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. 
King, R. L., Baxter, E. M., Matheson, S. M. et al. 2018. Sow free farrowing behaviour: Experiential, seasonal and individual variation. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 208, 14-21.

Although sow confinement at farrowing is inherently stressful, farrowing crates remain in widespread commercial use. Sows adapt to their environment, however adaptation may be counter-productive if the farrowing system changes. The current study observed the...

González-Pech, P. G., Marín-Tun, C. G., Valladares-González, D.A. et al. 2018. A protocol of human animal interaction to habituate young sheep and goats for behavioural studies. Behavioural Processes 157, 632-637.

Animal habituation is key to obtain reliable data on behavioural studies but detailed procedures to achieve it are scarce. This study designed a set of actions to habituate sheep and goats to human observers. Pelibuey...

Freret-Meurer, N. V., Alves, M. A. S. 2018. Personality in the longsnout seahorse, Hippocampus reidi Ginsburg, 1933: Are males shyer than females? Behavioural Processes 157, 106-110.

Individual responses, particularly based on personality, can have important consequences for individual fitness, based upon success in exploring new habitats, feeding on novel foods, and aggressiveness in competitive interactions. We conducted laboratory experiments to analyze...

Nawroth C., Albuquerque N., Savalli C. et al. 2018. Goats prefer positive human emotional facial expressions. Royal Society Open Science 5(8), 180491.

Domestication has shaped the physiology and the behaviour of animals to better adapt to human environments. Therefore, human facial expressions may be highly informative for animals domesticated for working closely with people, such as dogs...

Gut, W., Crump, L., Zinsstag, J. et al. 2018. The effect of human interaction on guinea pig behavior in animal-assisted therapy. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 25, 56-64.

Guinea pigs are included in various animal-assisted interventions (AAIs), but no research has been published to date on behavioral changes in guinea pigs interacting with humans. The goal of this study was to evaluate the...

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...

Reiter, S., Zöls, S., Ritzmann, M. et al. 2017. Penile injuries in immunocastrated and entire male pigs of one fattening farm. Animals 7(9), 71.

Penile injuries in boars have been discussed as a relevant welfare problem in pork production with entire males (EM). The incidence of penile injuries with immunocastrated boars has not been described so far. Thus, it...

Mesarec, N., Prevolnik Povše, M., Škorjanc, D. et al. 2017. Gangs of piglets: Welfare and growth of imprinted and guided weaners. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 195, 44-49.

Weaning stress accompanied by outburst of aggression is a critical point in pig production as it compromises piglets’ welfare and leads to poor growth rate and health problems. Therefore, a weaning methods to smoothen the...

de Lima Rocha, A. D., Menescal-de-Oliveira, L., da Silva, L. F. S. 2017. Effects of human contact and intra-specific social learning on tonic immobility in guinea pigs, Cavia porcellus. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 191, 1-4.

Social learning is the capacity of animals to acquire adaptive information from others. In the case of fear responses, animals can learn fearful or non-fearful responses by observing the behavior of conspecifics. Tonic immobility (TI)...

Parois, S., Larzul, C., Prunier, A. 2017. Associations between the dominance status and sexual development, skin lesions or feeding behaviour of intact male pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 187, 15-22.

In boars, social relationships could influence pubertal development and feeding behaviour. The objectives of the present study were to determine the relationships between behaviour (agonistic, mounting and feeding behaviours), plasma sex steroids (oestradiol, testosterone) and...

Burton, D., Burton, M. (Eds). 2017. Essential Fish Biology: Diversity, Structure and Function. Oxford University Press: Oxford, U.K., 448 pp.

This book summarizes the basic features of living fish. It is introduced by a chapter on the diversity of a group which has over 30,000 species, the largest within the vertebrates, describing the classification systems...

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...

Carter, C. L, Adams, J. K., Czarra, J. A. et al. 2016. An incidence of pseudopregnancy associated with the social enrichment of rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculi). JAALAS 55(1), 98-99.

Here we describe a case of pseudopregnancy in a New Zealand White rabbit as a result of pair housing with an aggressive conspecific. Clinical signs included fur pulling and nest building that developed shortly after...

Jolles, J. W., Aaron-Taylor, B., Manica, A. 2016. Recent social conditions affect boldness repeatability in individual sticklebacks. Animal Behaviour 112, 139-145.

Animal personalities are ubiquitous across the animal kingdom and have been shown both to influence individual behaviour in the social context and to be affected by it. However, little attention has been paid to possible...

Nawroth, C., Ebersbach, M., von Borell, E. 2016. Are domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domestica) able to use complex human-given cues to find a hidden reward? Animal Welfare 25(2), 185-190.

Understanding human-animal interactions in livestock production systems is crucial for improving animal welfare. It is therefore of general interest to investigate how livestock animals obtain information from humans. By using an object-choice paradigm, we investigated...

Wallace, P. Y., Asa, C. S., Agnew, M. et al. 2016. A review of population control methods in captive-housed primates. Animal Welfare 25(1), 7-20.

The success of breeding primates in captivity has led to a surplus number of animals in collections. This review examines published journals and key books to investigate the various methods of primate population control. Hormonal...

McGlone, J., Guay, K., Garcia, A. et al. 2016. Comparison of intramuscular or subcutaneous injections vs. castration in pigs—impacts on behavior and welfare. Animals 6(9), 52.

Physical castration (PC) is painful and stressful for nursing piglets. One alternative to PC is immunological castration (IC), but the pain and stress of handling associated with injections have not been assessed. The objectives of...

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...

Westin, R., Hultgren, J., Algers, B. 2015. Strategic use of straw increases nest building in loose housed farrowing sows. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 166, 63-70.

In spite of domestication, sows are still genetically programmed to perform nesting behaviour close to farrowing. In order to facilitate nest building, a method for a strategic use of large quantities of straw has been...

Brajon, S., Laforest, J. P., Bergeron, R. et al. 2015 Persistency of a piglet's reactivity to the handler following a previous positive or negative experience. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 162, 9-19.

A central question in the stockman-animal relationship is how animals perceive humans depending on previous interactions with them. This study aimed at measuring the influence of a previous experience with humans on subsequent reactivity to...

de Oliveira, D., da Costa, J. R. P., Zupan, M. et al. 2015. Early human handling in non-weaned piglets: Effects on behaviour and body weight. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 164, 56-63.

Early handling of animals including tactile stimulation (TS) has been shown to have beneficial effects on the physical and psychological development of species where considerable maternal interaction, e.g. in the form of licking, already occurs...

Bayne, K. A., Beaver, B. V., Mench, J. A. et al. 2015. Laboratory animal behavior. In: Laboratory Animal Medicine, 3rd edition. Fox, J. G., Anderson, L., Otto, G., et al. (eds). Elsevier, Inc., Amsterdam, NL. pp. 1617-1651.

The study of laboratory animal behavior has increased steadily over the last decade, with expanding emphasis on a variety of commonly used species. In the United States, this trend was initially focused on species for...

Nicholson, G., Sheldon, E. L., Hamilton, J. et al. 2014. Sand pools as a novel enrichment for rabbits. American Association for Laboratory Animal Science [AALAS] Meeting Official Program, 571. (Abstract #P83).

For anyone who has housed rabbits in an artificial plastic environment, what to provide as a nonfood enrichment can be an issue. Nonfood enrichment, or environmental enrichment, can be any toy, engaging sights or sounds...

Croney, C. 2014. Let's stay together: Implications of social housing for laboratory pig welfare and management. Enrichment Record 19, 14-19.

Appropriately accommodating the pig's normal social behavior is an essential step in protecting its well-being in managed environments. Doing so is particularly important in laboratory settings in which distress due to social isolation and other...

Zhou, Q., Sun, Q., Wang, G. et al. 2014. Group housing during gestation affects the behaviour of sows and physiological indices of offspring at weaning. Animal 8(7), 1162-1169.

To compare the behaviour of sows and the physiological indices of their offspring in stall and group-housing systems, 28 sows were randomly distributed into two systems with 16 sows in stalls, and the other 12...