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. 

Automated assessment of broiler chicken welfare poses particular problems due to the large numbers of birds involved and the variety of different welfare measures that have been proposed. Active (sustained, defect-free) walking is both a...

Consumer demand for retail cage-free eggs is driving the layer industry towards greater use of extensive housing environments. However, there is limited research on how these environments affect egg production characteristics of brown egg layers...

The monitoring and assessment of animals is important for their health and welfare. The appropriate selection of multiple, validated, and feasible welfare assessment indicators is required to effectively identify compromises or improvements to animal welfare...

Mice are the most commonly used laboratory animal, yet there are limited studies which investigate the effects of repeated handling on their welfare and scientific outcomes. Furthermore, simple methods to evaluate distress in mice are...

Given the increasing obligation to elevate animal welfare beyond minimum expectations, zoos need robust mechanisms to monitor physical activity and species-appropriate behaviours. This is not without challenge as animal behaviour can vary seasonally or be...

Facial expressions are an increasingly used tool to assess emotional experience and affective state during experimental procedures in animal models. Previous studies have successfully related specific facial features with different positive and negative valence situations...

Zoos should aim to provide all of their animals with a good quality of life (QoL) throughout all life stages. In parallel with the evolution of QoL assessment questionnaires and tools in human and domestic...

Objective animal health evaluation is essential to determine welfare and discomfort in preclinical in vivo research. Body condition scores, body weight, and grimace scales are commonly used to evaluate well-being in murine rheumatoid arthritis (RA)...

Lateralised behavioural responses to environmental stressors have become more frequently used as indicators of social welfare in animals. These lateralised behavioural responses are under the control of asymmetrical brain functions as part of the primary...

To ensure good animal welfare in laboratory research and in stockbreeding severity ratings of the animals´ wellbeing are essential. The current study investigated how valid raters can evaluate different severity degrees of clinical appearance and...

In animal-based research, welfare assessments are essential for ethical and legal reasons. However, accurate assessment of suffering in laboratory animals is often complicated by the multidimensional character of distress and pain and the associated affective...

Non-invasive measures have a critical role in precision livestock and poultry farming as they can reduce animal stress and provide continuous monitoring. Animal activity can reflect physical and mental states as well as health conditions...

Facial expressions are widely recognized as universal indicators of underlying internal states in most species of animals, thereby presenting as a non-invasive measure for assessing physical and mental conditions. Despite the advancement of artificial intelligence-assisted...

To assess the welfare of captive animals, validated measures, so-called ‘welfare indicators’, are required. We used a triangulation approach to investigate the extent to which different measures converged to provide corroborating evidence of welfare. Laying...

There is increasing recognition that farm animal welfare standards should ensure positive welfare, as well as prevent negative welfare. Resources that are valued by an animal and that provide opportunities to engage in motivated behaviours...

Feather pecking remains a serious problem in poultry farming. This study aimed to identify risk factors for plumage damage as a proxy for feather pecking, and the predictive value of practical animal-based parameters. Data were...

The well-being of animals kept by humans in laboratories, farms, or as pets should always be of the highest importance, and a prerequisite for this is adequate housing. To assess the potential indicators for animal...

Animal welfare assessment relies on valid and practical indicators of affect. In mice, the most widely used research vertebrates, lying still with eyes open, inactive-but-awake (IBA) in the home cage, has potential to be one...

Many species of birds are housed in zoos globally and are some of the most popular of animals kept under human care. Careful observations of how species live and behave in their natural habitats can...

Good science in translational research requires good animal welfare according to the principles of 3Rs. In many countries, determining animal welfare is a mandatory legal requirement, implying a categorization of animal suffering, traditionally dominated by...

Group level measures of welfare flocks have been criticized on the grounds that they give only average measures and overlook the welfare of individual animals. However, we here show that the group-level optical flow patterns...

Steroid-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head (SONFH) is a condition documented in humans and animals exposed to chronic steroid administration. The rabbit has become a preferred animal model for investigating the pathogenesis and treatment of...

Animal welfare is one of the most challenging issues in modern farm animal husbandry. Animal welfare indicators can be used to monitor welfare on farms or at slaughterhouses, with footpad dermatitis (FPD) being one of...

Although nesting material is beneficial to the welfare of laboratory mice, provision of appropriate amounts may impair visualization of the mice. In anticipation of our academic research institution transitioning to providing 6 grams of nesting...

The combination of bedding substrate and nesting material within the microenvironment of mice is an important consideration for animal care programs in regard to optimizing animal wellbeing. We used 3 general or breeding mouse colonies...