Survey on Barbering Disorder in BALB/c Mice Colony

In laboratory mice, barbering is done for a variety of reasons, such as nutritional deficiencies, response to stressors, or aggressive behavior. The aim of this study was to investigate hair disorder (barbering) in a colony of BALB/c mice in a breeding of laboratory animal center.

During the one-year period, BALB/c mice colony was examined for barbering disorder. The animals were apparently healthy and tested negative for external parasites, with no specific disease, and used standardized pellets of mice and water ad libitum.

In late July 1397, the barbering symptoms was observed in female mice that were confined to the head and face area in two cages of 6-8 week-old adult male and female colony. The environmental factors revealed that from 1-2 days before the onset of symptoms, the technical defect in the indoor air cooling system caused 4-6 °C increase and took 2 to 3 days to technical defect removing. Results of all external parasitic tests, bacterial and fungal cultures, were negative and no specific change in histopathological examination were reported. In addition, the maintained patient was improved completely in physical appearance after about one month and no symptoms were observed until the end of the period.

The study found that stressful environmental factors such as temperature rise in some susceptible strains such as BALB/c, can be effective in triggering barbering.