Patent Application
20150216643
The disclosure relates to animal anesthetizing devices and more particularly pertains to a new animal anesthetizing device for facilitating anesthetization of an animal, or simultaneous anesthetization of a litter of animals, prior to a procedure such as tail docking, castration, or the like.
An embodiment of the disclosure meets the needs presented above by generally comprising a box having a bottom wall and a perimeter wall coupled to and extending upwardly from the bottom wall defining an interior space. A lid is coupled to the box wherein the interior space is selectively enclosed. A valve is coupled to the box. A canister has a dispensing nozzle which is selectively engageable to the valve wherein contents of the canister are dispensed into the interior space of the box. An anesthetizing agent is positioned in the canister and dispensed into the box to anesthetize one or more animals in the box.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the disclosure in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the disclosure that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
The objects of the disclosure, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the disclosure, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure.
The disclosure will be better understood and objects other than those set forth above will become apparent when consideration is given to the following detailed description thereof. Such description makes reference to the annexed drawings wherein:
With reference now to the drawings, and in particular to
As best illustrated in
A valve 22 is coupled to the box 12. A canister 24 is provided having a dispensing nozzle 26. The dispensing nozzle 26 is selectively engageable to the valve 22 wherein contents 28 of the canister 24 are dispensed into the interior space 18 of the box 12 when the dispensing nozzle 26 is engaged to the valve 22. An anesthetizing agent 30 is positioned in the canister 24. The amount of anesthetizing agent 30 may comprise a single dose of the anesthetizing agent 30 relative to the size of the interior space 18 of the box 12. The anesthetizing agent 30 is dispensed from the canister 24 when the dispensing nozzle 26 is engaged to the valve 22. Thus, the animal in the box 12 is anesthetized sufficiently to facilitate handling of the animal and inhibit pain experienced by the animal during a subsequently performed procedure including but not limited to tail docking, castration, teeth clipping, ear notching, needle injection, or the like.
The lid 20 may fully cover the box 12. The valve 22 extends through the lid 20 wherein the canister 24 is in an inverted position 38 when the dispensing nozzle 26 is engaged to the valve 22. The dispensing nozzle 26 is positioned at a bottom 56 of an interior space 58 of the canister 24 when the canister 24 is in the inverted position 38. The anesthetizing agent 30 is a liquid in the canister 24 such that the anesthetizing agent 30 moves to the bottom 56 of the interior space 58 of the canister 24 in the inverted position 38. When the dispensing nozzle 26 is coupled to the valve 22, the anesthetizing agent 30 is released into the interior space 18 of the box 12 as a mist or gas to be inhaled by the animal in the interior space 18 of the box 12. The anesthetizing agent 30 is dispensed through the dispensing nozzle 26 in an effective amount allowing for performance of the desired procedure or procedures and quick recovery from the anesthetic agent 30 after the procedure has been performed. A propellant 48 is positioned in the canister 24. The propellant 48 facilitates dispensation of the anesthetizing agent 30 from the canister 24 when the dispensing nozzle 26 is coupled to the valve 22.
A restrictor 34 is coupled to the valve 22 or directly to the dispensing nozzle 26 of the canister 24. The restrictor 34 has an opening 36 therethrough sized such that the anesthetizing agent 30 is dispensed through the opening 36 in the restrictor 34 at a pre-selected desired rate to give the anesthetizing agent 30 time to produce the desired effect. Thus, the anesthetizing agent 30 anesthetizes the animal in the interior space 18 of the box 12.
A single dose or an effective amount, for purposes of the disclosed invention, is an amount of the anesthetizing agent 30 sufficient to create the desired effect of anesthetization to one or more animals in the interior space 18. The anesthetizing agent 30 may be isoflurane producing a concentration of between 1% and 8% within the interior space 18 of the box 12 when the anesthetizing agent 30 is dispensed into the interior space 18 of the box 12. Alternatively, the anesthetizing agent 30 may be nitrous oxide producing a concentration of between 10% and 50% nitrous oxide within the interior space 18 of the box 12 when the anesthetizing agent 30 is dispersed into the interior space 18 of the box 12. Other alternative concentration of anesthetics are 1-8% desflurane, 1-8% enflurane, 0.5-5% halothane, and 0.5-5% sevoflurane. The box 12 is sized such that effective amounts of the anesthetizing agent 30 in the box 12 is not sufficiently large to be a health concern even if fully released from the canister 24 into ambient air outside of the box 12 but is sufficient to achieve the desired result of anesthetization for one or more animals having a total weight of between 0.3 kilograms and 9.5 kilograms. Thus, individual canisters 24 may be bought, stored, and shipped more easily than large containers requiring hazardous material permits or the like. The box 12 may be sized such that a volume of the interior space 18 is between 40 liters and 200 liters. Thus, the box 12 may be sized to accommodate full litters of pigs simultaneously for efficiency in administering the anesthetic agent 30 as well as allowing a user to keep whole litters together minimizing the time the litter is away from the mother and reducing the opportunity for mixing of individual animals between litters.
A cavity 50 is positioned on a dispensing end 52 of the canister 24. The dispensing nozzle 26 is positioned in the cavity 50. An exterior wall 54 of the dispensing nozzle 26 is threaded. The valve 22 has complimentary threading wherein the canister 24 is threadedly coupled to the box 12 for dispensing the contents of the canister 24 into the interior space 18 of the box 12.
A vent aperture 40 extends through the box 12. A vent closure 42 such as a conventional one-way valve is coupled to the box 12. The vent closure 42 selectively seals the vent aperture 40 wherein the interior space 18 of the box 12 is sealed when the lid 20 is in a closed position 44 and the vent closure 42 is in a closed position. As stated above, the interior space 18 of the box 12 may be vented safely through the vent aperture 40 directly to ambient air. Alternatively, an exhaust mechanism 46 may be coupled to the box 12. The exhaust mechanism 46 is environmentally coupled to the vent closure 42 wherein gaseous contents of the interior space 18 of the box 12 are vented through the vent aperture 40 when the exhaust mechanism 46 is actuated.
In use, the assembly 10 provides for a method 60 of anesthetizing an animal for pain mitigation when performing a procedure such as tail docking, ear notching, teeth clipping, castration, or the like. The method 60 requires no measuring of anesthetics to be dispensed as effective doses provided in the canister 24 are pre-measured and may be marked on the canister 24. A new canister 24 is used each time. Multiple canisters 24 may be provided with varied degrees of concentration relative to the volume of the box 12 with the particular concentration and anesthetic used marked on the individual canister 24. The first step 62 is having the box 12, the valve 22 in environmental communication with the box 12, and the canister 24 as generally described above. Minimally, the box 12 may be as described above but needs only to provide the sealable interior space 18. Another step 64 is placing an animal to be anesthetized in the interior space 18 of the box 12. A subsequent step 66 is sealing the animal within the interior space 18 of the box 12. Still another step 68 is coupling the canister 24 to the valve 22 wherein the anesthetizing agent 30 is dispensed into the sealed interior space of the box 12 wherein the animal is anesthetized. A step 70 may be provided of completely dispensing contents of the canister 24 into the interior space 18 of the box 12 upon coupling of the dispensing nozzle 26 to the valve 22 wherein the contents of the canister 24 provide effective concentrations of the anesthetizing agent 30 relative to a volume of the interior space 18 within the box 12. Still another step 72 is venting the interior space 18 of the box 12 after anesthetizing the animal and prior to removing the lid 20 from the box 12. The method 60 may be applied to multiple animals being anesthetized together in the box 12 using a single canister 24. This allows a group of animals, such as a single litter of pigs, to be kept together as a group for anesthetization and the subsequent procedure. Thus, the device 10 and method 60 provide for efficiency in performance of the procedures and reduce the opportunity for mixing of individual animals between litters.
With respect to the above description then, it is to be realized that the optimum dimensional relationships for the parts of an embodiment enabled by the disclosure, to include variations in size, materials, shape, form, function and manner of operation, assembly and use, are deemed readily apparent and obvious to one skilled in the art, and all equivalent relationships to those illustrated in the drawings and described in the specification are intended to be encompassed by an embodiment of the disclosure.
Therefore, the foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the disclosure. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the disclosure to the exact construction and operation shown and described, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the disclosure. In this patent document, the word “comprising” is used in its non-limiting sense to mean that items following the word are included, but items not specifically mentioned are not excluded. A reference to an element by the indefinite article “a” does not exclude the possibility that more than one of the element is present, unless the context clearly requires that there be only one of the elements.
This application is a continuation in part of pending application Ser. No. 13/782,356 filed Mar. 1, 2013.
