Veterinarian Infectious Waste Containment System

I. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to animal cages. More particularly, the present invention relates to an animal cage and a process designed for cleaning an infected animal's cage in a veterinarian hospital, laboratory, zoo, or other animal holding facility.

II. Description of the Prior Art

Doctors of veterinary medicine have long sought suitable animal caging for use in a veterinarian hospital for housing an infected animal. Many viruses exist in the veterinarian hospital, laboratory, zoo, or other animal holding facility and can infect other animal patients already stressed and weakened by their own illnesses. Parvo virus is a commonly seen and easily transferable animal disease having infectious micro-organisms present in the excrement, vomitus or urine of an infected animal.

A conventional animal cage does not provide for cleaning of the cage. Since the early days of caging animals, cleaning of the cage has been necessary. The use of a standard animal cage, in which the animal is raised several inches from the floor of the cage, requires the animal to be removed to allow the cage to be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized. However, this type of cage is not convenient to clean when an animal becomes sick many times throughout the day. Clearly, the regular animal cage is limited in value in the circumstances discussed above.

In an effort to overcome the problems of known animal cages, several modifications of the basic animal cage have been attempted. An attempt to use a reverse flow of a large volume of relatively low pressure water for a flushing system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,828,732 to Hill et al. The flushing system for this animal cage discusses self-cleaning housing systems using front to back flushing systems that are feasible only for smaller animal housing systems, and only partially effective for large animal systems, such as for dogs.

Poultry droppings pans are described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,523,615 to Fell and U.S. Pat. No. 2,701,547 to Shaw.

A more recent attempt at cleaning an animal enclosure by flushing away waste material is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,205,627 to Buchanan, June 3, 1980. This patent discusses controlling air flow by pressure so air is not recirculated through animal cages.

While providing some measure of cleaning, all these cleaning systems suffer from common defects, including the lack of the ability to disinfect the cage to control any infectious agent remaining after the flushing.

Accordingly, the problem of frequent cleaning of an infectious animal's cage has not been successfully addressed by prior invention.

The object of the present invention is to provide a veterinarian infectious waste containment system for use in veterinarian hospital, laboratory, zoo, or other animal holding facility that has the beneficial physical qualities of completely removing emitted waste from a sick animal patient and allowing for disinfection of the waste tray without disturbing the animal patient and, yet, has the ease of quick disassembly for thorough sanitation.

The present invention overcomes these problems commonly associated with veterinarian infectious waste containment systems by providing a practical system that provides convenient removal as necessary of any animal emissions and easy sanitation after said removal. The present invention also provides for ease in total disassembly of the unit for complete cleaning and disinfection.

The veterinarian infectious containment system of the present invention includes an animal cage and a cage door hingedly attached to the cage. Latches are provided to readily fasten the cage door to the cage.

The cage itself has walls, a top and a bottom. Stainless steel walls comprise the interior. A flushing system is slid into place in the interior of the cage. An animal resting portion which is a plastic covered grate is located in a horizontal position on the flushing system. The flushing system comprises a stainless steel waste collection tray, means for flushing which is a water delivery system, an inlet, and an outlet. The water delivery system is connected to a water supply source and is controlled from outside the cage. A stainless steel shroud rising from the water delivery system and covering it extends above the animal resting portion and is angled to fit against the inside of the animal cage walls. The shroud directs emitted waste materials from the animal down into the waste collection pan and keeps them off the cage walls.

External to the cage, on the water delivery system, is a means for selectively delivering a disinfectant into the water supply prior to the water flushing system. The outlet from the tank drain contains a valve which allows the flushing water to build in volume in the tray prior to the valve being opened for removal. Because the animal cage can be quickly flushed as often as is required, which is every time the animal urinates, vomits or excretes; complete and time-consuming disassembly and cleaning is only required once during a shift at the veterinarian hospital. The infectious and non-infectious emittus, such as diarrhea, vomitus or urine, is removed immediately after being deposited by the animal, which keeps the animal and the cage cleaner. The almost immediate removal of waste reduces the likelihood of cross contaminating other animal patients and reduces the development of odors in the hospital. The fluidic ingress line can be disconnected at the inlet to the flushing system and used to spray the interior of the cage to wash down any infectious material. Additionally, the system can be easily converted to metabolically monitor the patient by measuring the volume of released fluids from the animal at a system outlet.

Other advantages and features of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

The present invention will be more fully understood by reference to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the present invention when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like reference characters refer to like parts throughout the views, and in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating a veterinarian infectious containment system according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the interior of the veterinarian infectious containment system;

FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view of the flushing system;

FIG. 4 is a sectional view of the flushing system of FIG. 3 taken along lines 4--4;

FIG. 5 is a first variation of a waste collection pan;

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a second variation of a waste collection pan;

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of a third variation of a waste collection pan; and

FIG. 8 is a perspective view, partially in section, of different embodiments of a veterinarian infectious waste containment system.

The drawing discloses the preferred embodiments of the present invention. While the configuration according to the illustrated embodiments are preferred, it is envisioned that alternate configurations of the present invention may be adopted without deviating from the invention as portrayed. The preferred embodiments are discussed hereafter.

With reference to FIG. 1, a veterinarian infectious waste containment system of the present invention is shown. The veterinarian infectious waste containment system, generally indicated as 10, comprises an animal cage 12 with a flushing system 50. The animal cage 12 has a closable cage door 16 mounted by hinges 18 to one side of cage 12. The closed cage door 16 opens externally and is shown in a closed position. A door lock 20 holds the cage door 16 in the closed position. The flushing system 50 comprises a waste collection pan 14, means for flushing 51, an inlet 33, and an outlet 35. A water supply 22 is connected to a water supply line 23 and is controlled by a water supply valve 24. The water supply line 23 is fluidly connected to the fluidic ingress line 32. Selective addition of disinfectant from container 26 through a disinfectant line 27 to the fluidic ingress line 32 is controlled by a metering device 28. The disinfectant line 27 is connected to the fluidic ingress line 32 by a valve 30. Valve 30 has two open positions, one for regular flow and the other position is a restricted flow causing a venturi effect on line 27 sucking disinfectant 26 into line 32. The fluidic ingress line 32 is fluidly connected to the inlet 33 of the flushing system 50. The means for flushing 51 flushes the waste collection pan 14 of the flushing system 50. An outlet 35 of the waste collection pan 14 is connected to a fluidic egress line 34 for the removal of accumulated fluid. An animal resting platform 36 is placed on top of the waste collection pan 14, as shall be further described.

FIG. 2 shows the animal cage 12 with the cage door 16 being open. The interior walls 38 of the cage are stainless steel. A shroud 40, also made of stainless steel, sits atop the waste collection pan 14 of the flushing system 50. The shroud 40 has shroud walls 41 which are tapered outwardly from shroud lips 42 to snugly engage the cage interior walls 38. The shroud lips 42 contain shroud spacers 44 for a purpose to be described. As is also shown in FIG. 2, the fluidic egress line 34 has a fluidic egress line valve 46 disposed between the fluidic egress line 34 and a drain 48.

FIG. 3 shows the flushing system 50. The flushing system 50 is comprised of disassemblable piping sections 52, which fluidly connect to the inlet 33. Apertures 54 are provided in the disassemblable piping sections 52. Risers 56 position the waste collection pan 14 having disassemblable piping sections 52 in the animal cage 12. The shroud 40 sits on the flushing system 50 with shroud lips 42 partially covering the disassemblable piping sections 52 of the flushing system 50. The animal resting platform 36, which is preferrably plastic-coated steel grating of approximately 100 pound capacity, is placed on the shroud spacers 44 which hold the animal resting platform 36 above the shroud lips 42. The waste collection pan 14, shown in FIG. 3, has three contiguous planar pan surfaces, 43,43,43. The inlet 33 and the outlet 35 are positioned on a front wall 45 of the waste collection pan 14. The outlet 35 is positioned lower and centered in the front wall 45 of the waste collection pan 14. Disassemblable piping sections 52, having apertures 54, are fitted to the waste collection pan 14 and are fluidly connected to the inlet 33.

FIG. 4 shows a section of the flushing system 50 taken along lines 4--4 of FIG. 3. The disassemblable piping sections 52 are shown along the top of the waste collection pan 14. Spray jets of fluid, generally indicated as 58, are shown flowing from the apertures 54 of the disassemblable piping sections 52. Risers 56 set the height of the flushing system 50 when the flushing system 50 is inserted into the animal cage 12 as shown in FIG. 2.

FIG. 5 shows a first variation of a flushing system 60 with a second type of waste collection pan 62. The second type of waste collection pan 62 has three contiguous planar surfaces 64,64,64 which taper towards a back wall 66. An outlet 68 is mounted on the center bottom of the back wall 66.

A second variation of a flushing system 70 is shown in FIG. 6. The second variation of the flushing system 70 uses a third type of waste collection pan 72 having four planar surfaces 74,74,74,74 intersecting at the lowest point in the middle of the waste collection pan 72 which also contains a centered outlet 76.

FIG. 7 shows a third variation of a flushing system 78 with a waste collection pan 80 that has two planar surfaces 82,82, a tapered side wall 84, and a tapered front wall 86. The outlet 88 is placed on the low point on the tapered front wall 86.

FIG. 8 illustrates an alternate embodiment of the present invention 90. According to this embodiment, an animal cage 92 has a waste collection pan 94 permanently mounted to the interior 93 of the animal cage 92. The flushing system 96 is placed into the waste collection pan 94 and a shroud 98 having shroud spacers 100 is positioned partially covering the flushing system 96. A water supply and disinfectant source (not shown) are used to frequently clean and disinfect the animal cage between thorough cleanings. The animal resting portion 102 is disposed on top of the shroud 98 and rests on the shroud spacers 100. The difference between this alternate embodiment and the prior embodiment being that the waste collection pan 94 is fixed permanently to the interior walls of the animal cage 92. The remainder of the composing elements of this embodiment are easily disassembled for thorough cleaning and disinfecting as in the earlier described embodiment.

Having described my invention, it is envisioned that modifications may be made which nevertheless fall within the scope of the invention, as claimed .