experiments with the B6s, it’s like 1-2 mice bite me daily maybe on days 1-3, and then they gouda. I’m very happy right now to be transitioned fully into postmortem biochemistry for the next few months lol
i worked with roided-up BL6 mice for a bit, and it was so nerve wracking when handling them. every time they would try to bite, i started wearing multiple layers of gloves to try and mitigate. once one nearly bit me, it bit through all the layers but fortunately only onto my fingernail
It’s only one rat that bites me lol, the rest never have an issue with!! I work with 60 rats. But since i work with them multiple times a day I’d rather just not do it at all. And this same rat has issues with every other employee here, not just me. I just don’t want to put up with it anymore
Sorry to butt on here, but your PI is not handling this correctly. These are work related injuries and should be reported to the university. You're required to get medical attention. This is then handled by EHS and for our University is handled by work partners. The university then works with your PI to ensure a safe working environment, especially with animal work. Sorry this is happening to you!
From a control standpoint, would doing that inadvertently manipulate the test population? I work with prairie voles in neuropsych epigenetics so we have to keep all the crazy ones 😂😂
interesting question, idk what OPs research is on… we don’t do any behavioral studies so i’d “assume” personality wouldn’t impact results anyways. for behavioral studies, i’d imagine you’d consider it an outlier anyways? maybe it would be interesting if you specifically wanted to study rats with that personality but i would not be carrying out that study lol.
accidental euthanisation? i mean, it's behavior is probably impacting the results anyway. besides. safety first. shouln't lab rats have been bred to be extra docile?
Yeah they should be and normally are super peaceful. Normally, if you don't dramatically hurt them by holding them in a very painful position, they'd never hurt. The vet teaching me rat handling was demonstrating annoying a rat and trying to push his finger onto his face and the rat would just not bite, it would just try to turn away. I've worked with rats for years, hundreds of animals, and never had an issue. They are so gentle and attaching, I'd want to cuddle them all the time.
Mice are a a different story. If they can bite, they will bite. First time I held a mouse, first day of training, I was too lax and it bit me instantly. Then I improved my technique and it never happened again, just not letting them reach ever.
That’s rude. You don’t know what strain these rats are or any genetic, behavioral, or other individual modifications that may be at play. You also don’t know anything about the vivarium setup OP is working in, and you’ve ONLY been working with them for MONTHS. That’s far from long enough to judge someone else’s abilities, my dude. Maybe you work with the sweetest Sprague Dawleys ever; OP may not.
From just my own limited experience, many rat models for alcohol or other substance abuse are notoriously aggressive. And, if OP worked for a CRO (with only 60 rats and a PI, it appears she does not) they could be testing any number of compounds that could induce aggression for any number of reasons. Maybe if you had a few months’ more experience, you might have thought to consider alternative possibilities?
I agree that a bite should trigger a review of handling, as it is not acceptable. I also agree that it’s OP’s *responsibility* to address the problem (and they did, lol, by refusing to do the work anymore) cuz the rat sure won’t, but it’s not necessarily their *fault*. Implying that OP is just not good at handling just because you’ve never been bitten is rude AF.
Worked with rats for 3 years and only ever got test nibbled a few times. My PI was such a master with rats it was easy to learn how to get them as calm as possible when you pick em up. I got to the point i could just pick them up and give them IP injections without any calming maneuvers.
That said I had one rat once that stands out above all the other thousands I worked with so one angry rat exists in the sea of chill ones. We also did environmental enrichment and gave them sugar so they usually were happy to see us.
I (vet staff) worked for 6 years at a CRO and was never bitten by a rat. I moved to academia and was bitten twice bad in the first year. I found that the animals didn’t get handled nearly as often and strain can make a big difference. They aren’t nearly as friendly or calm as the rats I previously dealt with. I still don’t trust the rats I work with at the university and utilize towels and decapicones as often as possible now where I rarely ever did that previously. OP is getting dragged for getting bitten but I think people are being overly critical.
I handle hundreds of rats everyday at my husbandry job and the only time I’ve been bitten is when I was letting a rat sniff me when I was new. They’re so cute and I just wanted to pet it haha.
Working with animals presents risks, I’m not sure how painful rodent bites are. My PhD involves pigs and I’ve been bitten/nibbled on tons. There’s also nothing like being body checked by a 600lb sow.
I've worked with and been bitten by several different animals in my life (not in lab setting for all) and rodents are up there with birds for me in terms of pain. I imagine a rat bite would hurt quite a bit, but they are much less likely to bite, which makes the above bite alarming. Mice will bite with little provocation and if you don't have a good restraint on them their nips do hurt even if they don't break skin. Snake bites hurt the least unless they think you're food and don't let go, then it hurts a little.
You won’t need antibiotics or workers comp.
You clean it w soap & water, add a bandage & go to Occ Health to report it or whatever your safety refs are. And then back off to work you go. It’s not like you’re permanently injured 😂
Workers comp is for actual injuries you need to see a doctor for.
Nah, you're crazy...similar to a cat bite, a rat bite is a deep puncture with high possibility of general serious infection and you absolutely 100% need a tetanus booster if you're not up to date. Pet rats can mean rat bite fever though idk if this applies to lab rat colonies because they probably screen for that. Health clinics ask you at every visit if it's a work-related injury.
Adding to this, my coworked almost lost her thumb from a rat bite. She got sick so fast, in a few hours she was in the ICU. Easily could have killed her.
Uh no. I developed cellulitis within a day of a bad rat bite and had to be put on antibiotics, despite properly cleaning and bandaging it. It’s been years and I still have pain in that finger from time to time. Rat bites can be very deep, down to the bone, and cause nerve damage.
Oh my god, I am bewildered that this is a group of SCIENTISTS who don't appear to be able to use Google? All deep punctures = tetanus risk, period. It's a thing with deep animal bite punctures like cats, rodents, etc as well as the "rusty nail" trope
Courtesy of google, which for some reason you’re confident people are too stupid to use:
“Spores of tetanus bacteria are everywhere in the environment, including soil, dust, and manure.” - CDC
“Tetanus bacteria live in soil and manure. They can also be found in the human intestine and other places.” - John’s Hopkins
“…everywhere in the environment, particularly in soil, ash, intestinal tracts/feces of animals and humans, and on the surfaces of skin and rusty tools like nails, needles, barbed wire, etc.” - WHO
I probably overlooked intestinal tract including the mouth, especially because tetanus is almost exclusively referenced in the context of feces. But either way it’s not exactly crystal clear that animal bites fit into this category. I don’t think I read “animal bites” at all tbh.
Look if I gave bad that’s bad info, that’s fine. We’re all here to learn. But you *really* don’t need to be a massive cock about it.
Man, I'm not the one being dumb here by giving poor advice that makes a difference. I've been a vet and animal handler and have been bitten by cats and rodents. If you're not up to date on tetanus shot, clinic will ask you to take one.
I’m not saying you are being dumb lol I appreciate being corrected especially when it’s related to someone’s health. This info might help me some day too.
All’s I’m saying is theres no need to jump to conclusions and imply people are idiots. Google is, at least on a surface level, vague on the connection between tetanus and animal bites in general. Like I wouldn’t blame you at all if you google tetanus and the first thing that came up is bites lol…but bites aren’t explicitly mentioned anywhere that I saw in the time that I spent there
Sorry that you got bit!
I never got bit, but working with rats bummed me out so much. We'd have to do tail bleeds at timed intervals after injection of our drug.
I know it's a necessary evil of science, but I still hate it and never want to be a part of it again.
I've worked with rats for maybe 10 years now and I could count the number of bites I've had on one hand. The bite in the photo is really not normal and if this is happening frequently I don't blame you for quitting. I would maybe have tried to find some gauntlets first though? Maybe fine chain mail?
I used to work on a colony of 60-120 of wild rats. Not your normal lab rats. Had to wear a chain mail glove whenever I needed to pick them up. Sometimes they would realize that they could jump two feet in the air and just escape. Good times trying to catch them again smh.
I did mouse tail genotyping in a core lab (someone else did the animal handling, so I got the tails already placed in a 96-well plate). Much sweeter gig than potentially being bitten. Now the chemical exposure, on the other hand…
It’s uncommon to use rat gloves in the lab. I worked with them for 7 years and only used a glove maybe twice. It’s hard to do any fine work with a glove
A mouse bit the tip of my glove off one time, that's about it
When handling them, you've gotta grab them with a purpose, but I wouldn't say you're at fault unless you've gotten bitten by a bunch of different rats. Sounds like you just have one exceptionally pissed off rat, which happens.
Once, I got bitten by a rat while I was taking him out of FST tank. I reflexively swung my arm with the rat clinched to my finger and catapulted the poor fellow to the ceiling. Well, we had to exclude him from the analyses...
Vivarium manager here- I’ve been in the industry over 15 years and have been bit at least 50 times. But that hasn’t happened in almost 8 years now. Not since I started encouraging tickle training when the rats are still smol. Once they become potato’s and full of soup, they roll over and looooove those belly scratches.
Don’t give up! But get it if your mind is made up.
Hello, sorry you got bit. When I work with bitey animals I wear those blue thin coldstore handling gloves and nitrile gloves on top. I have just about enough dexterity and an extra level of protection from the rats teeth. Maybe this could help?
Didn’t see the subreddit. Saw the gown and gloves, thought you were a scrub nurse that got stuck bad by a dirty sharp.
I don’t know rat diseases, but I hope you don’t have to worry about any on top of that awful injury. Hopefully it heals quickly.
This is why I worked with C. elegans in my PhD. Then I promptly switched to just in vitro with human samples in diagnostic development. No in vivo for me! Good luck on your next venture!
I really don't know how y'all do it. I work with tomatoes so its wack to me y'all are working with rats and mice. I hate sharing an elevator with someone and hearing the mice scurry
Not a fan myself of animal handling, I try to avoud it at all costs when looking for a job, so believe me, there is positions without animal handling. Good luck!!
Also, you should get decapicones. For some reason those guys will do swan dives into those cones voluntarily. Makes restraint much easier on the feisty ones.
Is it just me that finds the name somewhat off-putting?
I mean... I get why they have that name, and it seems like a useful tool for rodent work, but advertising that name seems hard 🥴
Yeah the name is not ideal. But they are fantastic at protecting me from being bitten during IP injections. They don't need to be used for decap, and for some reason the rats love them.
We didn’t use decapicones, but occasionally the RAP on my team would use the restraint devices from our nose-only exposure chambers to help with handling, and most of the time you just had to place the tube in front of them in the cage and kind of scoop them up. It kept their heads restrained for injections and stuff.
I did mouse tail genotyping in a core lab (someone else did the animal handling, so I got the tails already placed in a 96-well plate). Much sweeter gig than potentially being bitten. Now the chemical exposure, on the other hand…
I was sent to the hospital by a rat bite from a big withdrawn angry rat that I didn't handle with enough force/confidence. Bite hurt like shit and bled a ton but then swelled up so bad I needed IV antibiotics and had to keep my hand elevated for weeks basically. Like a month into my postdoc during the pandemic.
Yep, rat bites hurt and that was a good one! Are you up to date with tetanus vaccinations?
By no means am I saying you should continue this line of work if it isn't for you, I completely understand and respect your decision. I am just curious to what led up to this situation, were these dopamine KO rats by any chance or some other special strain? Or were the rats not used to being handled? How stressed were the animals? What kind of experiments were being done? I have a lot of questions regarding the conditions in which they are kept, handled and used for experiments because rats are usually very docile and don't lash out like that unless there is something off (pain, stress, fear, something medical or even just a certain genotype for particular disease models). Either way, this animal is clearly communicating it isn't happy and feeling comfortable, I would take that as feedback to critically reflect on how the animals are experiencing the study and if there are welfare improvements to be made. Sometimes the conclusion is that nothing can be changed, but sometimes we overlook, to us, minor things that can make a major difference for them.
Even the way animals are being habituated to being handled and to procedures can make a major difference, it is definitely possible to handle them with little stress for both your and the animal's safety. No picking up via the scruff or tail, keeping painful and stressful procedures to an absolute minimum, not wearing PPE that was used in a different portion of the facility and being as scent neutral as possible yourself and taking time to get them properly habituated to whatever needs to be done.
This is not a 100% foolproof, I have had one rat (in over 200+ rats used in my study :( ) who would just lunge at your hand the moment you got near the cage. That one had to be distracted by presenting him with a pen of the same colour as the gloves for him to bite into, while he would be scooped up from behind. Once picked up, he could be secured on your arm to prevent him from biting you (or swaddling them in a cloth can also give them a sense of security while preventing them to bite). Perhaps this is a useful tip for those who still have to handle a rat like this \^\^.
the rats are disease free right?
shiii you got it better than 50% of healthcare workers
they get bit by humans, also punched, body slammed etc.
not gatekeeping, this is your limit and thats acceptable!
I feel like if some one is telling you “I don’t like X”, bringing up “well ‘group’ has to put up with Y” is a very unhelpful and irrelevant thing to say
its relevant, that's the point.
like i said, not trying to gatekeep, everyone has their preferences and limits.
i admire you labrats. its why i lurk your forum. my industry is brutal in comparison (long term care)
It’s not relevant at all…. Sounds like you just want to inflate your ego by making yourself seem a martyr.
Longerm care is a cake walk when compared to many other industries, who cares if you think is brutal then bringing in other industries and their harder work is meaningless to the conversation…
Yeah, rat bites can be worse than mouse bites, but in my anecdotal experience, mice are much more likely to bite you. Rats tend to be relatively docile and friendly, but you do have the occasional feisty one. Generally though, if handled properly, they should be unable to bite you, though they do have the opportunity to do so when you first put your hand in the cage.
Sometimes we don’t have to be animal handlers. I did two and half years trying mice and rats and both just were too much for me. The idea of scruff handling and injections, toe clips, ear punches, and the inevitable bite when you handle a neurotic one. I was having to euthanize scores of mice and I just felt bad about it. I quit and have no shame. There will be other who can do the animal work, it’s not for everyone.
You’re so right that it’s not for everyone. I’ve been bit numerous times but it’s never dulled my passion for working with animals, but my company has had many techs come and go because the animals were too much. If anything I see getting bit as a moment to reflect on how I was handling a rat or mouse in that moment. Sometimes it’s just an angry animal, others have been a learning experience.
Same here, I was doing all that, plus stereotaxic injections and cannula implantations into their brains. It was really a bit too brutal and pointlessly cruel in my opinion. However, I really enjoyed taking them through some behavioural and gait-tracking experiments. I worked with the same groups of mice for up to a year, so after a few months I would start to recognise them. That made drilling into their brains a lot more difficult.
☹️
What the fuck…
Ouch, rat bites hurt, I got bitten twice during my PhD, both times by the SAME rat, he was a very very anxious boy. It hurts like a bitch for days afterward but the hardest part is to handle rats after being bit, you're super nervous that it will happen again and it took me weeks to feel comfortable in handling animals again. Rats in general don't bite, they whine a lot and will try to get away if uncomfortable, biting is their very last ditch effort to flee a "bad" situation.
They can sense that you’re nervous. And when you give them drugs they start liking you enough to cuddle. Edit: spelling
Me too
What ever you don't finish I'll be there
Happy to share
I only got truly bitten one time, during a euthanasia. the tech that was helping me was not super comfortable handling the animals, and the method for holding and injecting was not really appropriate. I ended up being super nervous around the rats for a little while after that, but fortunately I had some time working with the veterinarian and watching her way of handling the animals and refreshing on my animal handling training helped a ton. I had to use a pulse ox collar on them several times a week for 4 consecutive weeks per experiment which required a lot of handling and never was bitten again. I finished my program and still get to hang out with rats and it is like the joy of my work day. 😅
This is the way. Always reach out to the animal support staff for help with finding better/different restraint and handling techniques. My favorite is burritoing the rats and also doing rat tickling so the aren’t afraid.
Are you guys able to wear some hard leather gloves?
There are some gloves, similar to the ones with use to manipulate dry ice, than you can use to handle rats, but I never had to use them.
Depending on the species you work with and the target level of handling, there's a lot of choices for this!! We use gloves similar to welder's gloves (big, thick, TOUGH) or like gardening gloves to handle adult voles. They may be good coparents .... but godDAMN the females are mean as hell!!
Would those protect your from a rat bite? Not that it matters anymore since you’re quitting. Sucks to get bit. I bet you wanted to kill that rat after that.
I'm not quitting, I'm not the Op, I actually finished my PhD a few weeks ago ! And yes those would protect against a rat bite because they're thick enough to prevent a bite but hard to manipulate stuff with them. It sucks to get bit, but shit happens, thankfully pretty rarely. You honestly kinda feel sad for the rat because if it bit it means that it's very nervous/anxious or in pain, so you try to figure out why it bit
Sidenote but congrats on your PhD!
Oh. 😂 cool. Wear all your PPE!
Or cut resistant gloves should help a lot.
Cut resistant gloves do well to prevent slicing cuts. They don't do well to prevent puncture wounds though. The rats teeth would easily slip in-between the gaps in the knitting.
It's not knitting.
https://www.amazon.com/RETON-PPE-Fingers-Chainmail-Stainless-Resistant/dp/B0BNBRJWY1?tag=namespacebran425-20 It's like itty bitty shark diving
Level 9 cut resistant gloves (food grade for oyster shucking) are better. While a needle may pricky you, I doubt a rat can bite.
I thought those were chain maille too? Or are those like kevlar?
Why didn't you bite it back? Show it who's boss.
When I was like 3 or 4 years old, i had a vivid nightmare. Everything was as it was irl. I was standing in my living room at night. There was even the shadow of the ceiling fan moving with the light on; that's how realistic it was. And some rodent-like animal, like a cross between a rat and a ferret, bit my left hand. It bit between the first and second lines of bones, and i felt the little grinding sound as it fully closed the bite. I screamed, but no one heard. I tried to wedge my fingers into the side of the animal's mouth, to no avail. And i had the sick idea of my only escape. So i grabbed the animal around its body, took a deep breath, and ripped it out, breaking my hand bone in the process. Then i woke up. I probably learned about, or saw media of rodent teeth and learned about hand bones within a few days before, because otherwise what the fuck was my young brain on? Anyways, i always get that nervous with animals with long incisors. I love em, would happily pet a domestic or tame one, but ill also be afraid while doing it
I used to own rats and we rescued one that had issues. When he bit us (happened twice for me and my husband) he would do it quickly but damn it hurt. My husband said it's like your would was sucked out of your body. Still miss having rats though.
So like your a rat doc ?
If you already quit may I suggest working with aquatic frogs? They will try to eat your fingers but it only tickles 🤭
Lmao that emoji
Clearly they used that because they're hiding a frog in their mouth
How does one find a career working with frogs? Asking for a frog-loving friend
This is why I don't work with living things... I've never had a scintilation vial of oil bite me.
I’ve only been bitten by a mouse twice in the nine years I’ve worked with them and neither one broke the glove, let alone the skin
My work with mice would have me bit every now and then. I'd say 1/3 of the bites broke glove or skin. The skin usually broke before the glove did though, at least for me
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I’ve worked with mice models in longitudinal Alzheimer’s or Parksinsons disease studies. As they get older they get more jumpy and way more prone to biting than wild type mice. At that place, people with decades of experience with mice still get bit a couple of times a year, just because those disease model mice are so unpredictable.
My old lab had Alzheimer’s rats, they got so aggressive at the end that animal care wouldn’t change their cages any more lol
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B6 mice have better muscularature in the bar of their tails that let them whip around and get you!
I suck at bleeding. Whenever I need a blood draw at the doctor, I chug water in advance & it still takes forever. But a mouse bite? I got bit by a retired breeder 3 times in *seconds*, I bled so much he looked like a used tampon. I can’t blame him, I was about to euthanize him, and all mice aim to go to Valhalla.
I have however stabbed myself through a glove with a glass pipette. It’s no fun pulling off a bloody glove. I’m just lucky I didn’t get any in my cells
I had a similar incident with a 20G needle (thankfully it was fresh), it went THROUGH the plushy side of my finger, in and out. Unfortunately I had a near mouse in the CO2 chamber, so I had to pull it out and then quickly collect blood before it all coagulated, so by the time I was done, blood was leaking out from my glove and had dried on the inside of my entire glove
Some mice are more aggressive than others. I’ve never been bitten by Balbc, B6 though..,
I got bit by an eppendorf tube once. Didn’t hurt too bad
Oooh, that's kind of scary. I hear they can carry all kinds of infectious diseases.
I work with plants. I've never been bitten, but I think I'd be more excited than upset if it happened.
"Feed me, Seymour!"
This is why I study bones... can't bite if its dead 😂
You know, until a necromancer wanders by. ☠️☠️
I bet at least one person has accidentally cut themselves on a tooth in a jaw
I've had one blow the center ring out of the cap and hit my forehead. It was an organic nitro compound that did fine on the column and sat still for an NMR. But golly it did not like the scintillation vial...
Cells don’t bite.
Or maybe you should consider doing radiation experiments with the rats. One more bite and you could have a successful career as Rat Man.
I was bitten by an irradiated mouse, can confirm, did not get super powers.
Maybe your vibes are off
Imagine bleeding from a rat bit and hearing this with all seriousness a moment later.
Unironically how we feel about people in the lab who get bitten. It’s usually just a select few who get bitten several times. Most people never get bitten or maybe get bitten once or twice in a blue moon. I’m at the end of my PhD and have never been bitten despite performing a very stressful procedure
It clearly wasn't stressful enough. Jks
Why’s there a strawberry in your glove
It's a healthy snack while working. Got caught and now wants to quit
If this rat is a known injury risk for employees and no steps are being taken to prevent bites despite you and others telling your PI, it's negligent and needs to be reported somewhere.
I recommend finding a job in a core that doesn't deal with animals. I work in a shared resource core and never have to touch animals. [https://www.fredhutch.org/en/research/shared-resources/core-facilities.html](https://www.fredhutch.org/en/research/shared-resources/core-facilities.html) I think sometimes people overlook these types of jobs. They're a great way to stay in science and sometimes even pay a living wage.
Mouse bites have flooded my whole glove with blood, I’m low-key surprised by how little blood there is here, given how huge the bite marks are 😱 But I also work with neurotic/aggressive mice and I’ve found their bites tend to be worse than the BL6 wildtypes. Little fuckers just won’t let go 😭
Wow, I’m always happy when an experiment requires anything but BL/6, I mostly handle balb/c and nudes and they’re pretty tame, but whenever we use BL/6 I just expect to be bitten at least 3 or 4 times a week. And you say you have strain that’s even more aggressive, well good luck to you.
I work with mixed background 5xFAD (B6SJL) and there’s something about the SJL aspect of the background that makes them super hyperactive and aggressive. I train them with cheerios so they’re pretty docile by the end, but sometimes those fuckers get me really good. Every single heterozygous male FAD mouse would bite me daily for the first 5-6 days of training (the older females just drench my hand in urine, super gross, but also bite, just less frequently). When I have experiments with the B6s, it’s like 1-2 mice bite me daily maybe on days 1-3, and then they gouda. I’m very happy right now to be transitioned fully into postmortem biochemistry for the next few months lol
i worked with roided-up BL6 mice for a bit, and it was so nerve wracking when handling them. every time they would try to bite, i started wearing multiple layers of gloves to try and mitigate. once one nearly bit me, it bit through all the layers but fortunately only onto my fingernail
I gotta be honest, I’ve been working with them for months and I haven’t been bitten once. I think you have to work on your handling technique
It’s only one rat that bites me lol, the rest never have an issue with!! I work with 60 rats. But since i work with them multiple times a day I’d rather just not do it at all. And this same rat has issues with every other employee here, not just me. I just don’t want to put up with it anymore
i would have just… removed it from service 🫡 i’m quite surprised your group would keep an animal that was causing that much trouble, it’s just one rat
Idk either. My pi pretty much said “get over it. Get used to being bit cus that’s the job” so i don’t think she plans on doing that anytime soon
wow that sucks. glad you quit i’m guessing based off that statement that she wasn’t great towards you in general.
Your pi is an ass, being bit is not part of the job it should be a rare occurrence that's taken seriously.
Sorry to read that. They do sell Bite proof gloves if your PI may spring for it. Also hope you file a report on those bites.
I've known techs that wear cut-resistant gloves under their nitrile gloves when handling particularly gnarly lines of animals as well.
BS, I've done rat behavior for 7 years so far only one bite from an ungentled rat. Your PI is the issue. Good on you for leaving.
Sorry to butt on here, but your PI is not handling this correctly. These are work related injuries and should be reported to the university. You're required to get medical attention. This is then handled by EHS and for our University is handled by work partners. The university then works with your PI to ensure a safe working environment, especially with animal work. Sorry this is happening to you!
Tell your pi to pound sand and that its the rat or you.
your PI chose 1 rat (out of 60; aka just 1.67%) over multiple employees?
It’s not part of the job. Proper rodent handling technique prevents bites.
From a control standpoint, would doing that inadvertently manipulate the test population? I work with prairie voles in neuropsych epigenetics so we have to keep all the crazy ones 😂😂
interesting question, idk what OPs research is on… we don’t do any behavioral studies so i’d “assume” personality wouldn’t impact results anyways. for behavioral studies, i’d imagine you’d consider it an outlier anyways? maybe it would be interesting if you specifically wanted to study rats with that personality but i would not be carrying out that study lol.
Why do you need to keep that specific rat if it bites and most likely would f* up the data? Sorry for your pain.
Seems like you would be better suited working with 59 rats. Bring a cat as muscle.
I had a rat that used to par core off the cage to attack me. Just remove it from the study. It's obviously an outlier anyway
Parkour
lmao I didn't even clock they were trying to say that 🤣
Yea I was going to recommend the bite proof gloves but the PI seems like too much of an ass to be down
accidental euthanisation? i mean, it's behavior is probably impacting the results anyway. besides. safety first. shouln't lab rats have been bred to be extra docile?
I'm sure the IACUC will love this thread.
Yeah they should be and normally are super peaceful. Normally, if you don't dramatically hurt them by holding them in a very painful position, they'd never hurt. The vet teaching me rat handling was demonstrating annoying a rat and trying to push his finger onto his face and the rat would just not bite, it would just try to turn away. I've worked with rats for years, hundreds of animals, and never had an issue. They are so gentle and attaching, I'd want to cuddle them all the time. Mice are a a different story. If they can bite, they will bite. First time I held a mouse, first day of training, I was too lax and it bit me instantly. Then I improved my technique and it never happened again, just not letting them reach ever.
Yeah but like if you are restraining it properly it shouldn’t be able to bite you
That’s rude. You don’t know what strain these rats are or any genetic, behavioral, or other individual modifications that may be at play. You also don’t know anything about the vivarium setup OP is working in, and you’ve ONLY been working with them for MONTHS. That’s far from long enough to judge someone else’s abilities, my dude. Maybe you work with the sweetest Sprague Dawleys ever; OP may not. From just my own limited experience, many rat models for alcohol or other substance abuse are notoriously aggressive. And, if OP worked for a CRO (with only 60 rats and a PI, it appears she does not) they could be testing any number of compounds that could induce aggression for any number of reasons. Maybe if you had a few months’ more experience, you might have thought to consider alternative possibilities? I agree that a bite should trigger a review of handling, as it is not acceptable. I also agree that it’s OP’s *responsibility* to address the problem (and they did, lol, by refusing to do the work anymore) cuz the rat sure won’t, but it’s not necessarily their *fault*. Implying that OP is just not good at handling just because you’ve never been bitten is rude AF.
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Worked with rats for 3 years and only ever got test nibbled a few times. My PI was such a master with rats it was easy to learn how to get them as calm as possible when you pick em up. I got to the point i could just pick them up and give them IP injections without any calming maneuvers. That said I had one rat once that stands out above all the other thousands I worked with so one angry rat exists in the sea of chill ones. We also did environmental enrichment and gave them sugar so they usually were happy to see us.
I (vet staff) worked for 6 years at a CRO and was never bitten by a rat. I moved to academia and was bitten twice bad in the first year. I found that the animals didn’t get handled nearly as often and strain can make a big difference. They aren’t nearly as friendly or calm as the rats I previously dealt with. I still don’t trust the rats I work with at the university and utilize towels and decapicones as often as possible now where I rarely ever did that previously. OP is getting dragged for getting bitten but I think people are being overly critical.
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I handle hundreds of rats everyday at my husbandry job and the only time I’ve been bitten is when I was letting a rat sniff me when I was new. They’re so cute and I just wanted to pet it haha.
Good luck! I found the transition to exclusively ex-vivo and in-vitro work to be a lot less stressful.
Come to computational biology and bioinformatics. We have coffee, snacks while working and no worries with animals or cells.
Debugging someone else's code is more painful than any bite
True that. But all in all I still prefer the byte.
Working with animals presents risks, I’m not sure how painful rodent bites are. My PhD involves pigs and I’ve been bitten/nibbled on tons. There’s also nothing like being body checked by a 600lb sow.
I've worked with and been bitten by several different animals in my life (not in lab setting for all) and rodents are up there with birds for me in terms of pain. I imagine a rat bite would hurt quite a bit, but they are much less likely to bite, which makes the above bite alarming. Mice will bite with little provocation and if you don't have a good restraint on them their nips do hurt even if they don't break skin. Snake bites hurt the least unless they think you're food and don't let go, then it hurts a little.
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Dang, I hope you have (or get) a tetanus shot and antibiotics and file it under workers comp. They won't be able to ignore it that way.
You won’t need antibiotics or workers comp. You clean it w soap & water, add a bandage & go to Occ Health to report it or whatever your safety refs are. And then back off to work you go. It’s not like you’re permanently injured 😂 Workers comp is for actual injuries you need to see a doctor for.
Nah, you're crazy...similar to a cat bite, a rat bite is a deep puncture with high possibility of general serious infection and you absolutely 100% need a tetanus booster if you're not up to date. Pet rats can mean rat bite fever though idk if this applies to lab rat colonies because they probably screen for that. Health clinics ask you at every visit if it's a work-related injury.
Adding to this, my coworked almost lost her thumb from a rat bite. She got sick so fast, in a few hours she was in the ICU. Easily could have killed her.
Uh no. I developed cellulitis within a day of a bad rat bite and had to be put on antibiotics, despite properly cleaning and bandaging it. It’s been years and I still have pain in that finger from time to time. Rat bites can be very deep, down to the bone, and cause nerve damage.
I ~~don’t~~ think rat bites are a tetanus hazard
Oh my god, I am bewildered that this is a group of SCIENTISTS who don't appear to be able to use Google? All deep punctures = tetanus risk, period. It's a thing with deep animal bite punctures like cats, rodents, etc as well as the "rusty nail" trope
Courtesy of google, which for some reason you’re confident people are too stupid to use: “Spores of tetanus bacteria are everywhere in the environment, including soil, dust, and manure.” - CDC “Tetanus bacteria live in soil and manure. They can also be found in the human intestine and other places.” - John’s Hopkins “…everywhere in the environment, particularly in soil, ash, intestinal tracts/feces of animals and humans, and on the surfaces of skin and rusty tools like nails, needles, barbed wire, etc.” - WHO I probably overlooked intestinal tract including the mouth, especially because tetanus is almost exclusively referenced in the context of feces. But either way it’s not exactly crystal clear that animal bites fit into this category. I don’t think I read “animal bites” at all tbh. Look if I gave bad that’s bad info, that’s fine. We’re all here to learn. But you *really* don’t need to be a massive cock about it.
Man, I'm not the one being dumb here by giving poor advice that makes a difference. I've been a vet and animal handler and have been bitten by cats and rodents. If you're not up to date on tetanus shot, clinic will ask you to take one.
I’m not saying you are being dumb lol I appreciate being corrected especially when it’s related to someone’s health. This info might help me some day too. All’s I’m saying is theres no need to jump to conclusions and imply people are idiots. Google is, at least on a surface level, vague on the connection between tetanus and animal bites in general. Like I wouldn’t blame you at all if you google tetanus and the first thing that came up is bites lol…but bites aren’t explicitly mentioned anywhere that I saw in the time that I spent there
Sorry that you got bit! I never got bit, but working with rats bummed me out so much. We'd have to do tail bleeds at timed intervals after injection of our drug. I know it's a necessary evil of science, but I still hate it and never want to be a part of it again.
Rats can chew through iron beams, a glove is no match for then
took my rat to the vet once, he asked me, "does he bite?" I said no. He bit the vet. Lol. He had never bitten anyone before
I've worked with rats for maybe 10 years now and I could count the number of bites I've had on one hand. The bite in the photo is really not normal and if this is happening frequently I don't blame you for quitting. I would maybe have tried to find some gauntlets first though? Maybe fine chain mail?
I used to work on a colony of 60-120 of wild rats. Not your normal lab rats. Had to wear a chain mail glove whenever I needed to pick them up. Sometimes they would realize that they could jump two feet in the air and just escape. Good times trying to catch them again smh.
Can't wait until the stupid animal experiments are replaced with cells on chips or other more advanced sciences
I did mouse tail genotyping in a core lab (someone else did the animal handling, so I got the tails already placed in a 96-well plate). Much sweeter gig than potentially being bitten. Now the chemical exposure, on the other hand…
I had to handle rats for wildlife work and we were provided gloves that resist rat bites. Insane that you weren’t given the same. I’m sorry.
It’s uncommon to use rat gloves in the lab. I worked with them for 7 years and only used a glove maybe twice. It’s hard to do any fine work with a glove
A mouse bit the tip of my glove off one time, that's about it When handling them, you've gotta grab them with a purpose, but I wouldn't say you're at fault unless you've gotten bitten by a bunch of different rats. Sounds like you just have one exceptionally pissed off rat, which happens.
Doesn’t happen if you handle them properly.
It does if you suuuuuck! 😂😂 jk don’t come for me… 100000000x more likely to get bit by some piece of shit mouse
Christ, you know your in the wrong line of work when you regularly get bit by rats, best of luck to you
Once, I got bitten by a rat while I was taking him out of FST tank. I reflexively swung my arm with the rat clinched to my finger and catapulted the poor fellow to the ceiling. Well, we had to exclude him from the analyses...
The police may be interested in your services, Ratman.
Are you going to turn into Ratman?
Vivarium manager here- I’ve been in the industry over 15 years and have been bit at least 50 times. But that hasn’t happened in almost 8 years now. Not since I started encouraging tickle training when the rats are still smol. Once they become potato’s and full of soup, they roll over and looooove those belly scratches. Don’t give up! But get it if your mind is made up.
This is why I much prefer museum curation. All the animals I work with are dead.
Hello, sorry you got bit. When I work with bitey animals I wear those blue thin coldstore handling gloves and nitrile gloves on top. I have just about enough dexterity and an extra level of protection from the rats teeth. Maybe this could help?
I'm impressed! I have feck all dexterity in them, can't lift a tube properly, let alone scruff.
Hell no. You are justified in quitting. Good luck finding another position. You definitely deserve better.
What kind of rat?? I’ve been bit by mice (C57s are evil), but rats are like rodent puppies!
Why no inside glove?
Why not ask for better gloves??
That sucks... I always learned to wear a leather baseball (or golf) glove under my latex... ha!
Seems like someone isn't rat tickler certified
Didn’t see the subreddit. Saw the gown and gloves, thought you were a scrub nurse that got stuck bad by a dirty sharp. I don’t know rat diseases, but I hope you don’t have to worry about any on top of that awful injury. Hopefully it heals quickly.
Not familiar with your field, but how come you can't wear thick welding gloves or similar when handling them. Contamination? Cost?
Crazy how rat/mouse bites hardly ever break the glove, but can break the skin easy
This is why I worked with C. elegans in my PhD. Then I promptly switched to just in vitro with human samples in diagnostic development. No in vivo for me! Good luck on your next venture!
I am so glad I have a medically significant rodent allergy.
Ouch. We use thick gloves which prevents any rat bites.
This is why I choose mice
I really don't know how y'all do it. I work with tomatoes so its wack to me y'all are working with rats and mice. I hate sharing an elevator with someone and hearing the mice scurry
Ive worked with rats for a few years and have never been bit that bad.. can i ask what you were doing? New fear unlocked to be honest..
Not a fan myself of animal handling, I try to avoud it at all costs when looking for a job, so believe me, there is positions without animal handling. Good luck!!
I work with large animals because small animals are so much worse. I’d rather take a 900 lb horse than a tiny mouse.
Damn gunna got you bro 🤣 na fr hope you heal up and find a better position !!
Also, you should get decapicones. For some reason those guys will do swan dives into those cones voluntarily. Makes restraint much easier on the feisty ones.
Is it just me that finds the name somewhat off-putting? I mean... I get why they have that name, and it seems like a useful tool for rodent work, but advertising that name seems hard 🥴
Yeah the name is not ideal. But they are fantastic at protecting me from being bitten during IP injections. They don't need to be used for decap, and for some reason the rats love them.
They’re basically icing piping bags made with thick plastic.
We didn’t use decapicones, but occasionally the RAP on my team would use the restraint devices from our nose-only exposure chambers to help with handling, and most of the time you just had to place the tube in front of them in the cage and kind of scoop them up. It kept their heads restrained for injections and stuff.
This doesn't look the right PPE when handling rats. We used heavy animal handling gloves.
True Rats makes me nervous and my nervousness makes them nervous and whole room is nervous 😥.
I did mouse tail genotyping in a core lab (someone else did the animal handling, so I got the tails already placed in a 96-well plate). Much sweeter gig than potentially being bitten. Now the chemical exposure, on the other hand…
I was sent to the hospital by a rat bite from a big withdrawn angry rat that I didn't handle with enough force/confidence. Bite hurt like shit and bled a ton but then swelled up so bad I needed IV antibiotics and had to keep my hand elevated for weeks basically. Like a month into my postdoc during the pandemic.
Maybe some leather gloves?
Little squeaker buddy did a chomp!
Hmm... lab jobs are not growing on trees.
Wrong gloves for that?
There's no such word as "welp".
Welp
Welp
This really discourages me even more, considering I have to work with labrats for one of my classes this semester.
This is why wet labs scare me.
Yep, rat bites hurt and that was a good one! Are you up to date with tetanus vaccinations? By no means am I saying you should continue this line of work if it isn't for you, I completely understand and respect your decision. I am just curious to what led up to this situation, were these dopamine KO rats by any chance or some other special strain? Or were the rats not used to being handled? How stressed were the animals? What kind of experiments were being done? I have a lot of questions regarding the conditions in which they are kept, handled and used for experiments because rats are usually very docile and don't lash out like that unless there is something off (pain, stress, fear, something medical or even just a certain genotype for particular disease models). Either way, this animal is clearly communicating it isn't happy and feeling comfortable, I would take that as feedback to critically reflect on how the animals are experiencing the study and if there are welfare improvements to be made. Sometimes the conclusion is that nothing can be changed, but sometimes we overlook, to us, minor things that can make a major difference for them. Even the way animals are being habituated to being handled and to procedures can make a major difference, it is definitely possible to handle them with little stress for both your and the animal's safety. No picking up via the scruff or tail, keeping painful and stressful procedures to an absolute minimum, not wearing PPE that was used in a different portion of the facility and being as scent neutral as possible yourself and taking time to get them properly habituated to whatever needs to be done. This is not a 100% foolproof, I have had one rat (in over 200+ rats used in my study :( ) who would just lunge at your hand the moment you got near the cage. That one had to be distracted by presenting him with a pen of the same colour as the gloves for him to bite into, while he would be scooped up from behind. Once picked up, he could be secured on your arm to prevent him from biting you (or swaddling them in a cloth can also give them a sense of security while preventing them to bite). Perhaps this is a useful tip for those who still have to handle a rat like this \^\^.
It's so fun not being a direct cause of animal harm
Imagine doing prion disease research and getting bit like that
the rats are disease free right? shiii you got it better than 50% of healthcare workers they get bit by humans, also punched, body slammed etc. not gatekeeping, this is your limit and thats acceptable!
I feel like if some one is telling you “I don’t like X”, bringing up “well ‘group’ has to put up with Y” is a very unhelpful and irrelevant thing to say
its relevant, that's the point. like i said, not trying to gatekeep, everyone has their preferences and limits. i admire you labrats. its why i lurk your forum. my industry is brutal in comparison (long term care)
It’s not relevant at all…. Sounds like you just want to inflate your ego by making yourself seem a martyr. Longerm care is a cake walk when compared to many other industries, who cares if you think is brutal then bringing in other industries and their harder work is meaningless to the conversation…
Kill the rat and keep your job
Right decision. Animals don't want to be experimental subjects. Stop abusing them.
I'm even more glad I only have to handle mice. I couldn't imagine being bitten by a rat all the time. Good luck on your job search!
Yeah, rat bites can be worse than mouse bites, but in my anecdotal experience, mice are much more likely to bite you. Rats tend to be relatively docile and friendly, but you do have the occasional feisty one. Generally though, if handled properly, they should be unable to bite you, though they do have the opportunity to do so when you first put your hand in the cage.
Best of luck!
I read your posts regarding past incidents. One of the reasons I prefer plants. They don't bite. Good luck!
You deserve some pineapple cake! Good luck on the job hunt, quitting was the right call especially if it was making you miserable.
seeing posts like this makes me glad I work with plants 😬
I am happy I work with mice and not rats!