Abstract
Two commercial laboratory mouse diets were sterilized by either high-vacuum autoclaving or gamma irradiation, and then fed to breeding mice of 2 different strains housed as monogamous pairs or trios.
There was a statistically significant diet-by-sterilization-method interaction for total number of mice weaned, although neither the effect of 'diet' nor 'sterilization method' were statistically significant. Thus with diet FFG an average of 45.1 young was weaned per cage on irradiated diet compared with 55.6 on the autoclaved diet, while 51.4 mice were weaned per cage on irradiated Breeding Diet compared with 47.6 on the autoc1aved. This result suggests that the effects of sterilization by either method depend on the nature of the diet, so that it should be possible to design diets capable of being sterilized by autoclaving or irradiation.
Palatability trials indicated a strong preference for irradiated diet over autoclaved diet.