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. 

Metabolic cages are a type of housing used in biomedical research. Metabolic cage housing has been demonstrated to elicit behavioural and physiological changes in rodents housed within them. The nature of this effect has been...

Studies of animal welfare in laboratory animals have historically relied on the measurement of negative indicators rather than the assessment of positive indicators of welfare. Practical methods of welfare assessment are required to allow refinement...

Rabbits are gregarious animals that live in social groups in the wild so individually housing our animals, while meeting the present scientific objectives, restricts their natural social behaviour. How to meet the social needs of...

The development of modern housing regimes such as individually ventilated cage (IVC) systems has become very popular and attractive in order to reduce spreading of pathogenic organisms and to lower the risk to develop a...

Few studies have sought to describe cat elimination behavior in detail and much of the information presently available focuses on factors that potentially cause cats to reject a litter box. Thus, the ethograms published in...

The aim of this work was to study how the group size and the number of doorways in a pen may influence the aggressive interactions throughout the reproductive cycle among does kept in a part-time...

Marmota monax is a valuable laboratory animal species used in studies of Hepatitis B virus (HBV), food intake, obesity, hibernation, and circannual cycles. This article describes the woodchuck’s (also known as groundhog) natural behavior and...

Laboratory rats are usually kept in relatively small cages, but research has shown that they prefer larger and more complex environments. The physiological, neurological and health effects of standard laboratory housing are well established, but...

Orogastric gavage, while a common method for delivering experimental substances in mice, has been shown to induce stress. To minimize the associated stress with this procedure, sham gavage prior to the start of experiment is...

Although the metabolic cage is commonly used for housing nonhuman animals in the laboratory, it has been recognized as constituting a unique stressor. Such an environment would be expected to affect behavioral change in animals...

Domestic guinea pigs (Cavia aperea f. porcellus) in laboratories have been shown to actively avoid the centers of their cages. This experiment tested a novel, dark-colored “shader” placed over the central portion of a cage...

Fecal corticosterone concentration (FCC) was measured in 14 buck rabbits individually housed in standard-dimension cages (SC) or in bigger cages (BC; with a volume more than double that of SC and equipped with a plastic...

The cage floor space recommended for a female rat with a litter is greater in the 8th edition of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals than in previous editions. As a...

Standard laboratory cages prevent rats (Rattus norvegicus) from performing many behaviours that they perform in the wild, but little is known about how this may affect their welfare. The aims of this study were (i)...

This poster is based on welfare improvements gained from group housing rabbits in floor pens in the new Antibody Production Facility with a focus on development, behaviours and environmental enrichment in both male and female...

Monkeys first arrived in the Comparative Biology Centre (CBC) at Newcastle University in 2000. They were housed in three small separate units consisting of steel and wooden cages. In 2011 a decision was made to...

At Pfizer’s Pearl River site, rabbits are socially housed in pairs or triples in dog runs that have been converted into rabbit pens. The daily husbandry and maintenance of these pens, however, proved to be...

The 2011 Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals contains recommendations regarding the amount of cage space for mothers with litters. Literature on cage-space use in breeding rats is sparse. We hypothesized that...

In cases where different species might be housed in the same room or secondary enclosure, the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals recommends that the animals should be behaviorally compatible and have...

The goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of changing to IVC housing on guinea pigs by recording several physiologic parameters in guinea pigs housed sequentially in open-top cages (OTC) and IVC. To...

Between 1975 and 2014, housing conditions for laboratory-housed marmosets changed dramatically after the introduction of new guidelines designed to improve their care and wellbeing. According to these guidelines, our facility provided marmosets with outside enclosures...

Current regulations emphasize that good husbandry practices allow animals to engage in species appropriate postural adjustments without touching the enclosure walls. This study evaluated the well-being of rats housed in a commercially available multilevel rat...

Huddling and nest building are two methods of behavioral thermoregulation used by mice under cold stress. In the laboratory, mice are typically housed at an ambient temperature (Ta) of 20°C, well below the lower end...

The study of laboratory animal behavior has increased steadily over the last decade, with expanding emphasis on a variety of commonly used species. In the United States, this trend was initially focused on species for...

Surveillance of cat shelters by official veterinarians in Austria is based on legal requirements and does not directly assess cat welfare. The aim of this study was to develop animal-based parameters that are feasible to...