I applied with ~5000 research hours in a neuroscience lab that uses rodents. It is my current full time job and I am relying heavily on this aspect to help me get in since I've done surgeries on mice and have bred large scale colonies and have 5 published papers, 2 first author. I have extensive large animal experience since I grew up on a farm, but I'm hoping the research makes up for the fact that my veterinary hours are semi lacking. I think it'll help for some schools, I think other schools probably won't care as much.