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. 
Skinner, M., Ceuppens, P., White, P. et al. 2019. Social-housing and use of double-decker cages in rat telemetry studies. Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods 96, 87-94.

Rat telemetry is widely used for biomedical research purposes and is used routinely in early pre-clinical drug development to screen for the potential cardiovascular risk of candidate drugs. Historically, these studies have been conducted in...

Hemmer, B. M., Parrish, A. E., Wise, T. B. et al. 2019. Social vs. Nonsocial housing differentially affects perseverative behavior in rats (Ratus norvegicus). Animal Behavior and Cognition 6(3), 168–178.

Perseverance, also commonly referred to as grit or industriousness, is the continued effort exerted to complete goal-directed tasks. Many factors, such as stress, can contribute to perseverative behavior, but the role of sociality on perseverance...

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...

Clarke, T., Pluske, J. R., Miller, D. W. et al. 2018. Parity influences the demeanor of sows in group housing. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 21(1), 17-26.

Across the globe, producers are moving from individual housing to group housing for sows during gestation. Producers typically group sows of a range of parities together, although the impacts are largely unknown. This study examined...

Li, Y., Zhang, H., Johnston, L. et al. 2018. Understanding tail-biting in pigs through social network analysis. Animals 8(1), 13.

The objective of this study was to investigate the association between social structure and incidence of tail-biting in pigs. Pigs (n = 144, initial weight = 7.2 ± 1.57 kg, 4 weeks of age) were...

Coke, C., Skoumbourdis, E., Rodgers, J. C. et al. 2018. Blunting/cutting canines of adult male monkeys: A discussion by the Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum. Animal Technology & Welfare 17(2), 105-107.

"When you keep adult Rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) males, adult Cynomolgus (Macaca fascicularis) males or adult Vervet males (Chlorocebus pygerythrus), in the same enclosure, is it advisable to have the canines of the males blunted...

van Wijk, H., Crossman, L., Adjin-Tettey, G. et al. 2018. Advances in animal welfare and scientific outcomes of the bile duct cannulated rat model utilised in ADME studies. Animal Technology and Welfare 17(1), 64-67.

Since rats lack a gall bladder, they are an ideal model for investigating continuous biliary excretion and biotransformation. The design and implementation of a modified tail cuff and cannula system introduced at Covance permits the...

Verdon, M., Morrison, R. S., Hemsworth, P. H. 2018. Forming groups of aggressive sows based on a predictive test of aggression does not affect overall sow aggression or welfare. Behavioural Processes 150, 17-24.

This experiment examined the effects of group composition on sow aggressive behaviour and welfare. Over 6 time replicates, 360 sows (parity 1–6) were mixed into groups (10 sows per pen, 1.8 m2 /sow) composed of...

Arakawa, H. 2018. Ethological approach to social isolation effects in behavioral studies of laboratory rodents. Behavioural Brain Research 341, 98-108.

The aim of the present review is to discuss how housing conditions affect behavioral performance in laboratory rodents from an ethological view. Commonly used laboratory rodents such as rats and mice, are originally captured animals...

Ison, S. H., Bates, R. O., Ernst, C. W. et al. 2018. Housing, ease of handling and minimising inter-pig aggression at mixing for nursery to finishing pigs as reported in a survey of North American pork producers. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 205, 159-166.

Inter-pig aggression is a welfare issue that has undergone extensive research. Although management techniques have proven useful in minimising aggression in research settings, it is not known how often these are used on-farm. One objective...

Peden, R. S. E., Turner, S. P., Boyle, L. A. et al. 2018. The translation of animal welfare research into practice: The case of mixing aggression between pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 204, 1-9.

Aggression between unfamiliar pigs at mixing is a major animal welfare problem in commercial farming. It has been studied since the 1970s and remains an important topic in animal welfare research. Methods to reduce pig...

Zomeño, C., Birolo, M., Gratta, F. et al. 2018. Effects of group housing system, pen floor type, and lactation management on performance and behaviour in rabbit does. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 203, 55-63.

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...

Camerlink, I., Farish, M., D’Eath, R. B. et al. 2018. Long term benefits on social behaviour after early life socialization of piglets. Animals 8(11), 192.

Early life socialization of piglets has been shown to reduce piglet aggression at weaning, but information on sow health and long-term benefits is lacking. We aimed to assess how socialization impacts sow udder quality and...

Faraji, J., Karimi, M., Soltanpour, N. et al. 2018. Intergenerational sex-specific transmission of maternal social experience. Scientific Reports 8, 10529.

The social environment is a major determinant of individual stress response and lifetime health. The present study shows that (1) social enrichment has a significant impact on neuroplasticity and behaviour particularly in females; and (2)...

Hocking, A. J., Elliot, D., Hua, J. et al. 2018. Administering fixed oral doses of curcumin to rats through voluntary consumption. JAALAS 57(5), 508–512.

Curcumin, a polyphenol derived from turmeric, has a wide variety of therapeutic benefits including antiinflammatory, antioxidative, and chemopreventative effects. Oral gavage is widely performed to administer curcumin in laboratory rodents in several experimental models. Although...

Salazar, L. C., Ko, H.-L., Yang, C.-H. et al. 2018. Early socialisation as a strategy to increase piglets’ social skills in intensive farming conditions. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 206, 25-31.

Socialisation is a process in which animals interact with unfamiliar conspecifics, that allows them to develop their social abilities. Socialisation has been proposed as a method in pig husbandry to increase piglets’ social skills and...

Bastian, M. L., Glendinning, D. R., Reddy, A. J. et al. 2018. Nest location preferences in zoo-housed orangutans. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 207, 123-128.

Nest building is an advanced and complex activity that wild orangutans engage in, yet they do so on a daily basis and with potential safety consequences. Like their wild counterparts, zoo-housed orangutans also make nests...

Raya, J., Neves Girardi , C. E., Hipólide, D. C. 2019. Corticosterone assimilation by a voluntary oral administration in palatable food to rats. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(1), 37-41.

Drug delivery in research on nonhuman animals in the laboratory is still challenging because it is usually invasive and stressful. Stress-free voluntary oral drug administration in water lacks precise control of dose and timing of...

Thurston, S., Burlingame, L., Lester, P. A. et al. 2018. Methods of pairing and pair maintenance of New Zealand white rabbits (Oryctolagus Cuniculus) via behavioral ethogram, monitoring, and interventions. JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) 133, e57267.

Though European rabbits are a social species, socially housing them can be challenging. Therefore, there must be a thorough understanding of behaviors and social structures of pair-housed laboratory rabbits. Here we present a protocol to...

Edwards, G. L., Michael, J. A., Parks., A. 2018. Agricultural animals as biomedical models: Occupational health and safety considerations. ILAR Journal 59(2), 161-167.

The use of agricultural animals in biomedical research is increasing. Their overall size and metabolic rate, organ size, longer gestation period, and other physiological similarities make them good candidates for animal models of human disease...

O’Rourke, D. P., Baccanale, C. L., Stoskopf, M. K. 2018. Nontraditional laboratory animal species (cephalopods, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds). ILAR Journal 59(2), 168-176.

Aquatic vertebrates and cephalopods, amphibians, reptiles, and birds offer unique safety and occupational health challenges for laboratory animal personnel. This paper discusses environmental, handling, and zoonotic concerns associated with these species.

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...

Byrd, R., Boyd, S., Buckmaster, C. 2018. Rat thunder jacket— A zen experience. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 6(3) (September), 55-57.

Germ-free rats are fairly uncommon, relative to germ-free mice, and restraining these animals safely and effectively for compound administration and blood collection can be challenging. There are many commercially available varieties of restraint devices, but...

Hawkins, P., McBride, A., Paiba, G. et al. 2018. Report of the 2017 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent and Rabbit Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 17(2), 75-83. [Meeting Report]

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...

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...