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. 
O’Leary, N. W., Byrne, D. T., Garcia, P. et al. 2020. Grazing cow behavior’s association with mild and moderate lameness. Animals 10(4), 661.

Accelerometer-based mobility scoring has focused on cow behaviors such as lying and walking. Accuracy levels as high as 91% have been previously reported. However, there has been limited replication of results. Here, measures previously identified...

Spigarelli, C., Zuliani, A., Battini, M. et al. 2020. Welfare assessment on pasture: A review on animal-based measures for ruminants. Animals 10(4), 609.

Outdoor and extensive farming systems allow animals to behave in a natural way and are often perceived as welfare friendly. Nonetheless, the natural environment poses multiple challenges to the welfare of animals, sometimes hampering their...

Von Jasmund, N., Wellnitz, A., Krommweh, M. S. et al. 2020. Using passive infrared detectors to record group activity and activity in certain focus areas in fattening pigs. Animals 10(5), 792.

Animal behavior is an important aspect in the assessment of animal welfare. Passive infrared detectors (PID), detecting thermal changes to measure activity, have already been used to record data on the behavior of groups of...

Sahar, M. W., Beaver, A., von Keyserlingk, M. A. G. et al. 2020. Predicting disease in transition dairy cattle based on behaviors measured before calving. Animals 10(6), 928.

Dairy cattle are particularly susceptible to metritis, hyperketonemia (HYK), and mastitis in the weeks after calving. These high-prevalence transition diseases adversely affect animal welfare, milk production, and profitability. Our aim was to use prepartum behavior...

Turner, P. V., Pang, D. S., Lofgren, J. L. 2019. A review of pain assessment methods in laboratory rodents. Comparative Medicine 69(6), 451–467.

Ensuring that laboratory rodent pain is well managed underpins the ethical acceptability of working with these animals in research. Appropriate treatment of pain in laboratory rodents requires accurate assessments of the presence or absence of...

Mondragón-Ancelmo, J., García Hernández, P., Rojo Rubio, R. et al. 2020. Small flocks show higher levels of welfare in Mexican semi-intensive sheep farming systems. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 23(3), 348-355.

In order to assess the level of sheep welfare in small traditional farms as compared with farms of increased size we evaluated several animal-based parameters and applied a modified Animal Needs Index (ANI) protocol in...

Millecam, J., van Bergen, T., Devreese, M. 2020. Gastrostomy tube placement via a laparotomic procedure in growing conventional piglets to perform multidose preclinical paediatric drug studies. Laboratory Animals 54(3), 261-271.

The use of juvenile conventional pigs as a preclinical animal model to perform pharmacokinetic (PK), pharmacodynamic (PD) and safety studies for the paediatric population is increasing. Repetitive oral administration of drugs to juvenile pigs is...

Hagemeister, K., Ernst, L., Kadaba Srinivasan, P. et al. 2020. Severity assessment in pigs after partial liver resection: Evaluation of a score sheet. Laboratory Animals 54(3), 251–260.

Severity assessment in biomedical research is required by the European authorities. Therefore, a variety of score sheets are available. The first score sheets were designed and introduced by Morton and Griffith (M&G) in 1985, to...

Wolf, T. E., Mangwiro, N., Fasina, F. O. et al. 2020. Non-invasive monitoring of adrenocortical function in female domestic pigs using saliva and faeces as sample matrices. PLOS ONE 15(6): e0234971.

Intensive pig management involves in a commercial setting the housing and implementation of certain procedures, such as castration and tail docking, which may be stressful for the animal. Good farming practices include the reduction of...

Sutherland, M. A., Worth, G. M., Dowling, S. K. et al. 2020. Evaluation of infrared thermography as a non-invasive method of measuring the autonomic nervous response in sheep. PLOS ONE 15(5): e0233558.

Eye temperature measured using infrared thermography (IRT) can be used as a non-invasive measure of autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity in cattle. The objective of this study was to evaluate if changes in eye temperature...

Alameer, A., Kyriazakis, I., Bacardit, J. 2020. Automated recognition of postures and drinking behaviour for the detection of compromised health in pigs. Scientific Reports 10, 13665.

Changes in pig behaviours are a useful aid in detecting early signs of compromised health and welfare. In commercial settings, automatic detection of pig behaviours through visual imaging remains a challenge due to farm demanding...

Statham, P., Hannuna, S., Jones, S. et al. 2020. Quantifying defence cascade responses as indicators of pig affect and welfare using computer vision methods. Scientific Reports 10, 8933.

Affective states are key determinants of animal welfare. Assessing such states under field conditions is thus an important goal in animal welfare science. The rapid Defence Cascade (DC) response (startle, freeze) to sudden unexpected stimuli...

Williams, H. J., Duncan, J. S., Grove-White, D. H. et al. 2020. Repeatability and feasibility of pressure algometry for quantifying mechanical nociceptive threshold in the thoracic region of calves. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 7, 442.

Pressure algometry can be used to quantify mechanical nociceptive threshold (MNT) in humans and animals. If reliable this may be a useful tool to examine calves for increased mechanical sensitivity, which may be induced by...

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...

Camerlink, I., Ursinus, W. W. 2020. Tail postures and tail motion in pigs: A review. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 230, 105079.

Animals’ tail posture and motion play an important role in communication, amongst others. In domestic pigs, the debate around tail docking and tail biting has made the tail an important research topic, and tail-related behaviour...

Chapa, J. M., Maschat, K., Iwersen, M. et al. 2020. Accelerometer systems as tools for health and welfare assessment in cattle and pigs – A review. Behavioural Processes 181, 104262.

Welfare assessment has traditionally been performed by direct observation by humans, providing information at only selected points in time. Recently, this assessment method has been questioned, as ‘Precision Livestock Farming’ technologies may be able to...

Cloutier Barbour, C., Danforth, M. D., Murphy, H. et al. 2020. Monitoring great ape heart health through innovative electrocardiogram technology: Training methodologies and welfare implications. Zoo Biology 39(6), 443-447.

Assessing and treating cardiovascular disease (or heart disease) is a growing concern for institutions housing great apes, as it is a major cause of mortality in all four taxa managed in human care. As part...

Masłowska, K., Mizzoni, F., Dwyer, C. M. et al. 2020. Qualitative behavioural assessment of pain in castrated lambs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 233, 105143.

This study investigates for the first time the application of Qualitative Behavioural Assessment (QBA) to the analysis of acute pain expression in castrated lambs. Eighty 2-day-old male lambs were allocated to one of 4 groups...

Dalmau, A., Moles, X., Pallisera, J. 2020. Animal welfare assessment protocol for does, bucks, and kit rabbits reared for production. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 7, 445.

Rabbits are the third species in terms of number of animals reared for meat production in the world. However, in comparison to other species, very few studies have focused on their welfare. The aim of...

Grant, E. P., Wickham, S. L., Anderson, F. et al. 2020. Preliminary findings on a novel behavioural approach for the assessment of pain and analgesia in lambs subject to routine husbandry procedures. Animals 10(7), 1148.

The identification and assessment of pain in sheep under field conditions are important, but, due to their stoic nature, are fraught with many challenges. In Australia, various husbandry procedures that are documented to cause pain...

Kaurivi, Y. B., Hickson, R., Laven, R. et al. 2020. Developing an animal welfare assessment protocol for cows in extensive beef cow-calf systems in New Zealand. Part 2: Categorisation and scoring of welfare assessment measures. Animals 10(9), 1592.

The intention of this study was to develop standards for a welfare assessment protocol by validating potential categorisation thresholds for the assessment of beef farms in New Zealand. Thirty-two measures, based on the Welfare Quality...

Kaurivi, Y. B., Laven, R., Hickson, R. et al. 2020. Developing an animal welfare assessment protocol for cows in extensive beef cow–calf systems in New Zealand. Part 1: Assessing the feasibility of identified animal welfare assessment measures. Animals 10(9), 1597.

Potential measures suitable for assessing welfare in pasture-based beef cow–calf systems in New Zealand were identified from Welfare Quality and UC Davis Cow-Calf protocols. These were trialled on a single farm and a potential protocol...

Leliveld, L. M. C., Provolo, G. 2020. A review of welfare indicators of indoor-housed dairy cow as a basis for integrated automatic welfare assessment systems. Animals 10(8), 1430.

For on-farm welfare assessment many automatic methods have been developed to detect indicators of reduced welfare. However, there is still a need to integrate data from single sources to obtain a complete picture of the...

Monk, J. E., Lee, C., Dickson, E., Campbell, D. L. M. 2020. Attention bias test measures negative but not positive affect in sheep: A replication study. Animals 10(8), 1314.

An attention bias test has been developed as a measure of negative affective states in sheep. The test measures an individual’s allocation of attention between a threatening (previous location of a dog) and positive (conspecific...

Navarro, E., Mainau, E., Manteca, X. 2020. Development of a facial expression scale using farrowing as a model of pain in sows. Animals 10(11), 2113.

Changes in facial expression have been shown to be a useful tool to assess pain severity in humans and animals, but facial scales have not yet been developed for all species. A facial expression scale...