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. 
dos Santos Gauy, A. C., Bolognesi, M. C., Gonçalves-de-Freitas, E. 2022. Long-term body tactile stimulation reduces aggression and improves productive performance in Nile tilapia groups. Scientific Reports 12(1), 20239.

One concern of the Anthropocene is the effects of human activities on animal welfare, revealing the urgency to mitigate impacts of rearing environments. Body tactile stimulation (TS), like massage therapy, has emerged as an enrichment...

Butler, S. 2022. Gardening for Gorillas. Orla Kelly Publishing, Dublin, Ireland. 369 p.

During the author's 37 years as Curator of Horticulture, Dublin Zoo transformed from an almost Victorian appearance to a verdant green ark. A progressive masterplan focused on animal welfare and themed habitats reflects the spirit...

Mieske, P., Hobbiesiefken, U., Fischer-Tenhagen, C. et al. 2022. Bored at home?—A systematic review on the effect of environmental enrichment on the welfare of laboratory rats and mice. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 899219.

Boredom is an emotional state that occurs when an individual has nothing to do, is not interested in the surrounding, and feels dreary and in a monotony. While this condition is usually defined for humans...

Cait, J., Cait, A., Scott, R. W. et al. 2022. Conventional laboratory housing increases morbidity and mortality in research rodents: Results of a meta-analysis. BMC Biology 20(1), 15.

Over 120 million mice and rats are used annually in research, conventionally housed in shoebox-sized cages that restrict natural behaviours (e.g. nesting and burrowing). This can reduce physical fitness, impair thermoregulation and reduce welfare (e.g...

Oatess, T. L., Harrison, F. E., Himmel, L. E. et al. 2021. Effects of acrylic tunnel enrichment on anxiety-like behavior, neurogenesis, and physiology of C57BL/6J mice. JAALAS 60(1), 44-53.

Environmental enrichment for mice lags behind the standard enrichment offered to other laboratory rodents due to concerns about environmental variability and, in specific contexts, aggression. Our objective in this study was to evaluate concerns that...

Marques Maia, C., Pacheco Capelini Alves, N., Tatemoto, P. 2021. Juvenile Nile tilapia fish avoid red shelters. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 24(1), 98-106.

Shelters are frequently used for fish rearing to improve welfare conditions. In this study, whether Nile tilapia prefers specific shelter colors was evaluated. Thus, fish preference for white, red, blue, green or yellow shelters was...

Lambert, K. 2021. DIY: Ice cream cone spiced foraging cups. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 9(1) (January/February), 36.

This DIY snack is great for NHPs and can be customized in a variety of ways.

Lambert, K. 2021. DIY: Ice produce blocks. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 9(2) (March/April), 41.

This great cool-down snack is ideal for group or singly housed swine or nonhuman primates (particularly in larger pen-style housing). This item can be customized for canines as well by modifying the liquid used and/or...

Adcock, A., Choleris, E., Denommé, M. et al. 2021. Where are you from? Female mice raised in enriched or conventional cages differ socially, and can be discriminated by other mice. Behavioural Brain Research 400, 113025.

Laboratory rodents raised in environmentally-enriched (EE) cages differ behaviourally and cognitively from conventionally-housed (CH) animals. We hypothesised that mice can detect such differences, testing this using differentially-raised female C57BL/6 s as subjects, and differentially-raised female...

Coleman, K., Shapiro, S. J. (Eds.). 2021. Behavioral Biology of Laboratory Animals (1st ed). CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

This 30-chapter volume informs students and professionals about the behavioral biology of animals commonly housed in laboratory and other captive settings. Each species evolved under specific environmental conditions, resulting in unique behavioral patterns, many of...

Tatemotoa, P., Valença-Silva, G., Queiroz, M. R. et al. 2021. Living with low environmental complexity increases fear indicators in Nile tilapia. Animal Behaviour 174, 169-174.

Animals are often kept in conditions with low environmental complexity and for long periods in barren artificial environments. This has been shown to lead to poor welfare in many species of animals. We assessed the...

Sørensen, D., Cloutier, S., Gaskill, B. (Eds.). 2021. Animal-centric Care and Management - Enhancing Refinement in Biomedical Research. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

The concept of the 3Rs (Refinement, Reduction and Replacement) has been used as a framework for improving the welfare of laboratory animals for the last half century. By establishing an animal-centric view on housing and...

Stevens, C., Hawkins, P., Smulders, T. V. et al. 2021. Report of the 2020 RSPCA/UFAW rodent and rabbit welfare meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 20(1), 21-33.

The RSPCA/UFAW rodent and rabbit welfare group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 27 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on welfare issues and share...

dos Santos Gauy, A. C., Bolognesi, M. C., Martins, G. D. et al. 2021. Preference and motivation tests for body tactile stimulation in fish. Animals 11(7), 2042.

We tested whether territorial fish (Nile tilapia) perceive body tactile stimulation as a positive or negative resource. Individual male fish were placed for eight days in an aquarium containing a rectangular PVC frame, which was...

van der Geest, J. N., Spoor, M., Frens, M. A. 2021. Environmental enrichment improves vestibular oculomotor learning in mice. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 15, 676416.

We assessed the behavioral effects of environmental enrichment on contrast sensitivity, reflexive eye movements and on oculomotor learning in mice that were housed in an enriched environment for a period of 3 weeks. Research has...

Moody, C. M., Paterson, E. A. Leroux-Petersen, D. et al. 2021. Using paper nest pucks to prevent barbering in C57BL/6 mice. JAALAS 60(2), 133-138.

Little research has been conducted to examine the influence of various methods of providing nest materials—such as dispersing them, providing them as single units, or clustering them—on the behavior and welfare of group-housed mice. In...

Edwards, J., Olson, B., Marks, D.L. 2021. Constructing and programming a cost-effective murine running wheel with digital revolution counter. Lab Animal 50, 202-204.

Voluntary wheel running is a valuable metabolic intervention and well-established measure of physical activity in preclinical rodent models. Herein, we describe detailed assembly instructions and provide necessary resources for researchers to build their own running...

Lambert, K. 2021. DIY: Acacia gum sealed paper straws. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 9(3) (May/June), 37.

This DIY snack is great for NHP and can be customized in a variety of ways.

Lambert, K. 2021. DIY: Dehydrated watermelon training chips. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 9(4) (July/August), 48.

This simple DIY training treat is great for NHP, swine, rabbits, rodents, and dogs. Note that dehydrated watermelon may resemble muscle tissue!

Windsor, Z. 2021. Refinements in head plate mouse nesting: Using composite nests to enhance welfare. Animal Technology and Welfare 20(2), 135-141.

When given the opportunity, mice will choose to build nests using multiple different materials. Studies indicate that providing mice with choices which mimic the natural environment allows laboratory mice to build the best quality nests...

Peploe, J., MacAulay, C. 2021. Laboratory primate enrichment ideas. Animal Technology and Welfare 20(2), 177-183.

There are several items we often use in animal facilities that when finished with are thrown away. However, many of these items come in packaging that can be recycled as enrichment for our animals, particularly...

Burn, C. C., Popat, R. 2021. A tunnel is not enough: Mice benefit from in-cage provision of a communal shelter as well as a handling tunnel. Animal Technology and Welfare 20(3), 203-210.

Mouse shelters can provide mice with security, help them thermoregulate, offer darkness to prevent damage to their eyes and enable climbing and gnawing opportunities. For laboratory mice, there is a vast array of commercially available...

Obermueller, B., Castellani, C., Till, H. et al. 2021. An examination of nest-building behaviour using five different nesting materials in C57BL/6J and BALB/c mice. Animal Welfare 30(4), 467-477.

The aim of our study was to assess the nest-building behaviour of two mouse (Mus musculus) strains using different nesting materials and examine possible sex- and housing-specific effects. Adult mice of two strains (C57BL/6J; n...

Mondin, C., Trestini, S., Trocino, A. et al. 2021. The economics of rabbit farming: A pilot study on the impact of different housing systems. Animals 11(11), 3040.

This research evaluates the economic sustainability of rabbit farms using different housing systems—bicellular (BI), conventional dual-purpose (DP) and enriched cages designed according to the World Rabbit Science Association guidelines (WRSA)—through a field-based study involving six...

Minie, V. A., Petric, R., Ramos-Maciel, S. et al. 2021. Enriched laboratory housing increases sensitivity to social stress in female California mice (Peromyscus californicus). Applied Animal Behaviour Science 241, 105381.

Domesticated mice and rats have shown to be powerful model systems for biomedical research, but there are cases in which the biology of species is a poor match for the hypotheses under study. The California...