The first edition of Nutrient Requirements of Laboratory Animals was published in 1962. It summarized the nutrient requirements of the rat, mouse, guinea pig, hamster, monkey, and cat based on an evaluation of the literature. The second revised edition was published in 1972 and updated the information presented in the first edition. The third revised edition was published in 1978 and was expanded to include a chapter on general aspects of nutrition, and the species chapters incorporated information on expected growth and reproductive performance in addition to the nutrient requirements of the laboratory rat, mouse, guinea pig, hamster, gerbil, vole, and the nutrient requirements of fishes.

In this, the fourth revised edition, the subcommittee reviewed the literature and summarized the nutrient requirements of the rat, mouse, guinea pig, hamster, gerbil, and vole. The subcommittee structure was altered for this publication as members were assigned by nutrient across species rather than by nutrient within a species. This structure provided the subcommittee with nutrient expertise that could be applied to more than one species. To maintain a species expertise, one member of the subcommittee was designated as the species chair and integrated the information into the chapter. The species chair also developed a section on expected growth and reproduction of the various breeds within a species and reviewed the literature to assemble natural-ingredient and purified diets that should meet the needs of animals of the species used in long-term studies.

After its review of the literature, the subcommittee emphasized the need for experiments designed to determine nutrient requirements of laboratory animals. Work of that nature is of considerable value in compiling the information contained in a publication such as this. Thus, not all the requirements reported in this publication were derived from experiments specifically designed to estimate the requirement of a nutrient, and interpretation of published work was required to derive an estimate. Where appropriate, the subcommittee used information available for one species to estimate the requirements for another species. The text devoted to each nutrient includes a description of decisions made to obtain the requirement shown in the table.

The subcommittee thanks Mary Poos, Dennis Blackwell, and Janet Overton for their assistance during the development and preparation of this document.

N. J. Benevenga, Chair

Subcommittee on Laboratory Animal Nutrition