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. 
Valros, A., Norring, M., Ahlqvist, K. et al. 2024. Effects of repeated intramuscular injections on sow behaviour reactions and stress-related saliva biomarkers – A pilot study. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 271, 106173.

Medicating large production animals, such as sows, individually can be challenging, especially when repeated treatments are needed. Intramuscular (i.m.) injections have been shown to be aversive, and an increased reaction could be expected over consecutive...

Robinson, L. M., Weiss, A. (Eds.) 2023. Nonhuman Primate Welfare: From History, Science, and Ethics to Practice. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. 671 p.

This volume reviews the broad topic of welfare in nonhuman primates under human care. Chapters detail the history of primates in captivity, ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of nonhuman primates as entertainment or...

Ausderau, K. K., Colman, R. J., Kabakov, S. et al. 2023. Evaluating depression- and anxiety-like behaviors in non-human primates. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 16, 1006065.

Depression and anxiety are some of the most prevalent and debilitating mental health conditions in humans. They can present on their own or as co-morbidities with other disorders. Like humans, non-human primates (NHPs) can develop...

D’Alessio, R. M., Hanlon, A., O’Driscoll, K. 2023. Comparison of single- and double-spaced feeders with regard to damaging behavior in pigs. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10, 1073401.

This work compared the behavior and performance of 24 groups of 12 pigs kept in pens with either a DOUBLE [one feed space aligned with the front wall of the pen (WALL), and one immediately...

Mauthe von Degerfeld, M., Serpieri, M., Bonaffini, G. et al. 2023. Intranasal atomization of ketamine, medetomidine and butorphanol in pet rabbits using a mucosal atomization device. Animals 13(13), 2076.

A non-invasive method of drug delivery, intranasal atomization, has shown positive results in human medicine and in some animal species. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of intranasal atomization, compared to...

Miller, R., Grott, A., Patzkéwitsch, D. et al. 2023. Behavior of piglets in an observation arena before and after castration with local anesthesia. Animals 13(3), 529.

Surgical castration of piglets is generally recognized as a painful procedure, but there is currently no gold standard for the assessment of pain behavior in piglets. However, pain assessment is essential for evaluating the effectiveness...

Robles, I., Luna, S. P. L., Trindade, P. H. E. et al. 2023. Validation of the Unesp-Botucatu pig composite acute pain scale (UPAPS) in piglets undergoing castration. PLOS ONE 18(4), e0284218.

To accurately assess pain and support broadly-based analgesic protocols to mitigate swine pain, it is imperative to develop and validate a species-specific pain scale. The objective of this study was to investigate the clinical validity...

D’Alessio, R. M., McAloon, C. G., Boyle, L. A. et al. 2023. Comparison between two scoring methods to assess tail damage of docked pig carcasses during postmortem inspection in Ireland. Veterinary Record Open 10(2), e66.

Background Tail inspection in the abattoir is a tool to help determine the welfare status of pigs. However, methodologies vary widely. Moreover, meat inspection is moving from palpation and incision towards visual-only (VIS) examination. This...

van Zeeland, Y. R. A., Schoemaker, N. J., Lumeij, J. T. 2023. Contrafreeloading indicating the behavioural need to forage in healthy and feather damaging Grey parrots. Animals 13(16), 2635.

Contrafreeloading (CFL) is a concept that describes the preference of an animal to work for food even when identical food is freely available, and reflects an intrinsic motivation to engage in foraging-related activities. However, altered...

Wang, C., Yang, C., Zeng, Y. et al. 2023. GnRH-immunocastration: An alternative method for male animal surgical castration. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 10.
Mahdavi, I., Abdi-Hachesoo, B., Ansari-Lari, M. et al. 2023. Prevalence and risk factors of feather damaging behavior in companion parrots: A cross-sectional study in Iran. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 266, 106028.

A cross-sectional study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of feather damaging behavior (FDB) and evaluate the related risk factors among companion psittacine birds in Iran. For data collection, a structured questionnaire was prepared and...

Pierdon, M. K., Berdahl, S. E. 2023. Effect of topical spray containing lidocaine on piglet behaviour post castration. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 26(2), 195–204.

Previous studies examining the impact of topical lidocaine spray on postcastration pain behavior in piglets used scan sampling for the collection of behavior data. This methodology led to inconclusive results on the efficacy of topical...

Pan, L., Nian, H., Zhang, R. et al. 2022. Stereotypic behaviors are associated with physiology and immunity differences in long-term confined sows. Physiology & Behavior 249, 113776.

Pregnant sows in the confined environment have poor welfare and frequently perform stereotypic behaviors. In order to clarify whether highly stereotypic behavior is a sign of increased stress and successfully contributes to coping with or...

Lutz, C. K., Coleman, K., Hopper, L.M. et al. 2022. Nonhuman primate abnormal behavior: Etiology, assessment, and treatment. American Journal of Primatology 84(6), e23380.

Across captive settings, nonhuman primates may develop an array of abnormal behaviors including stereotypic and self-injurious behavior. Abnormal behavior can indicate a state of poor welfare, since it is often associated with a suboptimal environment...

Li, S., Hu, H., Huang, J. et al. 2022. Effect of enrichment items on the physiology and behavior of sows in the third trimester of pregnancy. Animals 12(11), 1355.

Modern intensive pig breeding harms animal welfare, which is especially noticeable for pregnant sows kept in confinement stalls. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of enrichment items on the movement and physiological parameters of...

Drexl, V., Dittrich, I., Haase, A. et al. 2022. Tail posture as an early indicator of tail biting - A comparison of animal and pen level in weaner pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 252, 105654.

The occurrence of tail biting is one of the most important animal welfare problems in pig farming and needs to be recognised early to reduce injuries and suffering. The posture of the tail could be...

Lou, M. E., Kleinhenz, M. D., Schroeder, R. et al. 2022. Evaluating the utility of a CO2 surgical laser for piglet tail docking to reduce behavioral and physiological indicators of pain and to improve wound healing: A pilot study. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 254, 105720.

In the U.S. millions of commercially raised piglets are routinely tail docked. Human and veterinary medical patients experienced reduced inflammation, healing time and post-procedural pain using a CO2 surgical laser compared to standard surgical instruments...

Coutant, M., Malmkvist, J., Kaiser, M. et al. 2022. Piglets’ acute responses to local anesthetic injection and surgical castration: Effects of the injection method and interval between injection and castration. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 1009858.

Although applied in some countries, efficacy of local anesthetics based on procaine to mitigate acute responses to piglet castration remains questioned. This paper presents results from a factorial study examining the effects of two methods...

Prentice, P. M., Houslay, T. M., Wilson, A. J. 2022. Exploiting animal personality to reduce chronic stress in captive fish populations. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 9, 1046205.

Chronic stress is a major source of welfare problems in many captive populations, including fishes. While we have long known that chronic stress effects arise from maladaptive expression of acute stress response pathways, predicting where...

Söbbeler, F. J., Wendt, S., Briese, A. et al. 2022. Comparative study of pain-related responses of male piglets up to seven days of age to the application of different local anaesthetics and subsequent castration. Animals 12(20), 2833.

To evaluate pain responses to intratesticular and subscrotal injection of three local anaesthetics and their efficacy during castration a randomized controlled study was conducted. In groups of 20 piglets, procaine (2%), lidocaine (2%), or mepivacaine...

Torgerson-White, L., Sánchez-Suárez, W. 2022. Looking beyond the shoal: Fish welfare as an individual attribute. Animals 12(19), 2592.

Welfare is an individual attribute. In general, providing captive nonhuman animals with conditions conducive to good welfare is an idea more easily applied when dealing with few individuals. However, this becomes much harder—if not impossible—under...

Readyhough, T. S., Joseph, S., Davis, M. et al. 2022. Impacts of socialization on bull Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) stereotypical behavior. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 3(1), 113–130.

There is a growing need for animal care institutions to house multiple bull elephants as the population increases due to transfers from private ownership and the births of male offspring in managed care. Elephants in...

Skade, L., Kristensen, C. S., Nielsen, M. B. F. et al. 2021. Effect of two methods and two anaesthetics for local anaesthesia of piglets during castration. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 63, 1.

Since January 2019, surgical castration of male piglets must be performed using local anaesthesia, if farmers deliver pigs to the primary exporting slaughterhouses according to the “Danish quality scheme”; a voluntary initiative taken by the...

de la Barrera Cardozo, M., Chiba de Castro, W. A., Aguiar, L. M. 2021. Stress behaviors in captive robust capuchins: Effects of humidity, visitors, management and sex. American Journal of Primatology 83(7), e23265.

Wild robust capuchins (Sapajus spp.) are omnivorous neotropical primates that live in relatively large groups in extensive home and daily ranges with activity budgets dominated by traveling, foraging, and object manipulation, meaning that enclosed spaces...

Sørensen, D., Cloutier, S., Gaskill, B. (Eds.). 2021. Animal-centric Care and Management - Enhancing Refinement in Biomedical Research. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

The concept of the 3Rs (Refinement, Reduction and Replacement) has been used as a framework for improving the welfare of laboratory animals for the last half century. By establishing an animal-centric view on housing and...