Animal Care Technician

Animal Care Technician

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Job Summary
Reporting to the Associate Director, Animal Care Services the incumbent will work five days a week in the animal care quarters (noting the possibility of working some holidays and weekends). The incumbent will also report to Veterinary Services any animal health problems.
Graduates of an approved Veterinary Technician / Technologist or Animal Health Technician / Technologist program are encouraged to apply.

Job Description
Day to Day Responsibilities:

Adequately clean all sections of the animal facilities spotless to veterinary hospital standards including: microbiology testing, sanitization and sterilization using disinfectants, detergents, and operation of cage washer.

Allocate specific species to suitable cages or pens, and without fault cross match it with facility records. Select and combine the correct components to completely prepare a unit of housing suitable for a specific species of animal (singly or as a group).

When necessary, prepare and dispense the correct diet for specific species according to the animal's biological needs, using micro to macro scales, volumetric devices and including sterilization procedure.

Provide bedding requirements for specific species with consideration for each species anatomy and physiology as well as normal and abnormal behavioral characteristics. Process includes sterilization, storage and transportation of bedding materials.

Accurately identify, handle and restrain any animal used in the facilities using collars, identification discs, tags, clips, ear punches, tattoo forceps, indelible pens, cage cards, animal record cards and appropriate restraint devices.

Effective and safe disposal of potentially or actual biohazardous material, with particular reference to disease control and specific guidelines through the use of protective equipment, holding and treatment of fluid effluent's, cold storage, disposal of carcasses, and other equipment.

Recognize deviations from normal health and behavior and differentiate abnormalities resulting from experimental work. Report any abnormalities to Veterinary Services. The incumbent must be aware of the basic principles of quarantining, conditioning and epidemiological control. Quality research is obtained by the usage of quality biomedical models.

Use appropriate methodology of acquiring medical samples.

Administer prescribed (by Veterinary Services) treatments, including performance of humane euthanasia in accordance with UACC policies and SOPs.

Participation in stock inventory control, and receiving of animals from commercial sources. This would also include intake examinations and reporting any animal health concerns to Veterinary Services.

Assist other researchers with their breeding colonies and wean animals as required which could include but not limited to identification, pairing animals, weaning.

Organize the transportation of and/or transport an animal locally.

Lifting heavy animals and equipment, eq. - bags of food, paper, cleaning fluids, caging, and food containers.

Check and replace ventilation filters in all areas, recording humidity levels and temperatures.

Check fire and safety equipment on a monthly basis.

Minor maintenance of equipment for daily use e.g. painting, shelving, mounting hardware.

Provide adequate space, facilities and/or work to maintain good physiological and behavioral health. Balancing the experimental requirements, and the animal's needs, with the ethical and moral consideration of each specific animal usage. Criteria for exercise programs are based on considerations of anatomy and physiology, normal and abnormal behavior, and facility and equipment design.

Recognize deviations from prescribed animal facility, and report any deviations from the prescribed overall and individual animal unit environment which requires the use of thermometers, thermographs, hygrometers, and hygrographs, as well as reasonable sensitivity and analytical skills.

Act as a resource person for users of the lab animal care facility, by fielding questions and providing solutions to the animal technical problems of research technicians, principal investigators, students and others.

Handling and providing for the needs of special husbandry cases.

Biohazards

Sterile environment

These skills are applied to the housing, maintenance and use of the following species: mouse, gerbil, guinea pig, birds (various), rats, primates, rabbits, cats, opossums, hamsters, pigs, frogs and other vertebrates and invertebrates.

To fulfill your duties what knowledge, skills and specialized techniques are required? How would each be normally acquired? How long would it take to become proficient in each of the areas of your work?
Ideally an incumbent should be a graduate of a full time community college with a three year program in Veterinary Technology. The minimum job requirement is a two year community college program in Animal Health Care or Science Technology with additional training on the job of one year. However, many years of on-the-job experience in the field has ensured the competency necessary for the position.

The duties, skills and specialized techniques required include the following:

Adapt basic knowledge and skills to those required on the job.

Understand experimental procedures for which animals are used.

Proper handling of large and small animals.

Keep knowledge and skills up to date through reading technical magazines, papers and journals, and seminars.

Effectively communicate with academic and research staff, and their assistants.

Communicate and give appropriate advice, ideas, and follow up to faculty, other staff, and other technicians, with respect to maintaining adequate and humane animal health.

As assigned by Veterinary Services and the Associate Director, Animal Care Services weekly scheduling all animals are checked regularly and any progression of disease is reported to the Veterinarians.

Is it necessary in this position to oversee the work, or to instruct other staff! If so, what does this involve?

On certain schedules, the incumbent is involved with the delegation of responsibilities to other animal technicians.

Training of new internal staff and familiarizing them with departmental procedures

What other people must you deal with in this job and why? (I.e. is there direct contact with students, teaching staff, other departments, and people outside the university community)
The incumbent deals with approximately three hundred principal investigators, academic staff, research assistants, students, and support staff, external to our department in the following capacities;

Providing them with guidance, information and assistance pertaining to animal handling, breeding and facility procedures.

Preparing and delivering animals between animal facility rooms and buildings (research and educational).

Assist Facilities (Fix-it) staff with on-site problems concerning facility maintenance.

Discuss matters concerning animal housing, transportation of animals, caging, cage and room maintenance and records with the Associate Director, Animal Care Services.

People dealt with from outside of the university include the following:

Delivery personnel re: delivery of food, supplies, equipment and contractors.

How is your work assigned to you, and how closely is your work checked by someone else?
Schedules are posted and provide a daily outline of work to be performed. For general daily work, the technician is responsible for meeting departmental standards and procedures. This work depends on self-initiative and is not closely supervised. The Associate Director, Animal Care Services may check to see if the work has been completed.

Are the sort of problems encountered in this job usually covered by established procedures or do you frequently have to develop or invent solutions to problems yourself?
Some problems are solved by established standard procedures, but the technician is frequently making decisions on priorities and exceptions to daily routine in consultation with the Associate Director, Animal Care Services or Veterinary Services. If major or unusual problems rise with the health status of animals Veterinarian Services and the Principal Investigators are contacted. Problems arising from mechanical failures, facility management or caging are reported to the Associate Director, Animal Care Services.

Are you involved in establishing standard procedures? (give examples)
The entire Animal Care staff has input in the development of Standard Operating Procedures. All animal care technicians have input into daily meetings which play a role in the development of standard procedures.

What is the size of your department (i.e. classes for which you are involved in labs, or of students and staff you might come in contact with, or of technicians in the department).
1 University Veterinarian
1 Clinical Veterinarian
1 Associate Director, Animal Care Services
1 Administrative Assistant
2 Veterinary Technicians
9 Animal Care Technicians
13 Animal Care Helpers
15 Casual Animal Care Technicians

Over 300 students, technicians, faculty and Principal Investigators

What kind of materials are you responsible for? Are you solely responsible for it, and what is its approximate value?
The technician has first line responsibility to report to Associate Director, Animal Care Services any faults, deficiencies or breakdowns in supplies with total estimated value of $6,000,000. The equipment used ranges from specialized animal caging to intricate cage washers, biosafety hoods, floor scrubbers, maintenance tools and various drugs used in the treatment of clinical conditions.

Give details of any unusual factors affecting this job? i.e. - hazards, unusual working conditions, requirements for a high degree of manual dexterity. etc.
All laboratory animal technicians may come in contact with:
o recombinant DNA material
o toxic compounds
o infectious microbiological agents
o electromagnetic radiations
o various drugs used in the treatment of animals
o dust and a multitude of other allergens

They must also be particularly astute in the practical application of epidemiological control of animal diseases in a laboratory animal facility. One must also have sufficient sensitivity of sight, hearing, touch and smell to recognize signs of diseases.

There is a requirement to handle bad tempered animals, which may result in scratches, bites, diseases, dangerous infectious zoonotic agents, either inherent to the animal, or present as a result of research protocol.

The incumbent must lift heavy objects and animals e.g. 30 kilo bags of feed, manipulate these and other heavy objects, e.g., caging, animal feed and bedding- often in inclement weather and occasionally for two (2) hour periods.

The incumbent must use potentially hazardous cleaning solutions.

The incumbent must provide adequate control of an animal whilst effectively containing the biohazard, whjle minimizing risk to the operator or other co-users of an animal, equipment or area

The incumbent handles radioactive animals and their effluent.

Do you have any general comments about this position which may not be covered in this questionnaire?
The technician must have a patient, humane and caring attitude towards all animals, combined with the strength and knowledge to handle them successfully.
Because of the ever-increasing scrutiny which animal use in research is receiving, it is essential that the technician have a balanced ethical attitude to the humane use of animals in research, teaching and testing. The technician must be cognizant of the function of the Canadian Council of Animal Care, the Canadian Association for Laboratory Animal Science, the Animals for Research Act and the University Animal Care Committee.

Employment Equity and Accessibility Statement

The University invites applications from all qualified individuals. Queen's is strongly committed to employment equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace and encourages applications from Black, racialized persons, Indigenous people, women, persons with disabilities, and 2SLGBTQI+ persons. In accordance with Canadian Immigration requirements, priority will be given to those who are legally eligible to work in Canada.

The University provides support in its recruitment processes to all applicants who require accommodation due to a protected ground under the Ontario Human Rights Code, including those with disabilities. Candidates requiring accommodation during the recruitment process are asked to contact Human Resources at [email protected].

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