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. 
Rentsch, A. K., Rufener, C. B., Spadavecchia, C. et al. 2019. Laying hen’s mobility is impaired by keel bone fractures and does not improve with paracetamol treatment. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 216, 19-25.

Keel bone fractures (KBF) in laying hens pose a severe problem for animal welfare as they are likely to be associated with pain and suffering. Furthermore, they are suspected to hinder or restrict hens in...

Moyano Barbosa, H., Gama Nogueira-Filho, S. L., Nogueira de Morais, R. et al. 2019. Non-invasive stress monitoring and temperament of chestnut-bellied seed-finch (Passeriformes, Thraupidae). Applied Animal Behaviour Science 220, 104859.

Songbirds are kept as pets around the world, and bird-singing contests occur in several countries. However, there is a lack of scientific support for songbird welfare and stress monitoring. Thus, we aimed to validate the...

McNamara, A., Allen, L. 2019. Bottle or bowl? Feeding and dosing in juvenile Göttingen minipigs. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(2), 153-154. (IAT Congress 2018 Poster Presentation)

The Laboratory Animal Technology department at Envigo were engaged to perform a toxicity study in juvenile Göttingen Minipigs. The test compound was a human milk formula additive. Therefore, to mimic the conditions of clinical administration...

Urrutia, A., Martínez-Byer, S., Szenczi, P. et al. 2019. Stable individual differences in vocalisation and motor activity during acute stress in the domestic cat. Behavioural Processes 165, 58-65.

The behavioural assessment of individual animals in stressful situations should consider measures which are consistent across repeated testing, and therefore truly representative of an individual's behaviour. Here we report a study conducted on 40 neutered...

Costa, J. H. C., Cantor, M. C., Adderley, N. A. et al. 2019. Key animal welfare issues in commercially raised dairy calves: social environment, nutrition, and painful procedures. Canadian Journal of Animal Science 99(4), 649-660.

Dairy calf welfare concerns are growing and new evidence suggests that the early life environment influences appropriate physical, behavioral, and cognitive development lasting into adulthood. This review highlights key evidence for the impacts of housing...

Dunbar, M. L., Walkowiak, K. J., Schappa Faustich, J. et al. 2019. Preliminary evaluation of sustained-release compared with conventional formulations of meloxicam in sheep (Ovis aries). JAALAS 58(3), 339-345.

Sustained-release (SR) drugs refine current analgesic regimens by alleviating the need for multiple sessions of handling and restraint and by reducing the local tissue irritation that can occur due to repeated injections. Although a variety...

Warwick, C., Arena, P., Steedman, C. 2019. Spatial considerations for captive snakes. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 30, 37-48.

Captive environments for snakes commonly involve small enclosures with dimensions that prevent occupants from adopting straight line body postures. In particular, the commercial, hobby, and pet sectors routinely utilize small vivaria and racking systems, although...

Musk, G. C., Kershaw, H., He, B. 2019. Multiple refinements to the anaesthetic protocol for laparoscopic orthotopic kidney auto-transplantation in a pig model. Laboratory Animals 53(1), 72–78.

Fifty-four pigs (Sus scrofa, Large White cross) from a commercial pig farm were anaesthetised over a six-year period from October 2011. The procedural stages included initial instrumentation for intra-operative monitoring, laparoscopic nephrectomy, preparation of the...

Balansard, I., Cleverley, L., Cutler, K. L. et al. 2019. Revised recommendations for health monitoring of non-human primate colonies (2018): FELASA Working Group Report. Laboratory Animals 53(5), 429–446.

The genetic and biological similarity between non-human primates and humans has ensured the continued use of primates in biomedical research where other species cannot be used. Health-monitoring programmes for non-human primates provide an approach to...

Bellini, L., De Benedictis, G. M. 2019. Effect of three opioid-based analgesic protocols on the perioperative autonomic-mediated cardiovascular response in sheep. Laboratory Animals 53(5), 491–499.

Few reports evaluate the clinical effects of opioids in sheep during experimental surgical procedures. Catecholamine-mediated haemodynamic changes resulting from surgical noxious stimulation are blunted by opioids. The aim of this study was to evaluate the...

Boileau, A., Farish, M., Turner, S. P. et al. 2019. Infrared thermography of agonistic behaviour in pigs. Physiology & Behavior 210, 112637.

Infrared thermography (IRT) or thermal imaging is increasingly being used as a non-invasive method to gain information on animals' physiological and emotional state. IRT has the potential to serve as a non-invasive quantitative assessment method...

Ermatinger, F. A., Brügger, R. K., Burkart, J. M. 2019. The use of infrared thermography to investigate emotions in common marmosets. Physiology & Behavior 211, 112672.

Measuring body surface temperature changes with infrared thermography has recently been put forward as a non-invasive alternative measure of physiological correlates of emotional reactions. In particular, the nasal region seems to be highly sensitive to...

Bracke, M. B. M., Koene, P., Estevez, I. et al. 2019. Broiler welfare trade-off: A semi-quantitative welfare assessment for optimised welfare improvement based on an expert survey. PLOS ONE 14(10), e0222955.

In order to support decision making on how to most effectively improve broiler welfare an innovative expert survey was conducted based on principles derived from semantic modelling. Twenty-seven experts, mainly broiler welfare scientists (n =...

Correia de Lima Almeida Paz, I., Correia de Lima Almeida, I., Milbradt, E. L. et al. 2019. Effects of analgesic and noise stimulus in gait score assessment. PLOS ONE 14(1), e0208827.

This experiment was carried out aiming to assess walking manner and speed of broiler chickens with different gait scores (GS), with or without sound stimulus, and with or without administration of analgesic. To that end...

Schoos, A., Devreese, M., Maes, D. G. 2019. Use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in porcine health management. Veterinary Record 185(6), 172.

Objective: Treatment of inflammation and pain management is an important topic in the welfare of pigs. It is very difficult for veterinary practitioners to choose the most appropriate product for a certain problem. This review...

Busin, V., Viora, L., King, G. et al. 2019. Evaluation of lameness detection using radar sensing in ruminants. Veterinary Record 185(18), 572.

Background: Lameness is a major health, welfare and production-limiting condition for the livestock industries. The current ‘gold-standard’ method of assessing lameness by visual locomotion scoring is subjective and time consuming, whereas recent technological advancements have...

Miller, K. A., Hill, N. J., Carrasco, S. E. et al. 2019. Pharmacokinetics and safety of intramuscular meloxicam in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). JAALAS 58(5), 589–593.

Meloxicam is the most frequently used NSAID in birds; however, its elimination t1/2 is highly variable among species. Because zebra finches that require analgesia could benefit from receiving meloxicam, we performed a pharmacokinetic study involving...

Camps, T., Amat, M., Manteca, X. 2019. A review of medical conditions and behavioral problems in dogs and cats. Animals 9(12), 1133.

Not all animals behave identically when faced with the same situation. These individual differences in the expression of their behavior could be due to many factors, including medical conditions. These medical problems can change behavior...

Khattak, R., Liu, Z., Teng, L. 2019. Development and implementation of baseline welfare assessment protocol for captive breeding of wild ungulate—Punjab urial (Ovis vignei punjabiensis, Lydekker 1913). Animals 9(12), 1102.

To ensure that captive breeding and other associated programs are more robust and sustainable, it is of utmost importance to ensure optimum welfare. Although it is well known that standard welfare is crucial for successful...

McMillan, F. D. (ed). 2019. Mental Health and Well-being in Animals (2nd ed). CABI, Wallingford, UK.

This second edition is fully revised, expanded, and comprehensively updated with the most current knowledge about the full array of mental health issues seen in animals. Written by key opinion leaders, internationally-recognized experts and specialists...

Stillman, M. W., Whittaker, A. L. 2019. Use and efficacy of analgesic agents in sheep (Ovis aries) used in biomedical research. JAALAS 58(6), 755–766.

Sheep (Ovis aries) are widely used as large animal models in biomedical research. However, current literature on the use of analgesics in sheep generally focuses on an industry or farm level of use. This structured...

Gott, A., Andrews, C., Bedford, T. et al. 2019. Developmental history and stress responsiveness are related to response inhibition, but not judgement bias, in a cohort of European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Animal Cognition 22(1), 99–111.

Judgement bias tasks are designed to provide markers of affective states. A recent study of European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) demonstrated modest familial effects on judgement bias performance, and found that adverse early experience and developmental...

D’Eath, R. B., Jack, M., Futro, A. et al. 2018. Automatic early warning of tail biting in pigs: 3D cameras can detect lowered tail posture before an outbreak. PLOS ONE 13(4), e0194524.

Tail biting is a major welfare and economic problem for indoor pig producers worldwide. Low tail posture is an early warning sign which could reduce tail biting unpredictability. Taking a precision livestock farming approach, we...

McIlhone, A. E., Beausoleil, N. J., Kells, N. J. et al. 2018. Effects of noxious stimuli on the electroencephalogram of anaesthetised chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus). PLOS ONE 13(4), e0196454.

The reliable assessment and management of avian pain is important in the context of animal welfare. Overtly expressed signs of pain vary substantially between and within species, strains and individuals, limiting the use of behaviour...

Monk, J. E., Doyle, R. E., Colditz, I. G. et al. 2018. Towards a more practical attention bias test to assess affective state in sheep. PLOS ONE 13(1), e0190404.

Tests for attention bias potentially offer more rapid assessment of affective state in animals than existing cognitive methods. An attention bias test has previously been developed for sheep and validated as a measure of anxious...