Refinement Database

Database on Refinement of Housing, Husbandry, Care, and Use of Animals in Research

This database, created in 2000, is updated every four months with newly published scientific articles, books, and other publications related to improving or safeguarding the welfare of animals used in research.

Tips for using the database:

  • This landing page displays all of the publications in the database.
  • Use the drop-down menus to filter these publications by Animal Type, Setting, and/or Topic.
  • Clicking on a parent category (e.g., Rodent) will include publications relating to all the items in that category (e.g., Chinchilla, Gerbil, Guinea Pig, etc.).
  • You may also add a keyword to further narrow your search.
  • Please note that at this time, only publications dated 2010 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Animal Type and Topic, and only publications dated 2020 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Setting. Most publications older than 2010 can only be searched by keyword. 
Bulens, A., Van Beirendonck, S., Van Thielen, J. et al. 2017. Hiding walls for fattening pigs: Do they affect behavior and performance? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 195, 32-37.

The prevalence of harmful and unwanted behavior in fattening pigs is influenced by different factors including housing. Housing may include the opportunity to hide from aggressive pen mates and this ability is related to pen...

Mesarec, N., Prevolnik Povše, M., Škorjanc, D. et al. 2017. Gangs of piglets: Welfare and growth of imprinted and guided weaners. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 195, 44-49.

Weaning stress accompanied by outburst of aggression is a critical point in pig production as it compromises piglets’ welfare and leads to poor growth rate and health problems. Therefore, a weaning methods to smoothen the...

Axelsson, H. M. K., Hansen, S. W., Loberg, J. et al. 2017. Effects of group size on behaviour, growth and occurrence of bite marks in farmed mink. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 194, 112-119.

The aims of this study were to investigate the occurrence of stereotypic behaviours and the activity level in farmed mink when group housed in climbing cages and if group housing increase aggression by assessing the...

Reimert, I., Fong, S., Rodenburg, T. B. et al. 2017. Emotional states and emotional contagion in pigs after exposure to a positive and negative treatment. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 193, 37-42.

After-effects of events that elicit an emotional state on both the animals that experienced these events and on their group members have only scarcely been studied. We investigated effects of a positive vs. negative treatment...

Turner, S. P., Nevison, I. M., Desire, S. et al. 2017. Aggressive behaviour at regrouping is a poor predictor of chronic aggression in stable social groups. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 191, 98-106.

Commercial pigs globally are routinely mixed into new social groups. This results in regrouping aggression predominantly during the first 24h which compromises welfare and productivity. Chronic aggression persists thereafter and is also undesirable. Management strategies...

Greenwood, E. C., Plush, K. J., van Wettere, W.H.E.J. et al. 2017. A novel method for the analysis of social structure allows in-depth analysis of sow rank in newly grouped sows. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 189, 29-35.

Chronic stress response in fearful animals can result in depression of growth and reproductive performance. It is therefore important to be aware of at risk animals in the herd. Thus far ‘hierarchy’ calculations have involved...

Foster, S., Ijichi, C. 2017. The association between infrared thermal imagery of core eye temperature, personality, age and housing in cats. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 189, 79-84.

Understanding individual responses to stress is a key aspect of maintaining optimal animal welfare. This is especially important where animals are being kept in sub-optimal environments or where the species may not clearly demonstrate stress...

Parois, S., Larzul, C., Prunier, A. 2017. Associations between the dominance status and sexual development, skin lesions or feeding behaviour of intact male pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 187, 15-22.

In boars, social relationships could influence pubertal development and feeding behaviour. The objectives of the present study were to determine the relationships between behaviour (agonistic, mounting and feeding behaviours), plasma sex steroids (oestradiol, testosterone) and...

McMillan, J. L., Bloomsmith, M. A., Prescott, M. J. 2017. An international survey of approaches to chair restraint of nonhuman primates. Comparative Medicine 67(5), 442–451.

Specifically designed restraint chairs are the preferred method of restraint for research studies that require NHP to sit in place for sustained periods of time. In light of increasing emphasis on refinement of restraint to...

Ali, A. B. A., Gutwein, K. L., Heleski, C. R. 2017. Assessing the influence of upper lip twitching in naive horses during an aversive husbandry procedure (ear clipping). Journal of Veterinary Behavior 21, 20-25.

When engaging in procedures that horses may find aversive, restraint methods are often used to help ensure safety of both horse and handler. Twitching is a common restraint method, but its use is sometimes considered...

Reid, K., Rogers, C. W., Gronqvist, G. et al. 2017. Anxiety and pain in horses measured by heart rate variability and behavior. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 22, 1-6.

As a herd species, the horse strongly desires social contact and interaction with conspecifics. Anxiety associated with social isolation may confound the display and interpretation of behavior associated with pain. This study examined the effect...

Sands, C., Evans, C., Buckmaster, C. A. 2017. The grooming sleeve: Encouraging conspecific-like behavior and strengthening the human-animal bond. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 5(2) (June), 52-53.

The act of grooming has been found to greatly decrease stress, heart rate, and cortisol levels in nonhuman primates; this decrease in stress and cortisol is seen in the animal being groomed, as well as...

Grigg, E.K., Nibblett, B.M., Robinson, J.Q. et al. 2017. Evaluating pair versus solitary housing in kennelled domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) using behaviour and hair cortisol: A pilot study. Veterinary Record Open 4(1), e000193.

Numerous studies conducted to assess welfare of domestic dogs housed in kennel facilities have reported that these dogs experience suboptimal living conditions. One important goal of improving welfare of kennelled dogs is to reduce their...

Fu, L., Li, H., Lian, T. et al. 2016. Stocking density affects welfare indicators of growing pigs of different group sizes after regrouping. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 174, 42-50.

In recent years, the concept of animal welfare began to be accepted by the Chinese people. On some intensive pig farms, the stocking density for growing pigs is too great, leading to decreased animal welfare...

Pinnell, R. C., Almajidy, R. K., Hofmann, U. G. 2016. Versatile 3-D printed headstage implant for group housing of rodents. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 257, 134-138.

An unfavourable yet necessary side-effect of stereotaxic surgery involves the social isolation of post-surgery rats, in order to protect their wound site or skull-mounted implant from damage. Social isolation can cause a myriad of behavioural...

van Dixhoorn, I. D. E., Reimert, I., Middelkoop, J. et al. 2016. Enriched housing reduces disease susceptibility to co-infection with porcine reproductive and respiratory virus (PRRSV) and Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (A. pleuropneumoniae) in young pigs. PLOS ONE 11(9), e0161832.

Until today, anti-microbial drugs have been the therapy of choice to combat bacterial diseases. Resistance against antibiotics is of growing concern in man and animals. Stress, caused by demanding environmental conditions, can reduce immune protection...

Thomsson, O., Sjunnesson, Y., Magnusson, U. et al. 2016. Consequences for piglet performance of group housing lactating sows at one, two, or three weeks post-farrowing. PLOS ONE 11(6), e0156581.

Housing lactating sows with piglets in a multi-suckling pen from around 14 days post-farrowing is common practice in Swedish organic piglet production. However, nursing-suckling interaction is less frequent in multi-suckling pens than in individual farrowing...

Averós, X., Beltrán de Heredia I., Ruiz, R. et al. 2016. The impact of group size on welfare indicators of ewes during pregnancy. PLOS ONE 11(11), e0167061.

Group size (GS) and space allowance have major implications for the welfare of production species, however their effects are often confounded. In a previous study we investigated the impact of varying space allowance at constant...

Nuti, V., Cantile, C., Gazzano, A. et al. 2016. Pinch-induced behavioural inhibition (clipthesia) as a restraint method for cats during veterinary examinations: preliminary results on cat susceptibility and welfare. Animal Welfare 25(1), 115-123.

Cats are often subjected to minimally painful or forced procedures during routine clinical practice, which can be poorly tolerated, leading veterinary surgeons to need to offer physical restraint, usually aided by an assistant. The aim...

Curtis, G. C., Argo, C. McG., Jones, D. et al. 2016. Impact of feeding and housing systems on disease incidence in dairy calves. Veterinary Record 179(20), 512.

Contentious issues in calf rearing include milk feeding level and single versus group housing. The current study was performed on a high-producing 170 Holstein cow dairy farm to investigate the impact of nutrition and housing...

McMillan, F. D. 2016. The psychobiology of social pain: Evidence for a neurocognitive overlap with physical pain and welfare implications for social animals with special attention to the domestic dog (Canis familiaris). Physiology & Behavior 167, 154-171.

Social pain is the negative affect signaling threat or harm to social relationships. Loneliness is perceived social isolation and can be found across phylogeny. Evidence from diverse fields demonstrates an overlap of social and physical...

Plush, K., Hughes, P., Herde, P. et al. 2016. A synthetic olfactory agonist reduces aggression when sows are mixed into small groups. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 185, 45-51.

Synthetic olfactory agonists mimic odours secreted by mammary glands in several mammal species and their application can reduce anxiety levels in both juvenile and adult animals. This investigation determined the effect of a commercially available...

Keeling, L. J., Bøe, K. E., Christensen, J. W. et al. 2016. Injury incidence, reactivity and ease of handling of horses kept in groups: A matched case control study in four Nordic countries. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 185, 59-65.

There is increasing interest in keeping horses in groups, but progress is hampered by a lack of knowledge about which horses can and should be kept together. Therefore, our objective was to investigate the effect...

Zollinger, A., Wyss, C., Bardou, D. et al. 2016. The ‘social box’ offers stallions the possibility to have increased social interactions. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 15, 84. (12th International Society of Equitation Science (ISES) Conference Abstract)

In order to give individually housed stallions the opportunity to have more social interactions, the Swiss national stud farm investigated a separation wall called ‘social box’. Sixteen adult Franches-Montagnes breeding stallions were housed for 3...

Löckener, S., Reese, S., Erhard, M. et al. 2016. Pasturing in herds after housing in horseboxes induces a positive cognitive bias in horses. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 11, 50-55.

Horses are kept in various housing systems, for example, with conspecifics in horse pens or singly in horseboxes, with or without pasturing. To provide appropriate living conditions for horses, it is necessary to know in...