Lab animal colony management software Less management. More peace of mind.
Keep animals, cages, breeding, observations and team operations in one secure workspace, so everyone knows what needs attention and your research stays on track.
Your colony lives in spreadsheets no one can trust.
Why research teams switch to Colony.care
One platform, every role in the vivarium
Whether you're at the bench or running the whole facility, Colony.care fits how you already work.
Research teams
Technicians & principal investigators
- One living record per animal, no reconciling three files every Friday
- Litters, weanings and due dates surface before they slip
- Every vet case documented as it happens, ready for the annual report
Organizations
Facility managers & multi-team institutions
- Census, welfare and capacity across every lab at a glance
- Per-diems bill themselves at month-end, no manual tallies
- Walk into any inspection with the audit trail already written
Invite your whole team, unlimited members on all paid plans
Every species
From mouse to macaque, from zebrafish to chicken
The daily rhythm
Five screens your team opens every morning
Litters on the way, today's checks, capacity at a glance, the day's work is ready on the pages your lab already lives in.
One record per animal, and it stays true
Identity, strain, genotype, lineage, location and history on a single page, so nobody rebuilds it from three spreadsheets on a Friday.
Every cage, rack and room at a glance
Occupancy and capacity per cage, so you see what is full, what is free and what needs attention before the technician walks the room.
Breeding it actually understands
Pairings, expected versus actual litter size, weaning and the whole lineage, the part a spreadsheet has never been able to hold.
Welfare documented as it happens
Weight trends, tumour measurements, wounds, treatments and monitoring, each one a follow-up somebody owns, not a note in a lab book.
The annual report is already written
Census, breeding efficiency and activity are generated from the records you already keep, so an inspection is a download, not a fortnight.
A morning in your facility
The work shows up before anyone has to go looking for it
A litter due, a weight check to catch up on, a request that needs an owner. One page carries the day, and the person it belongs to is told.
Monday 27 July
Expected births1
B-114, litter expected
8 expected · day 19 of gestation
Work requests1
Genotyping, cage B-02
Assigned to Amélie R.
Active follow-ups1
Weight check, M-0412
−1.8 g over 7 days
How the day actually goes
Nothing below is a report somebody had to run. It is the same records the team was already keeping, arriving in the order the day needs them.
- 07:40
The morning round starts. The day is already listed, so nobody rebuilds it from memory and a whiteboard.
- 08:05
B-114 delivers. Eight pups against eight expected, recorded on the pairing instead of in a notebook.
- 09:15
A weight check on M-0412 is three days late. It surfaces rather than quietly slipping.
- 09:16
The genotyping request goes to Amélie R. She owns it, she is notified, and the board shows who has it.
- 11:30
Cage B-02 reaches capacity. The warning comes before the cage is over-filled, not after.
- 16:05
Amélie closes the request. It lands in the animal history with her name and the time on it.
Every line here is attributed and time-stamped, which is the same trail an inspection asks to see.
Your data stays yours
A region you choose, encryption in transit and at rest, automated backups, and an audit trail kept indefinitely, every data question answered on one page.
Migration
Bring your existing records with you
Most teams arrive with years of history in a spreadsheet or in another colony system, such as SoftMouse.NET, PyRAT or tick@lab. Export it to CSV, or to a spreadsheet you save as CSV, then import it into Colony Care. You check the column mapping, preview the result, and keep working, you do not start from an empty database.
Upload your CSV file
A CSV file from your current system or your own spreadsheet. If your system exports a spreadsheet, save it as CSV first. Its columns are detected from the headers.
Map your columns
Colony.care suggests a match for each header, and you adjust it by hand. Custom fields may need manual mapping.
Preview before committing
A dry run shows exactly what will be created, changed or skipped, nothing is written yet.
Commit, or roll back
Apply the import when it looks right. If it does not, roll the whole run back.
Imports run as a job with a full summary, so you can see what landed and what needs another look.
Pricing
Simple, transparent pricing
No hidden fees, no lock-in, and a free tier that stays free. Save about 20% billed yearly.
- Starter
- Freeforever1 project, up to 100 animals. No card.
- Lab
- $549.99per month10 projects, unlimited animals. 14-day trial.
- Organizations
- Negotiatedmulti-teamOne agreement across every team you sponsor.
Training & onboarding
Software you adopt, not software you're left to figure out
Colony.care isn't just a platform, a real team helps you get your lab up and running, from training your staff to moving your existing records across.
Tell us about your lab and we'll map out an onboarding plan.
Migration support
We help you bring your existing colony data over, animals, cages, breeding history and protocols, so you start with a full picture, not a blank slate.
Configuration to your workflows
We set the platform up around your protocols, species and naming conventions so it matches how your lab already works.
Team training
Hands-on sessions for technicians, PIs and facility managers, tailored to how each role uses the platform day to day.
Dedicated support
A responsive team stays with you after launch, quick answers, follow-up training, and guidance as your colony grows.
Questions
Common questions
More than 20, configured out of the box, mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, ferrets, cats, dogs, pigs, minipigs, goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, frogs, zebrafish, and rhesus, cynomolgus and capuchin primates. Reproduction is modelled per species rather than forced into one rodent-shaped workflow.
Yes, as CSV files. You map your own columns, preview the result as a dry run before anything is written, and roll the import back if it is not right.
Colony.care is responsive and runs in a mobile browser, including a scan mode for cage and animal lookup. There is no native iOS or Android app, and no offline mode.
Yes. An organisation can sponsor several teams over shared facilities, with rooms, racks and cages managed centrally.
Yes. Roles apply at team and project level, and guests can be limited to only the projects they are invited to.
The database is in MongoDB Atlas, Canada-Central by default and selectable per organisation at provisioning. Application compute runs on Vercel's European and global edge network.
No, and it is not trying to. Colony.care is the operational record for your colony and facility, animals, housing, breeding, observations, tasks and reporting. Experimental data capture belongs in your ELN or LIMS.
Yes. Animals, events and follow-ups export as CSV or PDF with the columns and filters you choose, and there are separate exports for facilities, compliance, training and per-diem chargeback. There is no single one-click archive of a whole organisation yet, exports are per area.
It generates a CCAC-aligned annual summary over the April-March fiscal year: species, approved-versus-used counts, category of invasiveness, and protocol and training status. It is a summary to work from, not the official CCAC submission form, the exact form layout has not yet been validated with an accredited facility, and the generated PDF says so on its face.
A free Starter tier covers one project and up to 100 animals. The paid Lab plan is CA$549.99 per month, or CA$439.99 per month billed yearly, and includes 10 projects with unlimited animals. Additional projects are CA$34.99 per month each. Organisations sponsoring several teams are priced separately, talk to us.
Something not answered here? Ask us directly. contact@colony.care
Your Colony Runs Better on Colony.care
Built to give your team its time back. Start free today, upgrade only when you're ready.
Questions, academic quotes, partnerships, write to us at contact@colony.care