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. 
Robinson, L. M., Weiss, A. (Eds.) 2023. Nonhuman Primate Welfare: From History, Science, and Ethics to Practice. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. 671 p.

This volume reviews the broad topic of welfare in nonhuman primates under human care. Chapters detail the history of primates in captivity, ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of nonhuman primates as entertainment or...

Eraslan, E., Castelhano-Carlos, M. J., Amorim, L. et al. 2023. Home-cage behavior is impacted by stress exposure in rats. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17, 1195011.

Being social animals, rats exhibit a range of social behaviors that help them build social bonds and maintain group cohesion. Behavior is influenced by multiple factors, including stress exposure, and the expression of the impact...

Farag, A., Mandour, A. S., Hendawy, H. et al. 2023. A review on experimental surgical models and anesthetic protocols of heart failure in rats. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10, 1103229.

Heart failure (HF) is a serious health and economic burden worldwide, and its prevalence is continuously increasing. Current medications effectively moderate the progression of symptoms, and there is a need for novel preventative and reparative...

Field, L. A., Hemsworth, L. M., Jongman, E. et al. 2023. Contact with mature cows and access to pasture during early life shaped dairy heifer behaviour at integration into the milking herd. Animals 13(13), 2049.

This study aimed to determine the effects of early-life physical and social enrichment on the ability of dairy heifers to integrate into a herd of mature cows. Fifty heifer calves were reared from the ages...

Górecka-Bruzda, A., Jaworska, J., Stanley, C. R. 2023. The social and reproductive challenges faced by free-roaming horse (Equus caballus) stallions. Animals 13(7), 1151.

In captivity, intact male horses, due to their sexual drive, are usually socially isolated from other horses. This lifestyle strongly contrasts with that experienced by horses living in free-roaming, feral, or semi-feral conditions, where adult...

Hube, D., Bill, J., Knop, E. S. et al. 2023. Physical injuries and hair corticosterone concentration in rabbit kits from single- and group-housed does kept on a commercial farm. Animals 13(2), 196.

In intense breeding programs, rabbits are exposed to numerous stress factors which could affect their welfare and health. It has been suggested that group housing is more comfortable for does and similar to the living...

Krunt, O., Zita, L., Kraus, A. et al. 2023. Effects of genotype and housing system on rabbit does’ aggressive behaviors and injuries in smallholding conditions. Animals 13(8), 1357.

The objective of the study was to investigate the effects of housing (deep litter + concrete floor vs. deep litter + ground soil with the possibility to dig burrows), and genotype (Mecklenburg or Hyplus) on...

Mahendran, S. A., Wathes, D. C., Booth, R. E. et al. 2023. Effects of individual and pair housing of calves on short-term health and behavior on a UK commercial dairy farm. Animals 13(13), 2140.

Social pair housing of calves has previously demonstrated positive impacts for calves, so this study aimed to compare the health and behaviour of calves kept in individual compared to pair housing on a single commercial...

Maidanskaia, E. G., Mirra, A., Marchionatti, E. et al. 2023. Antinociceptive, sedative and excitatory effects of intravenous butorphanol administed alone or in combination with detomidine in calves: A prospective, randomized, blinded cross-over study. Animals 13(12), 1943.

The diagnostic and therapeutic procedures performed under sedation or general anesthesia in bovines are numerous. The analgesic drugs that can be legally used are few, making perioperative analgesia challenging. (2) Methods: Calves were administered butorphanol...

Marquardt, A. E., VanRyzin, J. W., Fuquen, R. W. et al. 2023. Social play experience in juvenile rats is indispensable for appropriate socio-sexual behavior in adulthood in males but not females. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 16, 1076765.

Social play is a dynamic and rewarding behavior abundantly expressed by most mammals during the juvenile period. While its exact function is debated, various rodent studies on the effects of juvenile social isolation suggest that...

Mauthe von Degerfeld, M., Serpieri, M., Bonaffini, G. et al. 2023. Intranasal atomization of ketamine, medetomidine and butorphanol in pet rabbits using a mucosal atomization device. Animals 13(13), 2076.

A non-invasive method of drug delivery, intranasal atomization, has shown positive results in human medicine and in some animal species. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of intranasal atomization, compared to...

Pallieres, C. G. D., Rose, P. E. 2023. Two’s company, three species is a crowd? A webcam-based study of the behavioural effects of mixed-species groupings in the wild and in the zoo. PLOS ONE 18(4), e0284221.

Mixed species exhibits in zoos are used to create larger, more stimulating environments to support naturalistic interactions between species. In the wild, mixed species groups are observed as having lower rates of vigilance, presumably due...

Papakitsos, G., Assouad, S., Papageorgiou, M. et al. 2023. Regrouping in dairy ewes—Effects on productive performance and specific behavioral traits. Animals 13(7), 1163.

The regrouping of ruminants is a common practice in dairy farms and is targeting at the improvement of milk production efficiency. However, changing the established hierarchy in a group affects both productivity and behavioral attributes...

Veness, A., Coyle, C., Murphy, S. et al. 2023. Minimising aggression in CD-1 and CD-1 background male mice with different enrichment types. Animal Technology and Welfare 22(1), 74–76.

Cage-mate aggression is a well-known problem that is more prevalent in certain strains of mice and is one of the most common reasons for single housing, increased stress levels, premature death and euthanasia. Numerous methods...

Zollinger, A., Wyss, C., Bardou, D. et al. 2023. Social box: A new housing system increases social interactions among stallions. Animals 13(8), 1408.

In domestic conditions, adult stallions are mostly housed individually in internal stables to reduce the risk of injuries during social interactions. Social deprivation in horses results in physiological stress and behavioural problems. The aim of...

Bogdan, R., Kayumova, R., Schwarting, R. K. W. et al. 2023. Wildtype peers rescue social play and 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalization deficits in juvenile female Cacna1c heterozygous rats. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17.

Healthy brain development depends on early social practices and experiences. The risk gene CACNA1C is implicated in numerous neuropsychiatric disorders, in which key characteristics include deficits in social functioning and communication. Recently, we reported sex-dependent...

Cavieres, G., Bozinovic, F., Bogdanovich, J. M. et al. 2023. Impact of prolonged chronic social isolation stress on behavior and multifractal complexity of metabolic rate in Octodon degus. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17.

Social interaction can improve animal performance through the prevention of stress-related events, the provision of security, and the enhancement of reproductive output and survival. We investigated the effects of prolonged chronic social isolation stress on...

Ruíz-López, P., Cuypers, C., Schauvliege, S. 2023. Xylazine infusion during equine colic anesthesia with isoflurane and lidocaine: A retrospective study. Animals 13(18), 2902.

This retrospective study investigated the effect of a xylazine infusion on heart rate; mean arterial pressure; blood gases; anesthetic and dobutamine requirements; recovery quality and duration; percentage of death/survival; and days to die/discharge in horses...

Butcher, G., Davidson, A., Sloanc, A. et al. 2021. An apparatus for automatically training and collecting individualized behavioral data with socially housed rodents. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 365, 109387.

Background: Conventional methods for individually housing, training, and testing rodents in behavioral assays can impose constraints that may limit some kinds of experimental external validity, preempt environmental enrichment, impose heavy experimenter time burdens that limit...

Lindner, E. E., Gingerich, K. N., Burke, K. C. et al. 2022. Effects of social housing on dairy calf social bonding. Animals 12(7), 821.

Social housing for dairy calves has a range of benefits for social development, yet there is limited understanding of how social bonds form early in life. We characterized effects of early life social contact on...

Stryjek, R., Modlinska, K. 2022. Pre-exposure via wire-mesh partition reduces intraspecific aggression in male, wild-type Norway rats. Animal Welfare 31(2), 175-186.

There are instances when animals are introduced and expected to live alongside unfamiliar conspecifics within zoos, laboratories and wildlife sanctuaries. These pairings of unfamiliar animals may result in stress, trauma, or even death, in addition...

Kitchenham, L., Nazal, B., Adcock, A. et al. 2022. Why does lifelong conventional housing reduce the sociability of female mice? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 246, 105532.

Compared to peers raised in well-resourced, 'enriched' environments (‘EE’), female laboratory mice from conventional barren cages are more aggressive to their cage-mates, and less sociable with familiar non-cage-mates (especially if these too are from conventional...

Zhang, C., Juniper, D. T., Meagher, R. K. 2022. Effects of physical enrichment and pair housing before weaning on growth, behaviour and cognitive ability of calves after weaning and regrouping. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 249, 105606.

Housing unweaned calves individually in barren environments negatively affects their growth, cognitive ability, and adaptability to environmental changes in later life. Social housing has been shown to improve those aspects, whereas physical environmental enrichment has...

Denommé, M. R., Mason, G. J. 2022. Social buffering as a tool for improving rodent welfare. JAALAS 61(1), 5-14.

The presence of a conspecific can be calming to some species of animal during stress, a phenomenon known as social buffering. For rodents, social buffering can reduce the perception of and reaction to aversive experiences...

Ahmadi, F., Ghasemi, E., Alikhani, M. et al. 2022. Effects of group housing and incremental hay supplementation in calf starters at different ages on growth performance, behavior, and health. Scientific Reports 12(1), 3190.

The present study examined the effects of age at group housing and age at incremental hay supplementation in calf starters from 7.5 to 15% (dry matter, DM) and their interaction on growth performance, behavior, health...