Charles River Offering Enhanced Ear Tags for Mouse Custom Breeding Services

Posted on February 14, 2023

Enhanced Ear Tags for Mouse Custom Breeding Services

Having a system to rapidly identify and collect data from research animal models ensures efficiency and data integrity. Our Genetically Engineered Models and Services (GEMS) team now uses smaller colored mouse ear tags with scannable barcodes for lab animal identification – a simple, easy, and humane solution for tracking mice.

Mini Ear Tags for Mouse Identification & Data Integrity

Ear tags can quickly and securely provide unique identification of your genetically engineered mice regardless of whether they are bred at one of our facilities, transferred to your lab, or at kept at one of our CRADL™ facilities.

The redesigned RapID Tags®  we use are mini ear tags with a 2-D matrix barcode that uniquely identifies and tracks each mouse during the breeding process. Using different color tags provides a secondary visual identification method of quickly identifying cage mates and study animals.

Some of the benefits of using mini ear tags for lab animal identification include:

  • Humane, secure, lightweight, and virtually indestructible design
  • Compact design. Mouse ear tags are 3mm in length (smaller than standard RapID® tags)
  • Smaller size means decreased fallout rate as compared to standard-sized tags
  • Multiple color options help to quickly identify cage mates and dosing groups
  • Scannable, automated data collection with zero errors
  • App available for scanning with mobile devices (phone/tablet)
  • Quick and easy application and removal
  • MRI- and autoclave-compatible
  • Seamless ICM™ integration