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. 

Surgical castration of piglets is generally recognized as a painful procedure, but there is currently no gold standard for the assessment of pain behavior in piglets. However, pain assessment is essential for evaluating the effectiveness...

To accurately assess pain and support broadly-based analgesic protocols to mitigate swine pain, it is imperative to develop and validate a species-specific pain scale. The objective of this study was to investigate the clinical validity...

Background Tail inspection in the abattoir is a tool to help determine the welfare status of pigs. However, methodologies vary widely. Moreover, meat inspection is moving from palpation and incision towards visual-only (VIS) examination. This...

While people are familiar with the practice of declawing domestic cats, “onychectomy”, as it is also known, is also performed on non-domesticated species, including pantherines, to prolong their use for entertainment purposes. Although the surgery...

This study presents the first successful capture using GPS tagging of a jaguar (Panthera onca) using a minimally invasive capture system (MICS). We used snare-foot traps and a MICS during two capture campaigns in a...

Members of the North American 3Rs Collaborative (NA3RsC) refinement initiative have chosen to summarize developments in five hot topics of interest: 1. Tips for welfare-friendly transport, chairing, and restraint; 2. Guidance on refining food and...

This article describes the strategies employed by Kumamoto Sanctuary in Japan to integrate 3 retired chimpanzees – who each spent 30 years singly housed in a biomedical facility – with the sanctuary’s other residents.

Animal-borne tracking devices have generated a wealth of new knowledge, allowing us to better understand, manage and conserve species. Fitting such tracking devices requires that animals are captured and often chemically immobilized. Such procedures cause...

There is increasing evidence that, compared to non-aversive handling methods (i.e., tunnel and cupping), tail handling has a negative impact on mouse welfare. Despite this evidence, there are still research organisations that continue to use...

In the U.S. millions of commercially raised piglets are routinely tail docked. Human and veterinary medical patients experienced reduced inflammation, healing time and post-procedural pain using a CO2 surgical laser compared to standard surgical instruments...

Head orientation is a measure of attention used in behavioral psychological research with non-human primates. It is used across a broad range of disciplines and settings, from the field to the laboratory. Field methods are...

As the use of zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a research model continues to rise, so too will the shipping and sharing of zebrafish strains across collaborating institutions. If done incorrectly, shipping can result in significant...

Pigs are common research models and are strong animals that can be difficult to restrain. Improper restraint can put pigs and research personnel at risk for injury and induce stress, which can affect research outcomes...

The use of head fixation in mice is increasingly common in research, its use having initially been restricted to the field of sensory neuroscience. Head restraint has often been combined with fluid control, rather than...

Macaque monkeys are widely used to study vision. In the traditional approach, monkeys are brought into a lab to perform visual tasks while they are restrained to obtain stable eye tracking and neural recordings. Here...

Although applied in some countries, efficacy of local anesthetics based on procaine to mitigate acute responses to piglet castration remains questioned. This paper presents results from a factorial study examining the effects of two methods...

Considerable research has been conducted on the effects of inter-institutional transfers, but far less consideration has been given to intra-institutional transfers and extended housing in off-habitat holding. On 15 May 2018, The Oregon Zoo’s orangutans...

Pigs are common research models and are strong animals that can be difficult to restrain. Improper restraint can put pigs and research personnel at risk for injury and induce stress, which can affect research outcomes...

To evaluate pain responses to intratesticular and subscrotal injection of three local anaesthetics and their efficacy during castration a randomized controlled study was conducted. In groups of 20 piglets, procaine (2%), lidocaine (2%), or mepivacaine...

Repeatable tumor measurements are key to accurately assessing tumor growth and treatment efficacy. A preliminary study that we conducted showed that a novel 3D and thermal imaging system (3D-TI) for measuring subcutaneous tumors in rodents...

Since January 2019, surgical castration of male piglets must be performed using local anaesthesia, if farmers deliver pigs to the primary exporting slaughterhouses according to the “Danish quality scheme”; a voluntary initiative taken by the...

In conclusion, the investigations carried out up to now demonstrate that during the early stages fish show high sensitivity to many types of stressors involving an array of responses to overcome alterations that could affect...

Pain causes behavioral, autonomic, and neuroendocrine changes and is a common cause of animal welfare compromise in farm animals. Current societal and ethical concerns demand better agricultural practices and improved welfare for food animals. These...

Mouse handling and restraint affect behavior, physiology, and animal welfare, yet little information is available on how various mouse restraint methods affect cardiovascular parameters. We validated the use of a smartphone-based ECG sys- tem in...