Setup For Taste Aversion Experiments

1. Select a 3-letter experiment code and setup Agenda on wiki.houptlab.org

2. Write out, in Excel, a day-by-day listing of daily events, e.g. water removal, water restriction days, conditioning day, and 2-bottle preference days to make sure there are no scheduling conflicts. Be sure to account for time needed to weigh animals and weight bottles off and on.

3. During water restriction days and on conditioning day, fluid should be presented at the same time everyday to train the animals to drink at that time. The specific time doesn't matter too much (i.e. 10am, or noon, or 1pm) as long as it is during the lights-on period, but having decided on a time the bottle should be put on the cages at that same time for the duration of that experiment.

4. Using BarLabeler, print barcode stickers for the bottles, e.g. "THA013S" for saccharin and "THA013W" for water. Stickers should be printed onto Avery 22827 matte white water resistant film rectangular labels 3.5" x 4.75".

5. Make sure you have sufficient water and saccharin bottles and stoppers.

6. Put the barcode stickers on the bottles, and set up Bartender for the experiments.

7. Put "single housed" and "do not water" stickers on the cage cards

9. Notify LAR via larcentral@fsu.edu that water restriction is starting

10. Get a pink "daily check" sheet from LAR to put on the clipboard hanging in the animal room, and initial everyday that the animals were checked and water provided.

11. The animals will need to be weighed every day, and their body weights recorded in the notebook in the animal room.

12. Water intake will need to be recorded everyday (by Bartender) during restriction.

13. At least 3 days before conditioning, notify LAR via larcentral@fsu.edu that the specific hazardous drug (e.g. LiCl) will be used on the conditioning day.

14. On conditioning day, put "Chemical Hazard" stickers with the drug name onto each animal cage.