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. 
Mather, J. A., Carere, C. 2019. Consider the individual: Personality and welfare in invertebrates. In: The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals. Carere, C., Mather, J. (eds), 229-245. Springer, Cham.

Personality, defined as consistent between-individual variation in clusters of behavioral traits independent of factors such as age or sex, emerges in most animal species tested so far. The number of invertebrate species discovered to have...

Shelton, K. A., Nehete, B. P., Chitta, S. et al. 2019. Effects of transportation and relocation on immunologic measures in cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis). JAALAS 58(6), 774–782.

NHP are a small, but critical, portion of the animals studied in research laboratories. Many NHP are imported or raised at one facility and subsequently moved to another facility for research purposes. To improve our...

Peric, T., Comin, A., Corazzin, M., et al. 2018. Hair cortisol concentrations in New Zealand white rabbits subjected to surgery. Animal Welfare 27(1), 13-20.

The aim of this study was to assess hair cortisol concentrations in New Zealand white rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) that were subjected to relocation and surgery to evaluate HPA-axis activity; in addition, we used this marker...

Kallio, P. A, Janczak, A. M., Valros, A. E. et al. 2018. Case control study on environmental, nutritional and management-based risk factors for tail-biting in long-tailed pigs. Animal Welfare 27(1), 21-34.

A case control study with a questionnaire was carried out to compare feeding practices, diet composition, housing and management in 78 herds with or without a history of tail-biting in undocked pigs (Sus scrofa) in...

Anderson, J. H., Taggart, N. W., Edgerton, S. L. et al. 2018. Ultrasound guided percutaneous common carotid artery access in piglets for intracoronary stem cell infusion. Laboratory Animals 52(1), 88-92.

In pigs, the deep location of the common carotid artery and overlying sternomastoideus muscle in the neck has led to the recommendation for a surgical cutdown for common carotid access, as opposed to minimally invasive...

Ekman, L., Nyman, A.-K., Landin, H. et al. 2018. Hock lesions in dairy cows in freestall herds: A cross-sectional study of prevalence and risk factors. Acta Vererinaria Scandinavica 60(1), 47.

Hock lesions (HL) in dairy cows are a common animal welfare problem in modern dairy production with freestall housing systems, but there are no large-scale studies addressing its epidemiology in Sweden. The aims of this...

Gottlieb, D. H., Del Rosso, L, Sheikhi, F. et al. 2018. Personality, environmental stressors, and diarrhea in Rhesus macaques: An interactionist perspective. American Journal of Primatology 80(12), e22908.

Previous research has repeatedly shown both personality and psychological stress to predict gastrointestinal disorders and chronic diarrhea in humans. The goal of the present research was to evaluate the role of personality, as well as...

Linden, J.B., Capitanio, J.P., McCowan, B. et al. 2018. Coping style and cortisol levels in infancy predict hair cortisol following new group formation in captive rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). American Journal of Primatology 80(12), e22938.

Social instability in primate groups has been used as a model to understand how social stress affects human populations. While it is well established that individual cercopithecines have different temperaments or personalities, little is known...

Bulens, A., Van Beirendonck, S., Van Thielen, J. et al. 2018. Rearing finishing pigs with intact tails: Do they benefit from an enriched environment? Journal of Veterinary Behavior 24, 1-8.

In an attempt to prevent tail biting in pigs, tail docking is often done. This management procedure is painful for the pigs, so the question arises whether pigs can be raised with intact tails and...

Benedict, D., Megrath, B. 2018. Upgrades to nonhuman primate tethered infusion system. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 6(3) (September), 62-64.

Continuous tethered infusions in any animal model pose a unique set of problems. These problems are amplified when nonhuman primates are the model. A high tolerance to the tether system by an animal model is...

Coursodon, P., Cox, L., Largent-Milnes, T. M. et al. 2018. Enhanced environmental enrichment strategies for retired rhesus macaques. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 6(2) (June), 41-43.

One challenge in providing enrichment to NHP arises following completion of their assigned studies (retired) when there tends to be a sudden decrease in provision of daily human interaction and overall stimulation that results from...

Foris, B., Zebunke, M., Langbein, J. et al. 2018. Evaluating the temporal and situational consistency of personality traits in adult dairy cattle. PLOS ONE 13(10), e0204619.

Recent research suggests that personality, defined as consistent individual behavioral variation, in farm animals could be an important factor when considering their health, welfare, and productivity. However, behavioral tests are often performed individually and they...

Vázquez Diosdado, J. A., Barker, Z. E., Hodges, H. R. et al. 2018. Space-use patterns highlight behavioural differences linked to lameness, parity, and days in milk in barn-housed dairy cows. PLOS ONE 13(12), e0208424.

Lameness is a key health and welfare issue affecting commercial herds of dairy cattle, with potentially significant economic impacts due to the expense of treatment and lost milk production. Existing lameness detection methods can be...

Buisman, L. L., Alsaaod, M., Bucher, E. et al. 2018. Objective assessment of lameness in cattle after foot surgery. PLOS ONE 13(12), e0209783.

Assessment of lameness in cattle after foot surgery is important to monitor the recovery period, to improve the long-term success and the cows’ welfare. This longitudinal multicenter retrospective study was carried out to evaluate the...

Hopper, L. M., Cronin, K. A., Ross, S. R. 2018. A multi-institutional assessment of a short-form personality questionnaire for use with macaques. Zoo Biology 37(5), 281-289

There are two commonly used methods for calculating primates’ personality dimensions, behavioral assessments and surveys, which can be used separately or in conjunction. However, these methods have limitations. Behavioral assessments, such as the novel object...

Ekesbo, I., Gunnarsson, S. 2018. Farm Animal Behaviour: Characteristics for Assessment and Welfare (2nd ed). CABI, Wallingford, UK.

Completely updated and revised, and with a new author team, this second edition of Farm Animal Behaviour continues to provide essential information on normal and stereotypic behaviors in a wide variety of farm animals to...

Nehete, P. N., Shelton, K. A., Nehete, B. P. et al. 2017. Effects of transportation, relocation, and acclimation on phenotypes and functional characteristics of peripheral blood lymphocytes in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). PLOS ONE 12(12), e0188694.

Nonhuman primates from domestic sources constitute a small, but critical, proportion of animals studied in research laboratories. Many of these nonhuman primates are raised at one facility and subsequently transported/relocated to another facility for research...

Pluschke, A. M., Simmons, G. S., Keates, H. L. et al. 2017. An updated method for the jugular catheterization of grower pigs for repeated blood sampling following an oral glucose tolerance test. Laboratory Animals 51(4), 397-404.

Jugular catheterization is a common procedure used under experimental conditions. However, there is considerable variation in the reported techniques, particularly for grower pigs (>40 kg and 10 mL) are required. This paper provides a complete...

Miranda, A., Pego, J. M., Correia-Pinto, J. 2017. Animal facility videoendoscopic intubation station: Tips and tricks from mice to rabbits. Laboratory Animals 51(2), 204-207.

Endotracheal intubation of laboratory animals is a common procedure shared by several research fields for different purposes, such as mechanical ventilation of anaesthetized animals, instillation of cytotoxic nanoparticles, infectious agents or tumour cells for induction...

Peric, T., Comin, A., Corazzin, M. et al. 2017. Relocation and hair cortisol concentrations in New Zealand White rabbits. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 20(1), 1-8.

To investigate how long relocation modified hair cortisol concentrations in New Zealand white rabbits, 19 rabbits were subjected to a change in their breeding facility at the beginning of the trial and then were kept...

Lehmann, H., Blache, D., Drynan, E. et al. 2017. Optimum drug combinations for the sedation of growing boars prior to castration. Animals 7(8), 61.

Juvenile male pigs were sedated for castration. Eight five-month old boars were sedated twice (two weeks apart) with a combination of detomidine (0.1 mg/kg), midazolam (0.2 mg/kg) and either butorphanol (0.2 mg/kg) (Group MDB, n...

Vermeer, H., Dirx-Kuijken, N., Bracke, M. 2017. Exploration feeding and higher space allocation improve welfare of growing-finishing pigs. Animals 7(5), 36.

Lack of environmental enrichment and high stocking densities in growing-finishing pigs can lead to adverse social behaviors directed to pen mates, resulting in skin lesions, lameness, and tail biting. The objective of the study was...

Cinque, C., De Marco, A., Mairesse, J. et al. 2017. Relocation stress induces short-term fecal cortisol increase in Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana). Primates 58(2), 315-321.

The level of glucocorticoids, especially if obtained from noninvasive sampling, can be used as an index of animal well-being, allowing evaluation of the animal’s response to environmental modifications. Despite evidence that these hormones play a...

Davis, K., Seddon, Y., Creutzinger, K. et al. 2017. An investigation into the use of sucrose to reduce castration pain in piglets. Canadian Journal of Animal Science 97(3), 439-447.

Oral sucrose was evaluated for its ability to reduce pain following castration. Piglets (n = 126) were assigned to one of the five treatments: (1) castrated and given 3 mL of water (C); (2) castrated...

Hill, H. M. 2017. The psychology of cows? A case of over-interpretation and personification. Animal Behavior and Cognition 4(4), 506–511.

Reviews of existing literature on topics that have been neglected, such as the subject of the cognitive and affective abilities of cows, are productive and necessary exercises in science (Elwen, Findlay, Kiszka, & Weir, 2011...