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. 
Moszuti, S. A., Wilkinson, A., Burman, O. H. P. 2017. Response to novelty as an indicator of reptile welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 193, 98-103.

Whilst a great deal of research has been focused on identifying ways to assess the welfare of captive mammals and birds, there is comparatively little knowledge on how reptilian species are affected by captivity, and...

Stevens, C. H., Croft, D. P., Paull, G. C. et al. 2017. Stress and welfare in ornamental fishes: What can be learned from aquaculture? Journal of Fish Biology 91(2), 409-428.

The ornamental fish trade is estimated to handle up to 1.5 billion fishes. Transportation and handling of fishes imposes a range of stressors that can result in mortality at rates of up to 73%. Given...

Sutherland, M. A., Backus, B. L., Brooks, T. A. 2017. The effect of needle-free administration of local anesthetic on the behavior and physiology of castrated pigs. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 21, 71-76.

Pigs are routinely castrated in many countries without giving pain relief, which is an animal welfare concern. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the stress caused by administering local anesthetic (LA) using a...

Gabriel, S. M., Riley, K. M., Spinks, W. A. et al. 2017. Husbandry, care and enrichment of diabetic Sinclair swine in the laboratory environment. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 5(3) (September), 53-57.

Health monitoring, enrichment, training procedures and techniques, as well as instructions for the care of vascular access ports, are outlined in this paper. The procedures described herein helped maintain a successful, long-term research population of...

Roelofs, S., Murphy, E., Ni, H. et al. 2017. Judgement bias in pigs is independent of performance in a spatial holeboard task and conditional discrimination learning. Animal Cognition 20(4), 739–753.

Biases in judgement of ambiguous stimuli, as measured in a judgement bias task, have been proposed as a measure of the valence of affective states in animals. We recently suggested a list of criteria for...

Herrera, M., López, J., Herves, A. 2016. A preliminary approach on the stress assessment through harmless procedures in farmed seabream (Sparus aurata). Animal Welfare 25(4), 423-427.

Fish welfare is a key factor in ensuring successful cultures. Farmed fish that are stressed have been shown to be susceptible to pathologies and present lower growth rates. The present work seeks to check the...

Drude, N., Pawlowsky, K., Tanaka,H. et al. 2016. Severity assessment in rabbits after partial hepatectomy: Part II. Laboratory Animals 50(6), 468-475.

Although the recognition of pain, distress and discomfort has already been described in 1985 by Morton and Griffiths there is still very little known about the establishment of score sheets especially, regarding postsurgical pain and...

Wark, J. D., Amendolagine, L., Lukas, K. E. et al. 2016. Fecal glucocorticoid metabolite responses to management stressors and social change in four species of callitrichine monkeys. Primates 57(2), 267-277.

The use of enzyme immunoassays (EIA) for the non-invasive measurement of glucocorticoids provides a valuable tool for monitoring health and welfare in sensitive species. We validated methods for measuring fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (FGM) using the...

Hawkins, P., Atkinson, J., Birt, R. et al. 2016. Report of the 2015 RSPCA/UFAW rodent and rabbit welfare group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 15(1), 9-22. [Meeting Report]

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare Group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 21 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on rodent welfare issues and share experiences...

Bilsborrow, K., Seddon, Y. M., Brown, J. et al. 2016. An investigation of a novel behavioural test to assess pain in piglets following castration. Canadian Journal of Animal Science 96, 376-385.

A novel behavioural test using a handling chute was evaluated over two trials as an objective method to assess pain in piglets following castration. Piglet (n = 98) navigation time (NT) through a handling chute...

Carreras, R., Mainau, E., Arroyo, L. et al. 2016. Housing conditions do not alter cognitive bias but affect serum cortisol, qualitative behaviour assessment and wounds on the carcass in pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 185, 39-44.

Measures of animal emotions are essential to assess animal welfare. Recently, the cognitive bias technique has been proposed as a measure of animal affective state. This technique is based on the premise that subjects in...

Nääs, I. A., Garcia, R. G., Caldara, F. R. 2015. Infrared thermal image for assessing animal health and welfare. Journal of Animal Behaviour and Biometeorology 2(3), 66-72.

Infrared thermal imaging is a non-destructive testing technology that can be used to determine the superficial temperature of objects. This technology has an increasing use in detecting diseases and distress in animal husbandry within the...

Sneddon, L. U., Elwood, R. W., Adamo, S. A. et al. 2014. Defining and assessing animal pain. Animal Behaviour 97, 201-212.

The detection and assessment of pain in animals is crucial to improving their welfare in a variety of contexts in which humans are ethically or legally bound to do so. Thus clear standards to judge...

Burlingame, L. A., Na, J., Dunbar, M. et al. 2014. Behavioral ethogram as a health assessment tool in a feline vaccine study. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 610. (Abstract #P227).

For infectious disease studies, assessment of feline health is traditionally limited to metrics such as body temperature (BT), change in body weight (BW), and clinical signs (CS). Recently, behavioral ethograms designed for assessment of rabbits...

Turner, P. V., Viscardi, A., Lawli, P. et al. 2014. Evaluation of analgesic efficacy in piglets using a novel pig grimace scale. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 530 (Abstract #PS12).

There is a critical lack of information surrounding methods to improve the wellbeing of piglets undergoing painful procedures. It is not uncommon for piglets to undergo potentially painful procedures without anesthesia or analgesia, particularly for...

Martínez Silvestre, A. 2014. How to assess stress in reptiles. Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine 23(3), 240-243.

Stress, as an adaptive response of any animal to a stimulus that presents a threat to homeostasis, can occur in reptiles. Yet, many veterinarians fail to recognize the signs of stress in reptiles. In this...

Horback, K. 2014. Nosing around: Play in pigs. Animal Behavior and Cognition 2(2), 186.

The predominant method of measuring welfare in swine focuses on overt physical ailments, such as skin lesions, lameness, and body condition. An alternative metric for assessing welfare in swine can be to measure the frequency...

Lambeth, S. P., Schapiro, S. J., Bernacky, B. J. et al. 2013. Establishing 'quality of life' parameters using behavioural guidelines for humane euthanasia of captive non-human primates. Animal Welfare 22(4) 429-435.

Chronic pain and distress are universally accepted conditions that may adversely affect an animal’s quality of life (QOL) and lead to the humane euthanasia of an animal. At most research institutions and zoological parks in...

Hrapkiewicz, K., Colby, L. A., Denison, P. 2013. Clinical Laboratory Animal Medicine: An Introduction (4th Ed). Wiley-Blackwell, Ames, IA.

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...

Warwick, C., Arena, P., Lindley, S. et al. 2013. Assessing reptile welfare using behavioural criteria. In Practice 35(3), 123-131.

While clinical reptile medicine as a science is in its ascendancy among veterinary surgeons and other interested groups, familiarity with the often related issue of reptilian behavioural and psychological health appears less common. Behavioural change...

Camacho, J. N., Boskovic, S., Moeller, E. 2012. Improved nonhuman primate social housing using visual cues associated for an intensive research study. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 636-637 (Abstract #PS35).

Lean management-based visual tools have been used to improve the quality of animal care associated with a complex research study involving immune-compromised cynomolgus monkeys (M. fascicularis) in various postsurgical recovery states. In order to effectively...

Martin, A. L., Bloomsmith, M. A., Perlman, J. E. 2011. An assessment program to monitor behavior and evaluate treatment of behavioral problems. American Journal of Primatology 73(S1), 85. (34th Meeting of the American Society of Primatologists Scientific Program, Abstract #159)

At the Yerkes National Primate Center we have developed a system for behavioral assessment that includes these elements: frequent observation of behavior for all primates with a check sheet-type record; a quantitative system for recording...

Hawkins, P., Burn, C., Hurst, J. et al. 2011. Report of the 2010 RSPCA/UFAW rodent welfare group meeting - The effect of husbandry on welfare and promoting good practice. Animal Technology and Welfare 10(2), 105-114.

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...

Egeler, J. L., Hoekwater, S., Hoffman, H. D. 2010. Monitoring program for the treatment of nonhuman primates with behavioral disorders. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 717 (Abstract #P113).

Maintaining the psychologic wellbeing of nonhuman primates housed in a laboratory setting is an important aspect in providing the best possible care for these animals. Nonhuman primates kept in captivity can begin to display abnormal...

Harkness, J. E., Turner, P. V., Vande Woude, S. et al. 2010. Biology and Medicine of Rabbits and Rodents (5th Ed.). Wiley-Blackwell, Ames, Iowa.

The Biology and Medicine of Rabbits and Rodents provides concise, up - to - date, reasonably comprehensive information to anyone concerned with the health, care, and management of rabbits and rodents. The book is intended...