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. 
Harris, K., New, R., Smith, P. et al. 2019. Refinement: promoting Gallus Gallus welfare in an experimental poultry unit. Animal Technology and Welfare 18(2), 137-139. (IAT Congress 2018 Poster Presentation)

The poultry team at The Pirbright Institute reviewed existing husbandry practices and trialled several refinement practices. The objective was to provide the birds used in research with an environment which enables them to express their...

Giersberg, M. F., Kemper, N., Spindler, B. 2019. On-farm evaluation of an automatic enrichment device with maize silage for laying hens. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(4), 309-319.

Challenges in alternative housing for laying hens are barren functional areas such as winter gardens and the occurrence of behavioral disorders. Environmental enrichment is a measure to deal with these problems. Therefore, an enrichment device...

Animal Welfare Institute. 2019. Rabbit enrichment items: Getting bang for the buck (and doe). AWI Quarterly 68(1) Spring, 24-25.

A recent discussion on the Laboratory Animal Refinement and Enrichment Forum (LAREF) focused on new enrichment ideas for rabbits. Contributors shared their experiences about which toys and treats get rave reviews from rabbits.

Ali, A. B. A., Campbell, D. L. M., Karcher, D. M. et al. 2019. Daytime occupancy of resources and flooring types by 4 laying hen strains in a commercial-style aviary. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 31, 59-66.

In response to consumer demands and legislative measures for improving hens' welfare, many laying hen producers are replacing conventional cages with aviaries. Aviary resources, such as nest boxes, litter areas, ledges, and perches, are intended...

ur Rahman, M. A., Xia, C., Ji, L. et al. 2019. Nutrient intake, feeding patterns, and abnormal behavior of growing bulls fed different concentrate levels and a single fiber source (corn stover silage). Journal of Veterinary Behavior 33, 46-53.

Twenty-eight bulls weighing 227 ± 6.8 (SD) kg were randomly assigned to four concentrate levels (1-1.5 kg [low level of concentrate {LC}], 1.5-2 kg [medium level of concentrate], 2-2.5 kg [high level of concentrate {HC}]...

Kop Fogsgaard, K., Bertelsen, M., Winther Christensen, J. 2019. Does shelter design matter? A note on the effect of two shelter types on shelter use by cattle during winter. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 34, 18-21.

Little is known about the effect of shelter design on sheltering behavior in out-wintered cattle. In this pilot study, we explored the effects of two different shelter designs (rectangular: 50 m2 vs. hexagonal 53 m2...

Campderrich, I., Nazar, F. N., Wichman, A. 2019. Environmental complexity: A buffer against stress in the domestic chick. PLOS ONE 14(1), e0210270.

Birds kept in commercial production systems can be exposed to multiple stressors from early life and this alters the development of different morphological, immunological and behavioural indicators. We explore the hypothesis that provision of a...

Ross, M., Garland, A., Harlander-Matauschek, A. et al. 2019. Welfare-improving enrichments greatly reduce hens' startle responses, despite little change in judgment bias. Scientific Reports 9, 11881.

Responses to ambiguous and aversive stimuli (e.g. via tests of judgment bias and measures of startle amplitude) can indicate mammals’ affective states. We hypothesised that such findings generalize to birds, and that these two responses...

Green, A., Clark, C., Favaro, L. et al. 2019. Vocal individuality of Holstein-Friesian cattle is maintained across putatively positive and negative farming contexts. Scientific Reports 9, 18468.

Cattle mother-offspring contact calls encode individual-identity information; however, it is unknown whether cattle are able to maintain individuality when vocalising to familiar conspecifics over other positively and negatively valenced farming contexts. Accordingly, we recorded 333...

Fernandez, E. J., Kinley, R. C., Timberlake, W. 2019. Training penguins to interact with enrichment devices for lasting effects. Zoo Biology 38(6), 481-489.

The modern zoo has brought about two major advances in the behavioral welfare of their exhibited animals: (a) The use of environmental enrichment to promote naturalistic behaviors and (b) the use of training to improve...

Jung, L., Knierim, U. 2019. Differences between feather pecking and non-feather pecking laying hen flocks regarding their compliance with recommendations for the prevention of feather pecking – A matched concurrent case-control design. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 219, 104839.

Feather pecking (FP) is a multifactorial problem in all housing systems. Using a case-control design we wanted to determine a set of variables which may be decisive for a flock to become case or control...

Cox, R. J., Nol, P., Ellis, C. K. et al. 2019. Research with agricultural animals and wildlife. ILAR Journal 60(1), 66-73.

In fiscal year 2016, agricultural animals such as swine, sheep, goats, and cattle represented 10% of the 820 812 animals used in USDA-regulated research. In addition to traditional agricultural animals, research studies using captive wildlife...

Sanchez-Casanova, R., Sarmiento-Franco, L., Segura-Correa, J. et al. 2019. Effects of outdoor access and indoor stocking density on behaviour and stress in broilers in the subhumid tropics. Animals 9(12), 1016.

Studies investigating the welfare of commercial-line broiler chickens raised in houses with outdoor access in the tropics are scarce, and none have investigated whether responses vary according to indoor conditions. Hence, we assessed the effects...

Mather, J. A., Carere, C. 2019. Consider the individual: Personality and welfare in invertebrates. In: The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals. Carere, C., Mather, J. (eds), 229-245. Springer, Cham.

Personality, defined as consistent between-individual variation in clusters of behavioral traits independent of factors such as age or sex, emerges in most animal species tested so far. The number of invertebrate species discovered to have...

Schmitt, V. 2019. Implementing portable touchscreen-setups to enhance cognitive research and enrich zoo-housed animals. Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research 7(2), 50-58.

To understand the evolutionary development of cognition, comparing the cognitive capacities of different animal species is essential. However, getting access to various species with sufficient sample sizes can be very challenging. Zoos, housing large ranges...

Špinka, M. 2019. Animal agency, animal awareness and animal welfare. Animal Welfare 28(1), 11–20.

In nature, animals need to actively engage with the environment in order to prosper in survival and reproduction. Hence, agency is a central adaptive characteristic of animal life. In this paper, I propose that from...

Riddle, E. R., Ali, A. B. A., Campbell, D. L. M. et al. 2018. Space use by 4 strains of laying hens to perch, wing flap, dust bathe, stand and lie down. PLOS ONE 13(1), e0190532.

The laying hen industry is implementing aviary systems intended to improve welfare by providing hens with more space and resources to perform species-specific behaviors. To date, limited research has examined spatial requirements of various strains...

Borgmans, G., Palme, R., Sannen, A., et al. 2018. The effect of environmental provisioning on stress levels in captive green anole (Anolis carolinensis). Animal Welfare 27(1), 35-46.

In response to an increased awareness concerning the welfare of captive animals, several studies have investigated the effect of provisions on stress levels in model species, such as small mammals, birds and fish. In contrast...

Hawkins, P., McBride, A., Paiba, G. et al. 2018. Report of the 2017 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent and Rabbit Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 17(2), 75-83. [Meeting Report]

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent (and now Rabbit) Welfare Group held a one-day meeting on 14 November 2017 in Weybridge, UK. The first session addressed meeting animals' needs and aiming for a 'good life', with the needs...

Pearson, K., Gant, J. 2018. Improving rabbit enrichment: Developing a rolling enrichment plan. Animal Technology and Welfare 17(2), 121-123.

A three-week enrichment preference study trialling different substrates, food and pen structures was carried out in three, group-housed female New Zealand White Rabbits (NZW). Preference results: structural - rabbits spent the most time with a...

McConnachie, E., Smid, A. M. C., Thompson, A. J. et al. 2018. Cows are highly motivated to access a grooming substrate. Biology Letters 14(8), 20180303.

In natural environments, cattle use trees and other abrasive surfaces to scratch and groom themselves. Modern indoor dairy cattle housing systems often lack appropriate grooming substrates, restricting the animals’ ability to groom. We assessed the...

de Almeida A. C., Palme, R., Moreira, N. 2018. How environmental enrichment affects behavioral and glucocorticoid responses in captive blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara ararauna). Applied Animal Behaviour Science 201, 125-135.

Captive animals are susceptible to chronic stress due to restricted space, lack of hiding places, presence of visitors, or the lack of resources that promote physical and mental stimuli. In birds, chronic stress can promote...

Hunniford, M. E., Widowski, T. M. 2018. Curtained nests facilitate settled nesting behaviour of laying hens in furnished cages. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 202, 39-45.

Egg location can be used to determine the nests that hens prefer, but it does not indicate whether the design of that nest satisfies a hen’s nesting motivation. Hens that are satisfied with the nest...

Hunniford, M. E., Mason, G. J., Widowski, T. M. 2018. Laying hens’ preferences for nest surface type are affected by enclosure. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 201, 7-14.

The nest surfaces preferred by hens are inconsistent with those typically provided in commercial settings. However, little research has explored hens’ preferences for commercially available nest surfaces. Our objective was to compare hens’ preferences for...

Liu, K., Xin, H., Shepherd, T. et al. 2018. Perch-shape preference and perching behaviors of young laying hens. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 203, 34-41.

Provision of perches in enriched colony or cage-free hen housing facilitates birds’ ability to express natural behaviors, thus enhancing animal welfare. Although considerable research has been conducted on poultry perches, further investigation is needed of...