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. 

Increasing interest in equine welfare has emphasised the need for objective and reliable behavioural indicators of horses’ affective state. However, research has yielded mixed results regarding behaviours suited for industry use largely because they are...

The monitoring and assessment of animals is important for their health and welfare. The appropriate selection of multiple, validated, and feasible welfare assessment indicators is required to effectively identify compromises or improvements to animal welfare...

Equine gastric ulcer syndrome (EGUS) is a highly prevalent and presumptively painful condition, although the amount of pain horses might experience is currently unknown. The aims of this study were to determine if the Horse...

The mental experiences of animals are what characterises their welfare status. The Five Domains Model for assessing welfare aligns with the understanding that physical and mental states are linked. Following measurement of indicators within each...

An uncontrolled reproduction of animals in human hands should be avoided. To meet this goal, animals are widely castrated, i.e., the gonads are completely removed. Since the gonads are the most important source of sex...

To understand wildlife responses to the changing environment, it is useful to examine their physiological responses and particularly their endocrine status. Here, we validated an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to non-invasively quantify fecal corticosterone metabolites (FCM)...

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...

To date, there is no official method for measuring horse welfare after transport. This study aimed to develop a scale to classify horses into four categories: good shape; light affected; affected; down (GLAD) based on...

Recognizing animal emotions is critical to their welfare and can lead to a better relationship with humans and the environment, especially in a widespread species like the donkey, which is often prone to welfare issues...

Despite its popularity in research, there is very little scientifically validated knowledge about the best practices on zebrafish (Danio rerio) husbandry, which has led to several facilities having their own husbandry protocols. This study was...

This study aimed to identify, among the equine welfare indicators included in two available protocols (Assessment Protocol for Horses and AWIN - Welfare Assessment Protocol for Horses), those suitable to assess the welfare of ranch...

Horses often present negative emotional states which are frequently poorly recognised, with much of our understanding of horse expressions based on anecdotes, rather than scientific evidence. The aim of this project was to identify potential...

About 112 million working equids are the source of income for 600 million people globally. Many equids are used for pulling loads (up to 15,000 kg per day) to transport goods. Most of them are associated...

Lateralised behavioural responses to environmental stressors have become more frequently used as indicators of social welfare in animals. These lateralised behavioural responses are under the control of asymmetrical brain functions as part of the primary...

This retrospective study investigated the effect of a xylazine infusion on heart rate; mean arterial pressure; blood gases; anesthetic and dobutamine requirements; recovery quality and duration; percentage of death/survival; and days to die/discharge in horses...

Prompt pain management is crucial in horses; however, tools to assess pain are limited. This study aimed to develop and pilot a composite scale for pain estimation in foals. The “Foal Composite Pain Scale” (FCPS)...

Tricaine, or MS-222, is the most commonly used chemical anesthetic in zebrafish research. It is thought to act via blocking voltage-gated sodium channels, though its mechanism of action, particularly at the neuronal level, is not...

Equine Quality of Life (QoL) is an important concern in decision making in veterinary medicine and is especially relevant for chronically ill or geriatric horses towards the end of their lives. To our knowledge, there...

The exchange of fish for research may expose an aquatic laboratory to pathogen contamination as incoming fish can introduce bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses capable of affecting both experimental results and fish and personnel health...

Information on fish preference for environmental conditions can be a useful tool to offer them what they want, an important requirement for welfare purposes. Giving that such an approach deals with psychological states of the...

A detailed understanding of what is usual for a species under optimal conditions is critical for identifying and interpreting different features of body function that have known impacts on animal welfare and its assessment. When...

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...

Domesticated horses (Equus caballus) can be exposed to a compromised welfare state and detecting a deterioration in welfare is essential to modify the animals’ living conditions appropriately. This study focused on four categories of behavioural...

The effects of stocking density on fish welfare are complex and involve many interacting parameters. This complex relationship between fish welfare, stocking density and influencing factors make it challenging to define a specific optimal (“golden”)...