Animal Facility Management Software: A Practical Guide
Summary
Animal facility management software runs the animal facility itself: rooms and racks, cage and husbandry schedules, per-diem billing to each project, and the records an inspection asks to see. This guide covers what it manages, how it differs from colony management software, and how to choose.
What Animal Facility Management Software Covers
It keeps the operating picture of the facility current: room and rack capacity, cage inventory, cage-change and husbandry schedules, animal ordering and transfers, per-diem charges billed back to each project, and an audit trail that survives an inspection. The animal record itself, breeding, genotype and pedigree, is the job of colony management software, which facility software surrounds with operations.
Facility Software and Colony Software Are Not the Same
| Facility need | Spreadsheet | Animal facility software |
|---|---|---|
| Room and rack capacity | Manual | Live |
| Cage-change and husbandry schedules | Manual | Automated |
| Per-diem billing to each project | Formulas | Automatic |
| Environmental monitoring records | Paper logs | Built in |
| Audit trail for inspections | Manual | Immutable |
Who It Is For
- Facility managers: plan rooms, capacity and cage changes across teams.
- Vivarium technicians: scan a cage card and record husbandry from a phone.
- Finance: bill per diem to every project from the same cage data.
- Compliance officers: pull an audit trail and inspection reports on demand.
How to Choose
- Start from the animal record and colony management software.
- Check what the software does for a vivarium, vivarium management software.
- Budget the real cost of facility software.
- Confirm the compliance records you need, environmental monitoring and the setup for breeding facilities.
FAQ
Facility software versus colony software
They overlap but have different centres. Colony software owns the animal record, breeding and pedigree; facility software runs the rooms, cages, schedules and billing around it. Most facilities want both in one system, which is what colony.care provides.
Starting small
Yes. Colony.care has a free Starter plan for one project and up to 100 animals, with no time limit, so a facility can run one room before paying. The Lab plan adds every feature and SSO/SAML.
Environmental monitoring and inspections
Yes. Environmental monitoring records live beside the cage data, so temperature, humidity and cage-change logs are pulled with the same audit trail an inspection asks for. See software for animal facilities.