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. 

The provision of nesting material benefits mice by reducing cold stress, improving feed conversion, increasing litter size, and improving adaptive immunity. The effects of toxins are sensitive to environmental changes, and the introduction of novel...

Provision of liquid enteral nutrition (LEN) during the perioperative period is standard practice for rodents undergoing bariatric surgery, yet these diets are associated with several challenges, including coagulation of the liquid diet within the delivery...

Sleep disruption in humans, caused by shift work, can be detrimental to physical and behavioral health. Nocturnal laboratory mice may experience a similar disruption caused by human daytime activities, but whether this disruption affects their...

Time-weighted exposure limits to ammonia are established for humans; however similar guidelines have not been defined for laboratory rodents. The Guide recommends maintaining air pollutants at concentrations below levels irritating to mucous membranes but does...

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...

This work aimed at evaluating the effects of housing system, pen floor type, and lactation management on rabbit doe and kit performance throughout a reproductive cycle, including categorization of aggressiveness and injuries. Forty multiparous pregnant...

Changes in aquatic environments can affect fish behavior. Water renewal, for example, can dilute chemical signals, which are a social communication tool used by some fish species, and this dilution increases aggressive interactions in the...

Despite documented adverse effects, limits for rodent exposure to vibration in the laboratory animal facility have not been established. This study used female C57BL/6 mice to determine the frequencies of vibration at which mice were...

The breeding practices adopted and the equipment typically found in animal facilities produce sounds at frequencies within the auditory range of the mice (1 to 100 kHz), which can cause hearing and other non-hearing effects...

Environmental factors applied in animal research facilities need to be regulated accurately not only for the welfare of laboratory animals but also for the reliability of the experimental results. However, the effect of lighting environment...

Brycon amazonicus shows a high frequency of aggressive behavior, which can be a limiting factor in intensive farming systems. Environmental changes can modulate the social interactions of fish and reduce aggression during the different stages...

Individual responses, particularly based on personality, can have important consequences for individual fitness, based upon success in exploring new habitats, feeding on novel foods, and aggressiveness in competitive interactions. We conducted laboratory experiments to analyze...

The present study determined the behavioural salinity preference of a freshwater stock of juvenile yellow perch Perca flavescens acclimated to salinities of 0 and 10. The preferred salinities ranged between 7.3 and 13.0 (mean ±...

Electric eels (Electrophorus electricus) are a unique species used for behavioral research in the Vanderbilt Animal Care and Use Program. Few resources are available to describe the housing and handling of this species in captivity...

Rabbits are known to be finicky about food and will reject it based upon several factors: odor, texture, form, or method of presentation. It can be an even greater challenge to get rabbits to eat...

Rodents, particularly rats and mice, are the most commonly used laboratory animals and are extensively used in neuroscience research, including as translational models for human disorders. It is common practice to carry out scientific procedures...

Although the number of rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) produced in Europe is important, they are under-represented in welfare research. Studies on the effects of housing conditions have focused on performance and mortality. We conducted a meta-analysis...

The standard housing temperature in animal facilities is substantially below the lower critical temperature of mice. This does not only endanger animal welfare, it can also jeopardize scientific research as cold stress has a major...

As part of routine husbandry, an increasing number of laboratory mice receive nesting material in addition to standard bedding material in their cages. Nesting material improves health outcomes and physiological performance in mice that receive...

The poor record of basic-to-clinical translation in recent decades has led to speculation that preclinical research is “irreproducible”, and this irreproducibility in turn has largely been attributed to deficiencies in reporting and statistical practices. There...

Aggression is a major welfare issue in mice, particularly when mice unfamiliar to each other are first placed in cages, as happens on receipt from a vendor, and following cage cleaning. Injuries from aggression are...

We evaluated PCR testing of filter tops from cages maintained on an IVC system through which exhaust air is filtered at the cage level as a method for detecting parasite-infected and -infested cages. Cages containing...

Laboratories and vivariums typically are maintained at ambient temperatures of 20 to 24 °C, leading to cold stress in mice. When mice are inactive and sleeping during the light phase, their zone of thermoneutrality associated...

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent (and now Rabbit) Welfare Group held a one-day meeting on 1 November 2016 at the University of Edinburgh and was attended by 70 delegates. Presentation topics included refinements in blood sampling rodents...