Tracking Food and Fluid Intake in In Vivo

The Food and Fluid Intake feature enables real-time, cage-level intake tracking in preclinical studies. You can record, calculate, and analyze daily average intake per animal in group-housed settings.

This feature is in Limited Availability (LA) and is not enabled by default. It is only available to customers upon request and may be subject to change. For more about what it means for features to be in LA, see our article that describes the Benchling release stages.

1. Enable food and fluid tracking in study design

• When creating or editing a study, select a preset for animal measurements.
  
  
• Toggle Enable Food/Fluid Tracking to activate cage-level data entry.
  
  

Benchling will calculate daily average intake per animal using the cage's data.

Note: Intake is recorded at the cage level, but displayed per animal for alerts and analysis.

2. Configure workflow setup

• In the workflow setup, enable Food Intake Tracking and/or Fluid Intake Tracking.
  
  
• Choose your preferred navigation behavior:
  
  
  • Move to next cage - Saving data for this cage automatically brings you to the next cage in the list.
    
    
  • Move to first animal -Saving data for a cage brings you to the first animal in that cage, opening the tab selected in the Start on dropdown. At the end of the final step if after saving for that tab is set to move to the next animal, the next cage will load instead.
  • Focus search bar - Once you save data for this cage, the cursor is placed in the search bar, ready for you to scan the next cage or animal.

3. Record intake data

Record initial "IN" weights

• Navigate to the target cage in your workflow
  
  
• Enter Food In and/or Fluid In values
  
  
• (Optional) Add comments for context (e.g., diet type or intake notes)
  
  

⚠ You must enter IN values before OUT values to trigger calculations.

Record "OUT" weights and spillage

• Later the same day or on a subsequent day, return to the cage
  
  
• Enter Food Out, Fluid Out, and (optional) Spillage
  
  
• Click Save
  
  

Benchling calculates the average intake per animal (g/day), visible in the workflow and on the animal profile.

4. Visualize and use intake data

• Intake metrics appear in Graphs, Exports, and support Randomization.
  
  
• Configure alerts based on average daily animal intake (not total cage intake).

5. Maintain data integrity

• Edit entries: You can modify the most recent cage-level entry (e.g., fix typos or add comments).
  
  
• Exclude records: Use Exclude if intake data is invalid due to events like spillage or animal death. Exclusions:
  
  
  • Apply to all animals in the cage and are captured in the audit log
    
    
  • Are removed from graphs, exports, and downstream analysis
    
    
  • Are recorded in the audit log

6. Update living/deceased status

• Mark animals as deceased to update future intake calculations.
  
  
• This does not retroactively update existing cage data, only future calculations.

Considerations

• Only one intake measurement per day per cage is supported.
  
  
• Intake tracking is not currently supported in tasks; use the “Other” task type if needed.
  
  
• Connected devices are supported only in Follow Focus mode.
  
  
• When moving animals, ensure Food/Fluid Tracking is enabled in the destination study. Otherwise, historical intake data won't display.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I record the type of food or fluid given?

A: This should be recorded as animal or group metadata, or as a treatment. The system currently tracks weight/volume only—not diet type.

Q: Can I record data for earlier dates?

A: You can backdate only if no later entries exist for that cage. Entries must follow a strict chronological order if needed enable the option to “Set recording time” in the workflow setup to select a time other than the current time as your recorded time.

Q: Can I track intake per individual animal?

A: The system calculates average intake per animal based on the total for the cage and current population. Direct per-animal intake recording is not supported for group-housed settings.