ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Protocol page > The elements of a protocol > Additional information > Animal ID > Specifying whether you'll be using your own Animal IDs

Specifying whether you'll be using your own Animal IDs

In brief

Use the button on the Animal ID settings page to specify whether you want to use your own animal IDs or not.

Details

Normally, ANY-maze will refer to each animal by a sequential number; i.e. Animal 1, Animal 2, etc. If you select this option, then you will be able to enter your own ID for each animal (for example, 'C1A1') and ANY-maze will then refer to the animal using your ID instead.

Entering Animal IDs

If you choose to use your own animal IDs, then you will of course need to actually tell ANY-maze what the ID of each animal is. The easiest place to do this is on the Experiment page, where you can use the View animals button to see a spreadsheet listing all the animals in the experiment. This spreadsheet will include a column for the animal ID, where you can simply enter whatever the IDs are.

How ANY-maze uses Animal IDs

If you choose to use your own animal ID, then ANY-maze will always use your ID to refer to the animals. So if, for example, you have specified that ANY-maze's animal 1 has an ID of 'C1A1' then ANY-maze will only refer to the animal by this ID and never as animal 1. For example, you will see messages such as 'Ready to test animal C1A1', or 'Results for animal C1A1' and so on.

Of course, ANY-maze will only actually know what the animal IDs are if you enter them (see previous section). So, until you specify that animal 1 has an ID of 'C1A1' (or whatever), the system won't know how to refer to it. To overcome this, it uses a # sign in front of its animal number.

For example, imagine you have three animals in your experiment; ANY-maze will simply number them animals 1, 2 and 3. You then enter an ID of 'C1A1' for animal 1 and 'C1A2' for animal 2, but you don't enter an ID for animal 3. ANY-maze will then refer to the animals as 'C1A1', 'C1A2' and '#3'.

A side effect of this is that it is not a good idea to use a # sign as the first character of your own numbering system.

ANY-maze help topic T0588