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Thursday, March 2, 1972
University Daily Kansan
'How Now! A Rat?'
Earlin Burgert, professional caretaker for animals, used in research, appears to be communicating with one of his rats. He has a friendly relationship with a pair of white rats he keeps for pets
after they ram loose in the laboratory and no one
breaks his spikes he brings his days feeding,
watering and caring for the chicks.
Kansan Photos by T. Dean Caple
(Hamlet, Act III, Scene IV)
The animals require vast amounts of water and food, and Burgert is kept busy in food preparation, in checking and cleaning the cages, and in following instructions from faculty members and research personnel who use the animals. Each experiment requires careful adjustments in the animals' controlled living conditions.
By JAMES COOK
Kansan Staff Writer
Some people have horses, some people have dogs and some have cats. Earlin Burgert has rats, 150-600 of them at any one time.
Burgert, a laboratory technician for the department of physiology and cell biology. In this department's research projects
The rats, and rabbits, and opossums, are used for research in reproductive physiology, morphophysiology, endocrinic biology, and antherosclerosis research. Specifically, the processes of ovation, the nervous system's use of energy, the metabolic aspects of the adrenal gland and the pituitary of the aorta are being studied
Burgert's rats are about 1/8 inches long, have tails about 8 inches long, are white, have black markings, constantly wiggle their whiskers.
"They're smelling," Burger said, "they smell everything." Burger's rats are kept in Haworth from attention at 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. Burger's job is to feed the rats, give them water and clean their cages in a special wash room. Burger scrubs the floors of the room in which they're kept several times a week to keep the cages clean. On the weekends a graduate assistant takes care of the rats.
Burgert said rats could be trained and kept as pets if they own acquired them before they were sold, or retired—old. He has his own pet rat.
"People keep rats," Burgert said. "One professor had one and the other had two. You go to class, even up and down the stairs. The physiology classes experiment with them and the students do their experiments on them. We usually kill them but some of the students, especially the teachers, they take them home and keep them for pets. It's against the rules but they get attached to the students."
Burgert said one woman had a pet rat that "talked" (chattered) to her.
Burgert said he realized that he had seen many people who believed he birds were more afraid of people than people of rats. Some ONTVs have their own way of killing birds.
"We sometimes have a problem with the group cages," Burge said. "A kill weak or sick rat. Then the rats eat the dead rat. When the strong ones卸 off the weak ones, lead them." Then they stop fighting.
Burgert said his biggest problem was with rats that escaped from cages. They can't see their room but they can hide.
The rats are killed with ether or by decapitation. Burgert destroys the remains in an incinerator.
Some of the animals die of old age, others are sacrificed to the expansion of knowledge. Burgert is responsible for burning the carcasses in a special incinerator. At the end of the day he makes time to catch up on the records he must keep on each animal and to
The rats cost about $1.75-2.50 each, Burgert said.
listen to a little music. Data is recorded daily for each individual rat to insure accuracy.