WARNING:
"Urethane is a carcinogenic substance and it can be readily absorbed form skin. always wear the special facial masks and the purple nitril gloves when you're handling urethane."
standard procedure:
remove the 1 purple vial from the -80 fridge.
thaw it with warm water so that it melts into a liquid solution.
weight your animal.
(animal's weight in garams/2) X (0.1)=amount of needed urethane in milliliter.
for example, if an animal weights 400g, our shots will be 0.2ml [(400/2)*0.1=0.2 (ml)]
give the animal the first shot of the urethane.
wait for 30 minutes
give the animal the second shot of the urethane.
wait for 30 minutes
give the animal the third shot of the urethane.
wait for 30 minutes
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at this time point, you have two options: if you want to only use urethane, give the animal another shot and wait for another 30 mins, he/she will be down by that time.
otherwise, you can put the animal under Iso and start your surgery. you can turn off the iso after ~1hr and the animal will stay down.
fast track procedure:
first do a couple of standard ones and then if you like to, you can start doing fast track.
in fast track, everything is the same with a difference. the dosage that we are using will be different.
in fast track, we will calculate the dose this way:
(animal's weight in garams)X(2/3)) X (0.1)=amount of needed urethane in milliliter.
for example, if an animal weights 400g, our shots will be 0.26ml [(400)2/3)*0.1=0.26 (ml)]
the rest of the procedure is the same with another difference:
there are only 3 shots, i.e.
give the animal the first shot of the urethane.
wait for 30 minutes
give the animal the second shot of the urethane.
wait for 30 minutes
give the animal the third shot of the urethane.
you can put the animal under iso now and start your surgery. you can turn iso off after 1 hr. just make sure to check the toe pinch reflex of the animal. if the animal is responsive at any time, you'll have to give him/her another booster shot. booster shots are calculated as follows:
(animal's weight in garams/2) X (0.1)=amount of needed urethane in milliliter.
for example, if an animal weights 400g, our shots will be 0.2ml [(400/2)*0.1=0.2 (ml)]
useful practical notes:
breathing pattern under urethane is faster than iso.
blinking reflexes are present during urethane anesthesia.
change gloves whenever you have urethane contamination on it. urethane kills!