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. 
Chotard, H., Ioannou, S., Davila-Ross, M. 2018. Infrared thermal imaging: Positive and negative emotions modify the skin temperatures of monkey and ape faces. American Journal of Primatology 80(5), e22863.

Facial thermography has enabled researchers to noninvasively and continuously measure the changes of a range of emotional states in humans. The present work used this novel technology to study the effect of positive and negative...

Rius, M. M., Pageat, P., Bienboire-Frosini, C. et al. 2018. Tail and ear movements as possible indicators of emotions in pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 205, 14-18.

A better understanding of animal emotions is an important goal in disciplines ranging from neuroscience to animal welfare science, but few reliable tools exist for measuring these emotions. Play behaviour is generally recognized as a...

Rius, M. M., Cozzi, A., Bienboire-Frosini, C. et al. 2018. Selection of putative indicators of positive emotions triggered by object and social play in mini-pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 202, 13-19.

Positive welfare is more than the absence of negative experiences. Nevertheless, there are few feasible animal-based measures for positive welfare. This study aimed to investigate whether object and social play behaviours in pigs, which is...

Lahrmann, H. P., Hansen, C. F., D’Eath, R. et al. 2018. Tail posture predicts tail biting outbreaks at pen level in weaner pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 200, 29-35.

Detecting a tail biting outbreak early is essential to reduce the risk of pigs getting severe tail damage. A few previous studies suggest that tail posture and behavioural differences can predict an upcoming outbreak. The...

Brown, S.M., Peters, R., Nevison, I.M. et al. 2018. Playful pigs: Evidence of consistency and change in play depending on litter and developmental stage. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 198, 36-43.

Play behaviour in pre-weaned piglets has previously been shown to vary consistently between litters. This study aimed to determine if these pre-weaning litter differences in play behaviour were also consistent in the post-weaning period. Seven...

Cannas, S., Palestrini, C., Canali, E. et al. 2018. Thermography as a non-invasive measure of stress and fear of humans in sheep. Animals 8(9), 146.

No data have been published on the use of infrared thermography (IRT) to evaluate sheep emotions. We assessed whether this technique can be used as a non-invasive measure of negative emotions. Two voluntary animal approach...

Wedin, M., Baxter, E. M., Jack, M. et al. 2018. Early indicators of tail biting outbreaks in pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 208, 7-13.

Tail biting outbreaks in pig farming cause suffering through pain and stress, and producers lose revenue due to carcass condemnation. Reliable behavioural indications of when an outbreak is imminent would provide farmers with tools for...

Grant, E. P., Brown, A., Wickham, S. L. et al. 2018. What can the quantitative and qualitative behavioural assessment of videos of sheep moving through an autonomous data capture system tell us about welfare? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 208, 31-39.

Sheep can be exposed to a variety of challenges and failure to adapt to these challenges can compromise their health and wellbeing. Regular monitoring of stock on large-scale or extensive systems may not always be...

Vestbjerg Larsen, M. L., Andersen, H. M.-L., Pedersen, L. J. 2018. Tail posture as a detector of tail damage and an early detector of tail biting in finishing pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 209, 30-35.

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relation between the tail posture of finishing pigs and tail damage with the aims to use tail posture as (1) a detector of tail damage...

Bertin, A., Cornilleau, F., Lemarchand, J. et al. 2018. Are there facial indicators of positive emotions in birds? A first exploration in Japanese quail. Behavioural Processes 157, 470-473.

The positive aspect of emotions, like pleasure, remains overlooked in birds. Our aim was to contribute to the exploration of facial indicators of positive emotions. To observe contrasting emotional expressions, we used two lines of...

Unakafov, A. M., Möller, S., Kagan, I. et al. 2018. Using imaging photoplethysmography for heart rate estimation in non-human primates. PLOS ONE 13(8), e0202581.

For humans and for non-human primates heart rate is a reliable indicator of an individual’s current physiological state, with applications ranging from health checks to experimental studies of cognitive and emotional state. In humans, changes...

Robertson, S. 2018. How do we know they hurt? Assessing acute pain in cats. Veterinary Record 183(24), 748-749.

To treat pain, we must look for it, recognise it and in some way measure it; this requires validated tools that work in a busy clinical environment. In addition to preventing suffering, effective treatment of...

Ekesbo, I., Gunnarsson, S. 2018. Farm Animal Behaviour: Characteristics for Assessment and Welfare (2nd ed). CABI, Wallingford, UK.

Completely updated and revised, and with a new author team, this second edition of Farm Animal Behaviour continues to provide essential information on normal and stereotypic behaviors in a wide variety of farm animals to...

Reid, J., Nolan, A. M., Scott, E. M. 2018. Measuring pain in dogs and cats using structured behavioural observation. The Veterinary Journal 236, 72-79.

The contemporary approach to pain measurement in people and animals seeks to measure the affective (emotional) component of the pain experience using structured questionnaires with formal scoring methodology. Chronic pain has wide-ranging impacts which affects...

Häger, C., Biernot, S., Buettner, M. et al. 2017. The Sheep Grimace Scale as an indicator of post-operative distress and pain in laboratory sheep. PLOS ONE 12(4), e0175839.

The EU Directive 2010/63/EU changed the requirements regarding the use of laboratory animals and raised important issues related to assessing the severity of all procedures undertaken on laboratory animals. However, quantifiable parameters to assess severity...

McGrath, N., Dunlop, R. Dwyer, C. et al. 2017. Hens vary their vocal repertoire and structure when anticipating different types of reward. Animal Behaviour 130, 79-96.

The vocalizations of nonhuman animals are considered potential indicators of motivational or internal state. In many species, different call types, and structural variation within call types, encode information about physical characteristics such as age or...

Reid, J., Scott, E. M., Calvo, G. et al. 2017. Definitive Glasgow acute pain scale for cats: validation and intervention level. Veterinary Record 180(18), 449.

Previously the authors described the derivation of an intervention level for the Glasgow Composite Measure Pain Scale (CMPS) short form tool for assessing acute pain in dogs. More recently, the authors reported the validation of...

Krebs, B. L., Torres, E., Chesney, C. et al. 2017. Applying behavioral conditioning to identify anticipatory behaviors. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 20(2), 155-175.

The ability to predict regular events can be adaptive for nonhuman animals living in an otherwise unpredictable environment. Animals may exhibit behavioral changes preceding a predictable event; such changes reflect anticipatory behavior. Anticipatory behavior is...

Giersberg, M., Spindler, B., Kemper, N. 2017. Assessment of plumage and integument condition in dual-purpose breeds and conventional layers. Animals 7(12), 97.

The assessment of plumage and integument condition in laying hens provides useful information about the occurrence of feather pecking and cannibalism. Although feather loss and skin injuries can result from mechanical abrasion or clinical diseases...

Leliveld, L. M. C., Düpjan, S., Tuchscherer, A. et al. 2017. Vocal correlates of emotional reactivity within and across contexts in domestic pigs (Sus scrofa). Physiology & Behavior 181, 117-126.

Vocalizations have long been recognized to encode information about an individual's emotional state and, as such, have contributed to the study of emotions in animals. However, the potential of vocalizations to also encode information about...

Hawkins, P., McNeilly, A., Watson, J. et al. 2017. Report of the 2016 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent and Rabbit Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 16(2), 77-86.

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent (and now Rabbit) Welfare Group held a one-day meeting on 1 November 2016 at the University of Edinburgh and was attended by 70 delegates. Presentation topics included refinements in blood sampling rodents...

Bennett, V., Gourkow, N., Mills, D. S. 2017. Facial correlates of emotional behaviour in the domestic cat (Felis catus). Behavioural Processes 141, 342-350.

Leyhausen’s (1979) work on cat behaviour and facial expressions associated with offensive and defensive behaviour is widely embraced as the standard for interpretation of agonistic behaviour in this species. However, it is a largely anecdotal...

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...

Foster, S., Ijichi, C. 2017. The association between infrared thermal imagery of core eye temperature, personality, age and housing in cats. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 189, 79-84.

Understanding individual responses to stress is a key aspect of maintaining optimal animal welfare. This is especially important where animals are being kept in sub-optimal environments or where the species may not clearly demonstrate stress...

Serrapica, M., Boivin, X., Coulon, M. et al. 2017. Positive perception of human stroking by lambs: Qualitative behaviour assessment confirms previous interpretation of quantitative data. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 187, 31-37.

Qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA) was used to validate previous published interpretation whether human stroking has beneficial effects on lambs prematurely separated from their mothers. For a period of 8 weeks a familiar human (FH) subjected...