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. 
Toaff-Rosenstein, R. L., Tucker, C. B. 2018. The sickness response at and before clinical diagnosis of spontaneous bovine respiratory disease. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 201, 85-92.

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is often diagnosed in feedlots after observing behavioral changes such as anorexia, with fever confirmatory. However, this method has poor diagnostic accuracy compared to postmortem lung lesions. Little is known about...

Cannas, S., Palestrini, C., Canali, E. et al. 2018. Thermography as a non-invasive measure of stress and fear of humans in sheep. Animals 8(9), 146.

No data have been published on the use of infrared thermography (IRT) to evaluate sheep emotions. We assessed whether this technique can be used as a non-invasive measure of negative emotions. Two voluntary animal approach...

Grant, E. P., Brown, A., Wickham, S. L. et al. 2018. What can the quantitative and qualitative behavioural assessment of videos of sheep moving through an autonomous data capture system tell us about welfare? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 208, 31-39.

Sheep can be exposed to a variety of challenges and failure to adapt to these challenges can compromise their health and wellbeing. Regular monitoring of stock on large-scale or extensive systems may not always be...

Galán, E., Llonch, P., Villagrá, A. et al. 2018. A systematic review of non-productivity-related animal-based indicators of heat stress resilience in dairy cattle. PLOS ONE 13(11), e0206520.

Projected temperature rise in the upcoming years due to climate change has increased interest in studying the effects of heat stress in dairy cows. Environmental indices are commonly used for detecting heat stress, but have...

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...

Unakafov, A. M., Möller, S., Kagan, I. et al. 2018. Using imaging photoplethysmography for heart rate estimation in non-human primates. PLOS ONE 13(8), e0202581.

For humans and for non-human primates heart rate is a reliable indicator of an individual’s current physiological state, with applications ranging from health checks to experimental studies of cognitive and emotional state. In humans, changes...

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...

Häger, C., Biernot, S., Buettner, M. et al. 2017. The Sheep Grimace Scale as an indicator of post-operative distress and pain in laboratory sheep. PLOS ONE 12(4), e0175839.

The EU Directive 2010/63/EU changed the requirements regarding the use of laboratory animals and raised important issues related to assessing the severity of all procedures undertaken on laboratory animals. However, quantifiable parameters to assess severity...

Sadiq, M., Ramanoon, S., Shaik Mossadeq, W. et al. 2017. Association between lameness and indicators of dairy cow welfare based on locomotion scoring, body and hock condition, leg hygiene and lying behavior. Animals 7(11), 79.

Dairy cow welfare is an important consideration for optimal production in the dairy industry. Lameness affects the welfare of dairy herds by limiting productivity. Whilst the application of LS systems helps in identifying lame cows...

Musk, G., Jacobsen, S., Hyndman, T. et al. 2017. Objective measures for the assessment of post-operative pain in Bos indicus bull calves following castration. Animals 7(10), 76.

The aim of the study was to assess pain in Bos indicus bull calves following surgical castration. Forty-two animals were randomised to four groups: no castration (NC, n = 6); castration with pre-operative lidocaine (CL...

Oliver, V. L., Athavale, S., Simon, K. E. et al. 2017. Evaluation of pain assessment techniques and analgesia efficacy in a female guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) model of surgical pain. JAALAS 56(4), 425-435.

Guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) are a frequently used species in research, often involving potentially painful procedures. Therefore, evidence-based recommendations regarding analgesia are critically needed to optimize their wellbeing. Our laboratory examined the efficacy of carprofen...

Brenneis, C., Westhof, A., Holschbach, J. et al. 2017. Automated tracking of motion and body weight for objective monitoring of rats in colony housing. JAALAS 56(1), 18-31.

Living together in large social communities within an enriched environment stimulates self-motivated activity in rats. We developed a modular housing system in which a single unit can accommodate as many as 48 rats and contains...

Hawkins, P., McNeilly, A., Watson, J. et al. 2017. Report of the 2016 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent and Rabbit Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 16(2), 77-86.

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent (and now Rabbit) Welfare Group held a one-day meeting on 1 November 2016 at the University of Edinburgh and was attended by 70 delegates. Presentation topics included refinements in blood sampling rodents...

Jones, S., Paul, E. S., Dayan, P. et al. 2017. Pavlovian influences on learning differ between rats and mice in a counterbalanced Go/NoGo judgement bias task. Behavioural Brain Research 331, 214-224.

Judgement bias tests of animal affect and hence welfare assume that the animal’s responses to ambiguous stimuli, which may herald positive or negative outcomes, are under instrumental control and reflect ‘optimism’ or ‘pessimism’ about what...

Ebinghaus, A., Ivemeyer, S., Lauks, V. et al. 2017. How to measure dairy cows’ responsiveness towards humans in breeding and welfare assessment? A comparison of selected behavioural measures and existing breeding traits. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 196, 22-29.

For dairy cattle breeding as well as animal welfare science reliability and validity issues regarding measures of cows’ responsiveness towards humans are relevant. The objective of this study was to investigate reliability and validity aspects...

Lambert (Proctor), H. S., Carder, G. 2017. Looking into the eyes of a cow: Can eye whites be used as a measure of emotional state? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 186, 1-6.

A number of studies have looked at whether the percentage of visible eye whites could be a reliable and dynamic tool for measuring emotional state in cattle. In this study we have built upon previous...

Serrapica, M., Boivin, X., Coulon, M. et al. 2017. Positive perception of human stroking by lambs: Qualitative behaviour assessment confirms previous interpretation of quantitative data. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 187, 31-37.

Qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA) was used to validate previous published interpretation whether human stroking has beneficial effects on lambs prematurely separated from their mothers. For a period of 8 weeks a familiar human (FH) subjected...

Hales, C. A., Robinson, E. S. J., Houghton, C. J. 2016. Diffusion modelling reveals the decision making processes underlying negative judgement bias in rats. PLOS ONE 11(3), e0152592.

Human decision making is modified by emotional state. Rodents exhibit similar biases during interpretation of ambiguous cues that can be altered by affective state manipulations. In this study, the impact of negative affective state on...

Finlayson, K., Lampe, J. F., Hintze, S. 2016. Facial indicators of positive emotions in rats. PLOS ONE 11(11), e0166446.

Until recently, research in animal welfare science has mainly focused on negative experiences like pain and suffering, often neglecting the importance of assessing and promoting positive experiences. In rodents, specific facial expressions have been found...

Miller, A. L., Golledge, H. D. R., Leach, M. C. 2016. The influence of isoflurane anaesthesia on the rat grimace scale. PLOS ONE 11(11), e0166652.

Over 234,000 rats were used in regulated procedures in the UK in 2014, many of which may have resulted in some degree of pain. When using animals in research, there is an ethical and legal...

Foditsch, C., Oikonomou, G., Machado, V. S. et al. 2016. Lameness prevalence and risk factors in large dairy farms in upstate New York. Model development for the prediction of claw horn disruption lesions. PLOS ONE 11(1), e0146718.

The main objectives of this prospective cohort study were a) to describe lameness prevalence at drying off in large high producing New York State herds based on visual locomotion score (VLS) and identify potential cow...

Guesgen, M. J., Beausoleil, N. J., Minot, E. O. et al. 2016. Lambs show changes in ear posture when experiencing pain. Animal Welfare 25(2), 171-177.

Ear posture, or the frequency of postural changes, may reflect various emotional states of animals. In adult sheep (Ovis aries), the 'forward' ear posture has been associated with negative experiences whereas the 'plane' posture has...

Lang, A., Schulz, A., Ellinghaus, A. et al. 2016. Osteotomy models – the current status on pain scoring and management in small rodents. Laboratory Animals 50(6), 433-441.

Fracture healing is a complex regeneration process which produces new bone tissue without scar formation. However, fracture healing disorders occur in approximately 10% of human patients and cause severe pain and reduced quality of life...

Graf, R., Cinelli, P., Arras, M. 2016. Morbidity scoring after abdominal surgery. Laboratory Animals 50(6), 453-458.

Postoperative monitoring of pain and distress in small rodents is not standardized, and widely accepted score sheets are not available. Here we describe a score sheet used in abdominal surgery of rodents, with particular reference...