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. 
Peruga, M., Kawala, B., Sarul, M. et al. 2023. Are currently selected laboratory animals useful in the research of how female hormones influence orthodontic biomechanics? Animals 13(4), 629.

Animal testing was and remains the only method of introducing a certain treatment and medical procedure on humans. On the other hand, animals have their rights resulting from applicable legal acts, including Directive 2010/63/EU and...

Deng, J., Zhang, H., Wang, Q. et al. 2023. An optimized environmental DNA method to improve detectability of the endangered Sichuan taimen (Hucho bleekeri). Fishes 8(7), 339.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques have emerged as a cost-effective and non-invasive strategy for monitoring the distribution of endangered aquatic species. Despite their numerous advantages, operational uncertainty at each step of the process represents a significant...

Schneidewind, S. J., Meemken, D., Langforth, S. 2023. Measures and penalties for animal welfare violations at german abattoirs: A compilation of current recommendations and practices. Animals 13(18), 2916.

Protecting animal welfare during preslaughter handling and slaughter is an important ethical concern with growing importance to consumers. However, animal welfare violations in abattoirs remain a serious problem, and the enforcement of relevant laws and...

Wang, C., Yang, C., Zeng, Y. et al. 2023. GnRH-immunocastration: An alternative method for male animal surgical castration. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10.
Baker, P. E., Nicol, C. J., Weeks, C. A. 2022. The effect of hard pecking enrichment during rear on feather cover, feather pecking behaviour and beak length in beak-trimmed and intact-beak laying hen pullets. Animals 12(6), 674.

Injurious pecking, commonly controlled by beak trimming (BT), is a widespread issue in laying hens associated with thwarted foraging. This controlled study compared the effect in intact and beak-trimmed pullets of providing pecking pans to...

Jang, J. Y., Liang, T., Kim, M.-K. et al. 2022. A rapid and noninvasive method that extracts polymerase chain reaction-ready genomic DNA from adult zebrafish. Zebrafish 19(4), 160-164.

Genotyping usually entails analysis of the products of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) carried out with genomic DNA (gDNA) as template, and is employed for validation of mutant or transgenic organisms. For genotyping of adult zebrafish...

Grün, S., Damme, K., Müller, M. et al. 2021. Welfare and performance of three turkey breeds—Comparison between infrared beak treatment and natural beak abrasion by pecking on a screed grinding wheel. Animals 11(8), 2395.

Feather pecking and cannibalism are behavioral disorders that cause animal-welfare-relevant and economic problems. To mitigate these problems, the beaks of conventionally reared turkeys are usually already trimmed in the hatcheries. To find an alternative to...

Schwarzer, A., Plattner, C., Bergmann, S. et al. 2021. Feather pecking in non-beak-trimmed and beak-trimmed laying hens on commercial farms with aviaries. Animals 11(11), 3085.

Severe feather pecking (SFP) is a major animal welfare problem in layers. It results in pain and injuries in the affected animal. It was the aim of this study to gain insight into the actual...

Zemanova, M. A. 2021. Noninvasive genetic assessment is an effective wildlife research tool when compared with other approaches. Genes 12(11), 1672.

Wildlife research has been indispensable for increasing our insight into ecosystem functioning as well as for designing effective conservation measures under the currently high rates of biodiversity loss. Genetic and genomic analyses might be able...

Reese, L., Ladwig-Wiegard, M., von Fersen, L. et al. 2020. Deflighting zoo birds and its welfare considerations. Animal Welfare 29(1), 69-80.

For over a century, the practice of deflighting has taken place in zoological collections in order to ensure birds remain in open-topped enclosures. Over time, efforts have been made to improve or develop new (surgical)...

Guinebretière, M., Mika, A., Michel, V. et al. 2020. Effects of management strategies on non-beak-trimmed laying hens in furnished cages that were reared in a non-cage system. Animals 10(3), 399.

Beak trimming in laying hens limits the negative consequences of injurious pecking, but could be prohibited by future regulations. This study assessed a combination of management strategies during the rearing period (objects, perches, music, human...

Reese, L., Baumgartner, K., von Fersen, L. et al. 2020. Feather corticosterone measurements of greater flamingos living under different forms of flight restraint. Animals 10(4), 605.

Deflighting zoo birds is a practice that receives increasing criticism due to its presumed incompatibility with animal welfare. To our knowledge, this is the first approach to address this problem in a scientific way. To...

Aleström, P., D’Angelo, L., Midtlyng, P. J. et al. 2020. Zebrafish: Housing and husbandry recommendations. Laboratory Animals 54(3), 213–224.

This article provides recommendations for the care of laboratory zebrafish (Danio rerio) as part of the further implementation of Annex A to the European Convention on the protection of vertebrate animals used for experimental and...

Reinhardt, V. (ed.) 2020. It’s Okay to Cry - Discussions by the Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum [LAREF], Volume V. Animal Welfare Institute, Washington, DC.

This is the 5th volume of selected discussions that took place on the electronic Laboratory Animal Refinement & Enrichment Forum between February 2016 and December 2019. The forum was created in October 2002; it allows...

Tilley, C. A., Carreño Gutierrez, H., Sebire, M. et al. 2020. Skin swabbing is a refined technique to collect DNA from model fish species. Scientific Reports 10(1), 18212.

Model fish species such as sticklebacks and zebrafish are frequently used in studies that require DNA to be collected from live animals. This is typically achieved by fin clipping, a procedure that is simple and...

Nawroth, C., Gygax, L. 2020. The legislative, ethical, and conceptual importance of replicability in farm animal welfare science. agriRxiv 2020, 20203211980.

In this commentary, we discuss three replicability issues that are specifically relevant to research regarding farm animal welfare: (1) Legislative action, and its potential economic consequences, should derive from robust and replicable research to benefit...

Struthers, S., Gupta, A., Gomis, S. et al. 2019. Understanding how infrared beak treatment affects the beak tissue and the healing response of brown and white feathered layer pullets. Animals 9(9), 665.

Infrared beak treatment has less of a negative impact on laying hen welfare compared to other methods of beak treatment; however, it is still not fully understood how infrared beak treatment affects the beak tissue...

Baker, S. W., Tucci, E. R., Felt, S. A. et al. 2019. A bird's-eye view of regulatory, animal care, and training considerations regarding avian flight research. Comparative Medicine 69(3), 169–178.

A thorough understanding of how animals fly is a central goal of many scientific disciplines. Birds are a commonly used model organism for flight research. The success of this model requires studying healthy and naturally...

Domingues, R. R., Garrone-Neto, D., Hilsdorf, A. W. S. et al. 2019. Use of mucus as a non-invasive sampling method for DNA barcoding of stingrays and skates (batoid elasmobranchs). Journal of Fish Biology 94(3), 512-516.

In this study we tested the use of mucus from five species of Neotropical marine batoid elasmobranchs to extract genomic DNA for barcoding and phylogenetic analysis. The DNA from all individuals sampled was successfully amplified...

Colby, L. A., Nowland, M. H., Kennedy, L. H. 2019. Clinical Laboratory Animal Medicine: An Introduction (5th ed). Wiley-Blackwell, Ames, IA.

The revised fifth edition of Clinical Laboratory Animal Medicine: An Introduction is an accessible guide to basic information for conducting animal research safely and responsibly. It includes a review of the unique anatomic and physiologic...

Lambert, C. J., Freshner, B. C., Chung, A. et al. 2018. An automated system for rapid cellular extraction from live zebrafish embryos and larvae: Development and application to genotyping. PLOS ONE 13(3), e0193180.

Zebrafish are a valuable model organism in biomedical research. Their rapid development, ability to model human diseases, utility for testing genetic variants identified from next-generation sequencing, amenity to CRISPR mutagenesis, and potential for therapeutic compound...

Carter, E. 2018. Updated Code of Practice for the welfare of meat chickens and meat breeding chickens in England. Animal Welfare 27(2), 181-185.

Much of the content in the 2018 Code is similar to that found in previous guidance documents: the 2002 Code of Practice for the Welfare of Meat Chickens and Meat Breeding Chickens, and the 2011...

Breacker, C., Barber, I., Norton, W. H. J. et al. 2017. A low-cost method of skin swabbing for the collection of DNA samples from small laboratory fish. Zebrafish 14(1), 35-41.

Fin clipping of live fish under anesthesia is widely used to collect samples for DNA extraction. An alternative, potentially less invasive, approach involves obtaining samples by swabbing the skin of nonanesthetized fish. However, this method...

Nordquist, R., van der Staay, F., van Eerdenburg, F. et al. 2017. Mutilating procedures, management practices, and housing conditions that may affect the welfare of farm animals: Implications for welfare research. Animals 7(2), 12.

A number of mutilating procedures, such as dehorning in cattle and goats and beak trimming in laying hens, are common in farm animal husbandry systems in an attempt to prevent or solve problems, such as...

Lawton, S. 2017. Do Buccal swabs from Zebrafish give enough of a sample of DNA to be used as a viable non-invasive method of genotyping? Animal Technology and Welfare 16(3), 155-164.

The zebrafish has become a valuable research model within the laboratory. Currently the proven method of genotyping involves taking a tail fin clip from the fish to gain the sample. This involves surgically removing a...