Patent ID: 9700257
Date: 2017-07-11
CPC Classifications: A01K,A61B,G01N

Claim:
1. A method of measuring a gut transit time in an animal in a cage comprising the steps of: (a) controlling a quantity of a first food for the animal at a first time period; (b) feeding the animal a second food at a second time period; wherein the second food comprises a fluorescent dye; wherein the fluorescent dye is responsive to an excitation light frequency band and emits light in an emission light frequency band; (c) recording the second time period as a starting time; (d) turning on a ultraviolet (UV) light source; wherein the UV light source comprises light in the excitation light frequency band; wherein the UV light source directs UV light to a bedding in the cage (e) turning off a human-visible light source; wherein the human-visible light source directs light to the bedding in the cage; (f) recording a set of photo images, using a camera, of the bedding material in the cage during a first observation time interval; wherein the camera is responsive to light in the emission light frequency band; (g) detecting emission light from the bedding in one or more detection images in the set of recorded photo images; (h) recording a time during which the one or more detection images were recorded, the ending time; (i) subtracting the starting time from the ending time, the result being the gut transit time; wherein step (b) occurs after step (a).