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. 
van Eerdenburg, F. J. C. M., Hof, T., Doeve, B. et al. 2021. The relation between hair-cortisol concentration and various welfare assessments of Dutch dairy farms. Animals 11(3), 821.

Many protocols have been developed to assess farm animal welfare. However, the validity of these protocols is still subject to debate. The present study aimed to compare nine welfare assessment protocols, namely: (1) Welfare Quality©...

Tschoner, T. 2021. Methods for pain assessment in calves and their use for the evaluation of pain during different procedures—A review. Animals 11(5), 1235.

The evaluation and assessment of the level of pain calves are experiencing is important, as the experience of pain (e.g., due to routine husbandry procedures) severely affects the welfare of calves. Studies about the recognition...

Steagall, P. V., Bustamante, H., Johnson, C. B. et al. 2021. Pain management in farm animals: Focus on cattle, sheep and pigs. Animals 11(6), 1483.

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...

Manthey, T., Nagel-Riedasch, S., Dülsner, A. 2021. The interactive stress assessment in basic animal science training. Animals 11(7), 2145.

In order to assess the extent to which the legally prescribed training for the acquisition of animal experimentation expertise provides scientific personnel with the necessary competence and expertise to carry out a correct harm-benefit analysis...

Stygar, A. H., Gómez, Y., Berteselli, G. V. et al. 2021. A systematic review on commercially available and validated sensor technologies for welfare assessment of dairy cattle. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8, 634338.

In order to base welfare assessment of dairy cattle on real-time measurement, integration of valid and reliable precision livestock farming (PLF) technologies is needed. The aim of this study was to provide a systematic overview...

Yolles, J. N., Lee-Stubbs, R. B. 2021. Comparison of direct and indirect methods of measuring arterial blood pressure in healthy, anesthetized African green monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops). JAALAS 60(2), 229-237.

Quantitative blood pressure measurement is a critical parameter for assessing cardiovascular health, monitoring physiologic status under anesthesia, and making clinical decisions. The placement of an arterial catheter is the most accurate way to measure blood...

Yatkin, E., Kulmala, N., Saukkonen, A. et al. 2021. A real-time health notification system aimed at enhancing the interaction between animal care staff and researchers promotes animal welfare. Laboratory Animals 55(3), 281-289.

Regardless of the microbiological status of an animal facility, research animals may experience health problems, leading to pain, suffering and distress. Simple and efficient tools are needed to collect data systematically, allowing researchers to react...

FELASA Working Group on Farm Animals: Berset, C. M., Caristo, M. E., Ferrara, F. et al. 2021. Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations recommendations of best practices for the health management of ruminants and pigs used for scientific and educational purposes. Laboratory Animals 55(2), 117-128.

Most ruminants and pigs used for scientific and educational aims are bred not for these purposes but in a farm environment. Given the wide range of diseases that these species might have, ensuring that the...

Hall, K., Bryant, J., Staley, M. et al. 2021. Behavioural diversity as a potential welfare indicator for professionally managed chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Exploring variations in calculating diversity using species-specific behaviours. Animal Welfare 30(4), 381-392.

Behavioural diversity may serve as a positive indicator of animal welfare that can be applied in long-term monitoring schemes in managed settings (eg zoos, laboratories, farms). Behavioural diversity is often higher when animals live in...

Ujita, A., Seekford, Z., Kott, M. et al. 2021. Habituation protocols improve behavioral and physiological responses of beef cattle exposed to students in an animal handling class. Animals 11(8), 2159.

Our objective was to determine the impact of different habituation protocols on beef cattle behavior, physiology, and temperament in response to human handling. Beef heifers were exposed to three habituation strategies: (1) tactile stimulation (brushing)...

Talbot, S., Freire, R., Wassens, S. 2021. Identifying behavioural traits and underlying personality dimensions in domestic ferrets (Mustela putorius furo). Animals 11(8), 2173.

The aim of this study was to examine the personality structure of domestic ferrets (Mustela putorius furo) by using owner-based reporting of personality traits. A total of 743 ferret owners participated in an online questionnaire...

Silva, S. R., Araujo, J. P., Guedes, C. et al. 2021. Precision technologies to address dairy cattle welfare: Focus on lameness, mastitis and body condition. Animals 11(8), 2253.

Specific animal-based indicators that can be used to predict animal welfare have been the core of protocols for assessing the welfare of farm animals, such as those produced by the Welfare Quality project. At the...

Pomerantz, O., Capitanio, J. P. 2021. Temperament predicts the quality of social interactions in captive female rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Animals 11(8), 2452.

Previous reports suggest that female macaques with greater similarity in emotionality and nervous temperament, as evaluated in a well-established BioBehavioral Assessment (BBA) at the California National Primate Research Center, were more likely to form successful...

Travain, T., Valsecchi, P. 2021. Infrared thermography in the study of animals’ emotional responses: A critical review. Animals 11(9), 2510.

Whether animals have emotions was historically a long-lasting question but, today, nobody disputes that they do. However, how to assess them and how to guarantee animals their welfare have become important research topics in the...

Minnig, A., Zufferey, R., Thomann, B. et al. 2021. Animal-based indicators for on-farm welfare assessment in goats. Animals 11(11), 3138.

This review describes the current state of knowledge relating to scientific literature on welfare indicators for goats. Our aim was to provide an overview of animal-based indicators for on-farm welfare assessments. We performed a literature...

Diana, A., Salas, M., Pereboom, Z. et al. 2021. A systematic review of the use of technology to monitor welfare in zoo animals: Is there space for improvement? Animals 11(11), 3048.

A top priority of modern zoos is to ensure good animal welfare (AW), thus, efforts towards improving AW monitoring are increasing. Welfare assessments are performed through more traditional approaches by employing direct observations and time-consuming...

Thomas, A. D., Orsel, K., Cortés, J. A. et al. 2021. Impact of digital dermatitis on feedlot cattle behaviour. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 244, 105468.

Digital dermatitis (DD) is an infectious disease affecting the bovine digital skin which can cause lameness and significantly affect animal welfare and economics. Digital dermatitis has emerged in feedlots and early identification of DD lesions...

Sun, D., Webb, L., van der Tol, P. P. J. et al. 2021. A systematic review of automatic health monitoring in calves: Glimpsing the future from current practice. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8, 761468.

Infectious diseases, particularly bovine respiratory disease (BRD) and neonatal calf diarrhea (NCD), are prevalent in calves. Efficient health-monitoring tools to identify such diseases on time are lacking. Common practice (i.e., health checks) often identifies sick...

Falendysz, E. A., Calhoun, D. M., Smith, C. A. et al. 2020. Outside the box: Working with wildlife in biocontainment. ILAR Journal 61(1), 72-85.

Research with captive wildlife in Animal Biosafety Level 2 (ABSL2) and 3 (ABSL3) facilities is becoming increasingly necessary as emerging and re-emerging diseases involving wildlife have increasing impacts on human, animal, and environmental health. Utilizing...

Ross, S. R., Lake, B. R., Fultz, A. et al. 2021. An evaluation of thermal imaging as a welfare monitoring tool for captive chimpanzees. Primates 62(6), 919-927.

Among the growing list of novel tools with which to assess animal welfare is the use of thermal (infrared) imaging. The technology has already been utilized to identify emotional arousal in several nonhuman primate species...

Edes, A. N., Brand, C. M. 2021. Age, sex, and inflammatory markers predict chronic conditions, cardiac disease, and mortality among captive western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). Primates 62(6), 931-943.

In humans, inflammatory markers predict health risks. As great apes experience many similar conditions, measuring inflammation may provide valuable health information. We examined four serum inflammatory markers in zoo-housed gorillas (n = 48): albumin, CRP, IL-6, and...

Thatcher, D. 2021. The use of a borescope for Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus goodfellowi) husbandry. RATEL (Journal of the Association of British and Irish Wild Animal Keepers) 48(2), 10-11.

In 2017 Bristol Zoological Gardens received two Goodfellow tree kangaroos. As this was a new marsupial species for the collection, keepers attended the European Symposium on tree kangaroos to better improve our husbandry, knowledge and...

Ramont, M., Leahy, M., Cronin, K. A. 2021. The welfare of domestic goats (Capra hircus) in a zoo-based animal-visitor interaction program. Animal Behavior and Cognition 8(4), 493–506.

We investigated whether the welfare of domestic goats in an animal-visitor interaction experience at a zoo was affected by the presence and behavior of visitors. We considered how the number of visitors in the goats’...

Guo, Y., He, D., Chai, L. 2020. A machine vision-based method for monitoring scene-interactive behaviors of dairy calf. Animals 10(2), 190.

Requirements for animal and dairy products are increasing gradually in emerging economic bodies. However, it is critical and challenging to maintain the health and welfare of the increasing population of dairy cattle, especially the dairy...

Lowe, G., McCane, B., Sutherland, M. et al. 2020. Automated collection and analysis of infrared thermograms for measuring eye and cheek temperatures in calves. Animals 10(2), 292.

As the reliance upon automated systems in the livestock industry increases, technologies need to be developed which can be incorporated into these systems to monitor animal health and welfare. Infrared thermography (IRT) is one such...