Use of Animals after Research Ends

You are asked to design a laboratory protocol for harvesting serum from animals by bleeding the animals at regular intervals.  The nature of the process makes these animals unsuitable for any other laboratory purpose, afterwards, although they might have some slight commercial value.  Is it better to end the procedure by sacrificing the animals to extract all their blood?  Or by performing several additional bleedings to obtain the same amount of blood, at additional cost in ongoing maintenance, and with a live animal of little commercial value at the end?  If the procedure calls for sacrificing the animals, would this preclude keeping one or two as pets?

K3R says:  The endpoints to any animal experiment should be evaluated and addressed ahead of time so that the decision of when to end the experiment is already established in the protocol.  Both options in this case (ending the experiment with exsanguination or continuing multiple bleeds) are viable alternatives and the correct choice would depend on circumstances.  If experimental treatment was given to livestock, it might not be legal to sell them commercially, as drug withdrawal periods might be unknown.  In a non-terminal experiment, it is justifiable to allow adoption of animals at the end of the study, although at every institution I know of, this requires approval of the animal care and use committee and of the investigators involved.

P3L says:  Frequently, the answer is, "It depends."  Whether one uses multiple bleedings or exsanguation depends upon the needs of the experiment.  Some require fresh blood; if not, then manipulating the animals once is enough.  Depending on the amount of blood required, exsanguination might not be appropriate, if that approach provides much more blood than is needed.  On the other hand, if anesthesia or sedatives will interfere with the protocol for the blood, then multiple drawings would be preferred.  If there are suitable individuals, qualified and interested in adopting the animal, permission for this should be sought from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee as an alternative to sacrificing.