Animal husbandry – Watering or liquid feed device – Drop-delivering
Reexamination Certificate
2001-12-07
2002-10-15
Jordan, Charles T. (Department: 3642)
Animal husbandry
Watering or liquid feed device
Drop-delivering
Reexamination Certificate
active
06463879
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCES
None.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to monitoring of liquid intakes by a small animal, and particularly concerns both apparatus and methods that are usefull in connection with research operations requiring the detection and precision measurement of a liquid ingested by a small laboratory animal over an extended period of time.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
There are two well-known classical methods for measuring the volume of liquid ingested by a laboratory animal. The first such method counts animal licks of the liquid-dispensing device. Each time an animal lick of the sipping tube occurs a tube lick counter is activated, and subsequently the total lick count is used in arithmetically determining the total amount of liquid ingested by the animal over the period of time involved by multiplying the lick count by a presumed unit liquid volume intake per animal lick of the sipping tube. A determination accuracy problem frequently arises when the animal sucks on the sipping tube rather than licking it and therefore consumes more that the presumed per lick volume, e.g. a presumed or assumed one drop/droplet per lick.
The second method utilizes a precision weight scale to measure the amount of liquid ingested by providing an animal weight readout. Unfortunately, stray vibrations imparted to the weight scale adversely affects accuracy of measurement. Also, such precision weight scales are extremely expensive.
A principal objective of our liquid ingestion monitoring system invention is to provide apparatus which precisely detects the amount of liquid ingested by a small laboratory animal over a known period of time.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a precision small animal liquid ingestion detection apparatus that is relatively inexpensive to build and operate.
A still further object of our invention is to provide an associated computational method for determining volume of liquid ingestion by a small laboratory animal that does not rely on a presumed unit intake value.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent when considering the detailed descriptions, drawings, and claims which follow.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The system apparatus of the present invention basically consists of: a liquid dispensing section (subassembly) that pumps an individual predetermined small volume (i.e., a drop/droplet) of a potable liquid from a liquid reservoir to the open end of a dispensing section delivery tube element for retention and subsequent ingestion by a small laboratory animal; a sensor section that detects each absence of a potable liquid drop/droplet previously retained at the open end of the liquid dispensing section delivery tube element following its ingestion by the small laboratory animal; and a co-operating controller section that, in response to the sensor section detecting the absence of a previously retained drop/droplet of potable liquid at the delivery tube element open end causes the liquid dispensing section to pump another liquid drop/droplet from the potable-liquid reservoir to the liquid dispensing section delivery tube element.
The apparatus of the present invention also includes a system resettable counter element that indicates, for the period of time involved, the number of times the system controller section causes the system liquid dispensing section to pump an individual predetermined liquid amount to the liquid dispensing section delivery tube. An accurate or precise determination of the total volume of liquid actually ingested by the animal can then be calculated using the count of the system counter element and the precisely known unit volume (i.e., drop/droplet volume) pumped into the system liquid dispensing section delivery tube element from the system potable-liquid reservoir.
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Campbell Ronald E.
Grigsby Michael G.
Baker, Jr. Thomas S.
Czekajewski Jan A.
Jordan Charles T.
Lofdahl Jordan
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