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. 

Gentling can reduce the fear reactions of young laboratory rats toward people long term. We were able to show this outcome in a previous study that involved a successful but elaborate gentling program. In the...

At Pfizer’s Pearl River site, rabbits are socially housed in pairs or triples in dog runs that have been converted into rabbit pens. The daily husbandry and maintenance of these pens, however, proved to be...

Research has indicated that witnessing managemental procedures are stressful to laboratory rats. Yet there has been little investigation into whether the time of witnessing these procedures affects behaviour and welfare in these animals. Ninety-six rats...

The European cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) is often kept in public aquaria, is becoming more common in aquaculture, and is also the most frequently used cephalopod in European research. Since 1st January 2013, all cephalopods (Mollusca)...

Dietary composition and presentation impacts on the behaviour of animals, and failure to provide a suitable diet can lead to reduced welfare through the development of poor health, the inability to express normal behaviours and...

The most common housing system for reproduction rabbits, individual cage housing on a wire floor, is increasingly scrutinized because of its potential detrimental impact on animal welfare. We compared three types of housing: (1) individual...

The welfare of laboratory rats and mice is sought to be optimised through adjustment of a variety of environmental factors, including light intensity and photoperiodicity. However, the fact that rodents are able to perceive ultraviolet...

The number of flooded cages per cage change cycle (14 days) was tracked and it was identified that leaks and flooding often times occurred shortly after cage changing. To reduce the occurrence of flooded caging...

This work aims to verify the role of noise and music as anxiety modulators and their relationship with ovarian hormones. For this purpose, female Wistar rats were used and treated, forming different experimental groups, with...

Our institution opened the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurologic Research Institute (NRI) in November of 2010. This facility houses a team of world renowned researchers working with mice and rats to develop treatments for childhood...

Clinical Laboratory Animal Medicine: An Introduction, Fourth Edition offers a user-friendly guide to the unique anatomy and physiology, care, common diseases, and treatment of small mammals and nonhuman primates. Carefully designed for ease of use...

The authors describe various methods of handling and restraining rabbits, and propose that while many methods are appropriate, rabbits respond better if only one method is used consistently.

Social housing is recommended for laboratory rats because they are highly social mammals but research constraints or medical issues often demand individual housing and, when social housing is practiced, it typically involves housing with only...

The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (the Guide) recommends that terrestrial mammals be provided space free of urine and feces in which to rest. To evaluate the feasibility of meeting this...

On Swiss rabbit breeding farms, group-housed does are usually kept singly for 12 days around parturition to avoid pseudogravidity, double litters and deleterious fighting for nests. After this isolation phase there is usually an integration...

Changing soiled cages is an integral part of husbandry, yet it can be a source of stress for both animal and animal care technician. In one case, large geriatric rats weighing around 1 kg did...

Despite the reported advantages of corncob bedding, questions have emerged about how comfortable animals find this type of bedding as a resting surface. In this study, encephalography (EEG) was used to compare the effects of...

Ongoing studies and historical data support the finding that deviations or exceptions from the cage density and sanitation frequency standards set forth in the Guide do not negatively affect animal health, welfare, or production parameters...

Routine laboratory procedures can be stressful for laboratory animals. We wanted to determine whether human handling of adult rabbits could induce a degree of habituation, reducing stress and facilitating research-related manipulation. To this end, adult...

A well-known example for gene x environment interactions in psychiatry is the one involving the low activity (s) allelic variant of the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) that in the context of stress increases...

Although loud noise and intense vibration are known to alter the behavior and phenotype of laboratory animals, little is known about the effects of nearby construction. We studied the effect of a nearby construction project...

Cage change is one of the unavoidable routines in laboratory rodent care. However, cage change disrupts the rodents’ olfactory environment and can evoke stress reactions. In this study, the short-term cardiovascular responses to three different...

In the animal facility, a range of different sounds are present. On the one hand, rats and humans will regard sound and noise differently even within the audible range, but on the other hand mice...

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare Group holds a one-day meeting every autumn so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on rodent welfare issues and share experiences of the implementation of the 3Rs...

The aims of this paper are to discuss the most appropriate housing, husbandry routine and enrichment for ferrets .. without compromising science.