Ventilated animal cage rack

A ventilated animal cage rack comprising:

• an open-front housing having spaced transverse partition walls extending the width thereof and dividing said housing into a plurality of horizontally-disposed shelf compartments, each compartment having a ceiling and a floor and being sized to house a plurality of animal cages having open tops,
• a plurality of transparent doors closing off the front open end of said housing and isolating the interiors of said shelf compartments from one another,
• means mounting each of said doors on said housing for individual movement between a closed position covring over at least one of said shelf compartments and an open position providing access to said shelf compartments,
• a low pressure plenum extending vertically along one side of said housing in communication with an air exhaust system exteriorly of said housing,
• each shelf compartment having an air outlet opening at one end communicating with said plenum, and an air inlet opening at the opposite end opening exteriorly of said cage rack, whereby air is drawn from the atmosphere surrounding said cage rack through the inlet opening of each shelf compartment and passes in a laminar low-velocity flow through said shelf compartment to said outlet opening and into said plenum,
• means for removably mounting a plurality of said animal cages in a transverse row along each of said shelf compartments with the open tops of said cages spaced an appreciable distance below the ceiling of said shelf compartment,
• said mounting means including a guide bracket for each of said cages, each guide bracket comprising a flat plate secured to the rear wall of said housing within a shelf compartment, a pair of spaced guide arms secured to said plate and projecting forwardly therefrom, and a cross bar interconnecting said guide arms, said guide arms being spaced to engage the side walls of an animal cage inserted therebetween to restrain lateral movement of said inserted cage, said cross bar being positioned to engage the rear wall of the inserted cage to restrain further movement thereof inwardly of said shelf compartment,
• said mounting means also including a stop bar mounted on the floor of said shelf compartment forwardly of said guide bracket, said stop bar extending parallel to said bracket cross bar and being positioned to engage the front wall of the inserted animal cage to prevent movement thereof outwardly of said shelf compartment,
• the inlet and outlet openings of each shelf compartment being positioned to direct said air flow across the top open ends of the row of cages mounted in said shelf compartment, thereby ventilating each shelf compartment individually and isolating the shelf compartments from the exterior of said cage rack.