Moustra Features
Discover the powerful features that make Moustra the leading platform for mouse colony management. From AI-powered breeding insights to mobile barcode scanning, every tool is built for how researchers actually work in the vivarium.
Get Started FreeLast updated: 2026-10-13
What is mouse colony management software?
Mouse colony management software is a specialized laboratory information management system (LIMS) designed for research facilities that maintain live mouse colonies. It replaces manual spreadsheets and paper records with a digital platform for tracking breeding pairs, cage assignments, genotypes, litter data, health events, and regulatory compliance. Modern platforms like Moustra add AI-powered insights, mobile apps for cage-side data entry, automated notifications for breeding events, and cost analytics to help labs optimize colony size and reduce unnecessary animal usage. Research institutions ranging from single-PI academic labs to large pharmaceutical vivarium operations use colony management software to improve reproducibility, streamline IACUC reporting, and reduce the administrative burden on animal care staff.
Mobile Application
Take Moustra with you wherever you go. Our mobile app gives you full access to your colony data, allowing you to monitor, update, and manage your research from anywhere. Perfect for checking on your colony during rounds or while away from the lab.
Moustra includes dedicated iOS and Android apps for mouse colony management. Walk up to any cage, scan its barcode, and instantly view the full breeding history, genotyping status, and health records for every animal inside. Update weaning dates, log observations, and reassign animals directly from your phone or tablet.
- •Full colony access on iOS and Android
- •Barcode scanning for instant cage access
- •Real-time sync with desktop platform
- •Quick cage and animal lookups
- •Push notifications for important updates
Cheese AI
Cheese AI is Moustra's built-in AI assistant that understands your colony data. Ask natural language questions like "Which cages are due for weaning this week?" or "Show me breeding pairs with the highest litter success rate" and get instant, data-backed answers.
Cheese AI doesn't just answer — it takes action. Ask it to set up a mating, create a cage, enroll animals in a study, or log a sample, and it proposes the change on a confirmation card before anything commits, streaming its reasoning token by token. It also proactively flags underperforming breeding pairs, cages approaching IACUC protocol limits, and cost-saving opportunities — and cites the Moustra docs when it explains how something works.
- •Ask natural language questions about your colony data
- •Take action — create cages, matings, studies, and more from confirmation cards
- •Get intelligent breeding and cost-optimization recommendations
- •Real-time streaming answers with citations from the Moustra docs
Study Manager
Run your experiments where your animals already live. Study Manager takes a research study end to end — build cohorts, enroll animals, assign groups, and randomize and blind treatments — without exporting to a separate spreadsheet or LIMS.
Record measurements and treatments against each animal, attach files and notes, and keep a full activity history of who did what and when. Export any study to CSV for analysis, and ask the study-aware AI assistant about your data — all on web and mobile.
- •Cohort building, enrollment, and group assignment
- •Randomization and blinding built in
- •Measurements, treatments, files, notes, and activity history
- •CSV export and a study-aware AI assistant — web and mobile
Cohorts, Groups & Measurements
Sample Collection & Tissue Tracking
Capture every tissue, biopsy, and specimen at the moment of collection. Pick a collection schema, batch-collect from a whole cage, and print tube labels so each sample is traceable back to the exact animal it came from.
Scan an animal's barcode ear tag to collect from the bench, edit fields like tissue, region, and portion inline, and archive samples when you're done. Takedown (necropsy) schemas keep terminal collections organized and consistent across the lab — on web and mobile.
- •Schema-driven collection with batch and per-animal modes
- •Printable tube labels and barcode ear-tag scanning
- •Inline tissue, region, and portion fields
- •Takedown / necropsy schema management
Samples, Labels & Takedown
Multi-Species Support
Moustra isn't just for mice anymore. Manage rat colonies right alongside your mouse colonies, with species-aware forms, labels, and copy throughout the app — so a single platform covers your whole vivarium.
Set the species on a strain and every downstream record — animals, cages, matings, and reports — speaks the right language. Labs running mixed species no longer need a second tool or a workaround spreadsheet, on web or mobile.
- •Mice and rats in one platform
- •Species-aware forms, labels, and terminology
- •Species set per strain and carried through every record
- •Available on web and mobile
Mice & Rats, One Platform
Organization & Multi-Lab Management
Built for institutions running more than one lab. An organization-level dashboard rolls up colony activity across every lab, while role-based access keeps each team's data scoped to the people who should see it.
Group racks by physical Room to mirror your actual facility, manage shared resources across labs, and onboard new labs without standing up a separate account. Organization users get the same experience on mobile, including org-aware rack access and room editing from the app.
- •Organization dashboard across multiple labs
- •Room entities for physical-location rack grouping
- •Per-lab role-based access control
- •Full organization and room support on mobile
Multi-Lab & Rooms
Excel-Like Interface
Data visualization exactly like Excel or Google Spreadsheet. Double-click to edit, sort, and filter your colony data seamlessly. No learning curve — just familiar functionality with powerful research features.
Researchers transitioning from spreadsheets will feel at home immediately. View all your cages, animals, and breeding records in a familiar grid layout. Sort by any column, apply multi-column filters, and bulk-edit records without leaving the interface. All changes sync in real time across your entire team.
- •Familiar spreadsheet interface
- •Double-click to edit cells instantly
- •Advanced sorting and filtering options
- •Export data in multiple formats
Cost Tracking
Track your weekly and monthly colony and lab costs. Receive detailed weekly reports of your research progress and cage utilization. Make data-driven decisions to optimize your research budget.
Moustra automatically calculates per-diem costs based on your institution's cage rates and generates weekly PI reports summarizing active cages, animals housed, breeding activity, and total expenditure. PIs and lab managers can identify cost-saving opportunities at a glance and forecast budgets for upcoming grant periods.
- •Real-time cost monitoring and analytics
- •Weekly and monthly financial reports
- •Cage utilization optimization
- •Budget forecasting and planning
Calendar, Tasks & Notifications
Stay on top of every weaning date, breeding event, and lab task with Moustra's integrated calendar. See your entire colony schedule at a glance and never let a critical deadline slip through the cracks.
Moustra automatically generates tasks based on your colony data — weaning reminders, cage change schedules, genotyping deadlines, and protocol expiration alerts. Assign tasks to team members, set priorities, and track completion. Real-time push notifications keep your entire team aligned, whether they're at the bench or away from the lab.
- •Integrated calendar with breeding and weaning events
- •Automated task generation from colony data
- •Push notifications for upcoming deadlines
- •Team task assignment and progress tracking
Family Tree & Genealogy
See every animal's full ancestry at a glance. Moustra renders a clean, interactive family tree from your breeding records — sires, dams, offspring, and cousins — so you can trace lineage across generations without opening ten different cage records.
Pick any animal and follow the line up, down, or sideways. Confirm genetic backgrounds before setting up a mating, spot inbreeding risk, and hand off clean genealogies to collaborators without rebuilding the tree from scratch.
- •Visual multi-generation genealogy
- •Click-through navigation across parents and offspring
- •Built automatically from mating and litter data
- •Genotype and strain shown inline on every node
IACUC Protocol Management
Create protocols, assign animals, set species and USDA pain categories, and keep every amendment on file. Moustra tracks which animals belong to which protocol in real time, so compliance reporting stops being an end-of-year scramble.
Approaching your approved animal limit? Moustra flags it before you book the next mating. PIs and lab managers see protocol usage at a glance, amendment history is preserved, and documentation is ready when the IACUC office asks.
- •Protocol lifecycle: create, amend, assign animals
- •USDA pain category and species tracking
- •Approaching-limit warnings in real time
- •Full amendment and assignment history
Rack & Cage Visualization
See your vivarium the way it really is. Moustra renders your racks and cages on an interactive 2D/3D grid — every slot shows its cage, strain, and animal count, so you can walk the lab virtually before walking it physically.
Reorganizing? Drag cages between slots and racks to match what's happening on the bench. Spot empty slots, overcrowded cages, and strain clusters at a glance, and keep the digital lab in sync with the real one.
- •Interactive 2D/3D rack and cage grid
- •Drag-and-drop cage reassignment
- •Per-cage contents, strain, and animal counts
- •Color-coded occupancy and strain views
Cage Card Printing
Fully customizable templates — design the cage card your lab actually wants. Pick exactly which fields appear (cage tag, strain, owner/PI, set-up date, mating info, litter details, per-animal rows, and more), drop in a QR or barcode, and print on standard 3x5 or 4x6 stock. Every card stays in sync with the live record behind it.
Scan any cage card barcode with the Moustra mobile app and jump straight to that cage — instantly see every animal inside, update weans, log observations, and reassign animals right from the bench. No typing cage IDs, no searching, no walking back to the desktop.
- •Fully customizable templates — choose every field, layout, and branding element
- •3x5 and 4x6 presets for standard cage card stock
- •Scan the barcode with the Moustra mobile app to open the cage instantly
- •Batch printing for entire racks
Dashboard & Analytics
Walk into the lab already knowing the state of the colony. Moustra's dashboard surfaces animal counts by age, sex, and strain; cage utilization; this week's wean list; and at-risk cages that need attention — all on one screen.
Charts update in real time as your team works. PIs get the big-picture view; lab managers get the actionable to-do list; and everyone sees the same numbers, so the Monday meeting stops being a data reconciliation exercise.
- •Colony metrics by age, sex, and strain
- •Cage utilization and occupancy charts
- •Weaning schedule and at-risk cage alerts
- •Real-time updates across the whole team
Breeding & Mating Management
Set up breeding pairs in seconds, log plug events the moment they happen, and record litters with offspring counts by sex. Moustra builds the full breeding timeline for every pair so you can see exactly which matings are producing and which aren't.
Wean dates, pup counts, and parental genotypes flow automatically into your animal records — no double entry. Identify top-producing pairs, retire unproductive ones, and give PIs a clear picture of breeding throughput across the colony.
- •Create and track mating pairs with full history
- •Record plug events with precise timing
- •Litter logging with sex-separated pup counts
- •Automatic wean-date calculation and alerts
Matings, Plug Events & Litters
CSV Import with AI Column Mapping
Migrate years of spreadsheet history in minutes. Drop in a CSV and Moustra's AI detects the delimiter, recognizes your headers, parses whatever date format you've been using, and maps columns to the right Moustra fields automatically.
Import animals, cages, matings, litters, and strains through a guided three-step wizard — Upload, Map, Review — with a dry-run preview before anything commits. Fix a mapping, re-run the preview, and ship a clean import the first time.
- •Three-step wizard: Upload → Map → Review
- •AI auto-maps columns and detects date formats
- •Supports animals, cages, matings, litters, strains
- •Dry-run validation before commit
Smart CSV Import
Daily & Weekly Reports
Every morning — and every Monday — Moustra delivers a clean summary of your colony to PIs and lab managers. Active cages, breeding activity, upcoming weans, new litters, and a running cost snapshot, all in a single scannable report.
No dashboards to open, no reports to build. Drop the daily in your inbox with coffee; get the weekly in time for lab meeting. Your PI finally has the colony context they keep asking for, without anyone building slides.
- •Automated daily colony summaries
- •Weekly PI-ready reports with cost snapshot
- •Highlights breeding activity, weans, and new litters
- •Delivered via email — no login required to read
Automated Reports
Slack Integration
Push Moustra updates directly into the Slack channels your lab already lives in. Breeding events, wean reminders, task alerts, and the weekly report land exactly where the team is already talking — not in another inbox.
Connect a channel in one click, pick which events to broadcast, and keep the lab in the loop without context-switching. New trainees get onboarded to colony activity automatically; PIs see momentum in real time.
- •One-click Slack channel connection
- •Breeding, wean, and task alerts in-channel
- •Weekly summary posted automatically
- •Per-event subscription controls
Slack Notifications