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. 
Dewaele, A., Badonnel, K., Persuy, M.-A. et al. 2020. Effect of environmental exposure to a maternally-learned odorant on anxiety-like behaviors at weaning in mice. Animal Cognition 23(5), 881–891.

Early sensory experience, such as exposure to maternal or other environmental factors, is considered to influence neurocognitive development and behaviors. In many species, exposure to odorants during pregnancy or lactation impacts the morpho-functional development of...

Estien, C., O’Connell, C., Francis, X. et al. 2020. Temporary behavioral responses to playbacks by a pest parrot and implications for management. Animal Behavior and Cognition 9(4), 363–384.

Human-wildlife interactions continue to increase due to anthropogenic disturbances, with some interactions resulting in conflict. Leveraging a taxa’s bias for a particular sensory cue is a promising management avenue for reducing the potential and realized...

Butler, J. L., Kennerley, S. W. 2019. Mymou: A low-cost, wireless touchscreen system for automated training of nonhuman primates. Behaviour Research Methods 51, 2559–2572.

Training nonhuman primates (NHPs) to perform cognitive tasks is essential for many neuroscientific investigations, yet laboratory training is a time-consuming process with inherent limitations. Habituating NHPs to the laboratory staff and experimental equipment can take...

Pedersen, I. J., Forkman, B. 2019. Improving leg health in broiler chickens: A systematic review of the effect of environmental enrichment. Animal Welfare 28(2), 215-230.

Leg problems are highly prevalent in modern broiler production and provision of environmental enrichment could be a strategy to improve leg health. Different types of environmental enrichment have undergone evaluation. Our objective was to conduct...

Brajon, S., Morello, G. M., Teixeira, M. S. et al. 2019. Social environment as a cause of litter loss in laboratory mouse: A behavioural study. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 218, 104827.

Perinatal mortality is a widespread problem in laboratory mouse breeding and is often manifested by the loss of the entire litter within the first days of life. High mortality is an animal health and welfare...

Newman, S., Woodley, S. 2019. Time’s up for tick-over colonies… Do we now need to maintain so many GA mouse lines? Animal Technology and Welfare 17(3), 155-157.

The practice of continually breeding lines to maintain them as a live resource either in-between studies or indefinitely “just in case” is common practice in many animal facilities. This process of “ticking over” colonies has...

King, J. 2018. Report of the Enrichment; Awareness and Uptake Workshop 2018 on 26th June at College Court, Leicester. Animal Technology and Wefare 17(3), 163-167. [Meeting Report]

The point of the session was to have a collaborative discussion about environmental enrichment. The organisers wanted to know people’s experiences with enrichment, the barriers they have faced, if they have overcome any, and also...

Kemp, K. 2018. Ultrasound to UltraSee: The use of ultrasound to determine pregnancy in mice. Animal Technology and Welfare 17(3), 193-195 (IAT Congress 2018 Poster Presentation).

In March 2017 MRC Ares bought an ultrasound machine to assist in determining pregnancy in timed mating mice. Prior to this, visual checks or palpation would be used to confirm pregnancy. There were limitations with...

Travers, A., Thomson, J., Sharp, M. 2019. Refining mouse re-derivation by using in vitro fertilisation (IVF) with fresh or frozen sperm as opposed to embryos. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(1), 73-74.

To attempt to reduce, refine and replace, we have employed a several new approaches to rederive mouse strains. By using in vitro fertilisation (IVF) with fresh or frozen sperm we can reduce the timeframe and...

King, J. 2019. Team awesome: Why we can be proud. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(2), 127-131.

The presentation I gave at IAT Congress 2019 was based on the changes and refinements the University of Dundee, Medical School Resource Unit (MSRU) has made over the past 18 months. These changes, described in...

Taniuchi, T., Ohgi, A., Nishikawa, M. 2019. Returning to home cage serves as an effective reward for maze learning in rats. Behavioural Processes 164, 175-177.

This study examined the effectiveness in rats of ‘returning to home cage’ as a reward for learning a Lashley III maze. Rats could return to their home cage directly (Direct HC group) or they could...

Leenaars, C. H. C., Pels, E. G. M., Joosten, R. N. J. M. A. et al. 2019. Wistar rats do not show preference for either of two commonly used nutritionally sound food rewards in a T-maze. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 31, 22-27.

Food rewards are commonly used as positive reinforcement in rodent behavioral experiments. Bioserv dustless precision pellets and Noyes formula P precision pellets are both used for this purpose in behavioral experiments in multiple laboratories, as...

Leidinger, C. S., Thöne-Reineke, C., Baumgart, N. et al. 2019. Environmental enrichment prevents pup mortality in laboratory mice. Laboratory Animals 53(1), 53–62.

Early death of mouse pups is a commonly known problem in breeding mice colonies, which is still often regarded as ‘normal’ or is even overlooked due to the counting procedures applied. As reduced breeding performance...

Stramek, A. K., Johnson, M. L., Taylor, V. J. 2019. Improved timed-mating, non-invasive method using fewer unproven female rats with pregnancy validation via early body mass increases. Laboratory Animals 53(2), 148–159.

For studies requiring accurate conception-timing, reliable, efficient methods of detecting oestrus reduce time and costs, whilst improving welfare. Standard methods use vaginal cytology to stage cycle, and breeders are paired-up using approximately five proven females...

Bertin, A., Mocz, F., Calandreau, L. et al. 2019. Human behaviour at the origin of maternal effects on offspring behaviour in laying hens (Gallus gallus domesticus). Physiology & Behavior 201, 175-183.

Regular visual presence of humans is known to reduce chickens' human-generated stress responses. Here we questioned whether, more than mere visual presence, human behaviour affects laying hen behaviour and subsequently their offspring's behaviour. We hypothesized...

Jung, L., Knierim, U. 2019. Differences between feather pecking and non-feather pecking laying hen flocks regarding their compliance with recommendations for the prevention of feather pecking – A matched concurrent case-control design. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 219, 104839.

Feather pecking (FP) is a multifactorial problem in all housing systems. Using a case-control design we wanted to determine a set of variables which may be decisive for a flock to become case or control...

Sanchez-Casanova, R., Sarmiento-Franco, L., Segura-Correa, J. et al. 2019. Effects of outdoor access and indoor stocking density on behaviour and stress in broilers in the subhumid tropics. Animals 9(12), 1016.

Studies investigating the welfare of commercial-line broiler chickens raised in houses with outdoor access in the tropics are scarce, and none have investigated whether responses vary according to indoor conditions. Hence, we assessed the effects...

Bartley, J. 2019. Darwin’s fishes?: Keeping Malawi cichlids. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(3), 199-202.

This poster will provide information on the cichlids, including their dietary and husbandry requirements and the breeding of these animals.

Ritchie, A., Collier, P., Clare, P. et al. 2019. Food for thought: The development of drug loaded diets improve both science and welfare. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(3), 222-224.

In our facility, we use several hormone dependent tumour models with supplementation delivered via slow release subcutaneously implanted pellets, implanted via trochar. For example, breast tumours which rely on 17-β-Estradiol. Administration of E2 supplementation can...

Gott, A., Andrews, C., Bedford, T. et al. 2019. Developmental history and stress responsiveness are related to response inhibition, but not judgement bias, in a cohort of European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Animal Cognition 22(1), 99–111.

Judgement bias tasks are designed to provide markers of affective states. A recent study of European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) demonstrated modest familial effects on judgement bias performance, and found that adverse early experience and developmental...

Riddle, E. R., Ali, A. B. A., Campbell, D. L. M. et al. 2018. Space use by 4 strains of laying hens to perch, wing flap, dust bathe, stand and lie down. PLOS ONE 13(1), e0190532.

The laying hen industry is implementing aviary systems intended to improve welfare by providing hens with more space and resources to perform species-specific behaviors. To date, limited research has examined spatial requirements of various strains...

Hawkins, P., McBride, A., Paiba, G. et al. 2018. Report of the 2017 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent and Rabbit Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 17(2), 75-83. [Meeting Report]

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent (and now Rabbit) Welfare Group held a one-day meeting on 14 November 2017 in Weybridge, UK. The first session addressed meeting animals' needs and aiming for a 'good life', with the needs...

Balafas, E., Stasinopoulou, M., Alexakos, P. et al. 2018. Synchronisation of oestrous cycle on C57BL/6J mice after the introduction of a hanging perforated container with bedding soaked by the excretions of male mice. Animal Technology and Welfare 17(1), 9-11.

Synchronisation of oestrous cycle is a commonly used method to manage pregnancies either for breeding or for research purposes. Based on Whitten effect, the aim of our study was to introduce a new refined method...

Bailoo, J. D., Murphy, E., Varholick, J. A. et al. 2018. Evaluation of the effects of space allowance on measures of animal welfare in laboratory mice. Scientific Reports 8, 713.

We studied how space allowance affects measures of animal welfare in mice by systematically varying group size and cage type across three levels each in both males and females of two strains of mice (C57BL/6ByJ...

Faraji, J., Karimi, M., Soltanpour, N. et al. 2018. Intergenerational sex-specific transmission of maternal social experience. Scientific Reports 8, 10529.

The social environment is a major determinant of individual stress response and lifetime health. The present study shows that (1) social enrichment has a significant impact on neuroplasticity and behaviour particularly in females; and (2)...