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. 
Naik, R., Witzel, A., Albright, J. D. et al. 2018. Pilot study evaluating the effect of feeding method on overall activity of neutered indoor pet cats. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 25, 9-13.

Indoor housing of cats is associated with a higher incidence of multiple diseases, including obesity. Increased exercise is often recommended as a method of creating or increasing the negative energy balance required for weight loss...

Villeneuve-Beugnet, V., Beugnet, F. 2018. Field assessment of cats' litter box substrate preferences. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 25, 65-70.

Cats living inside a home without any possibility of outdoor access have to defecate in a litter box. To suit the cats' needs, several recommendations seem to be agreed upon. The litter box has to...

Wilson, L. A., Miller, J. J., Work, R. K. et al. 2018. Novel diet regimen for rabbits in a compromised oral wound healing study. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 6(1) (March), 49-51.

Rabbits are known to be finicky about food and will reject it based upon several factors: odor, texture, form, or method of presentation. It can be an even greater challenge to get rabbits to eat...

Volgin, A. D., Yakovlev, O. V., Demin, K. A. et al. 2018. Understanding the role of environmental enrichment in zebrafish neurobehavioral models. Zebrafish 15(5), 425-432.

Environmental stimuli are critical in preclinical research that utilizes laboratory animals to model human brain disorders. The main goal of environmental enrichment (EE) is to provide laboratory animals with better choice of activity and greater...

Sommerville, R., Ruiz, R., Averós, X. 2017. A meta-analysis on the effects of the housing environment on the behaviour, mortality, and performance of growing rabbits. Animal Welfare 26(2), 223-238.

Although the number of rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) produced in Europe is important, they are under-represented in welfare research. Studies on the effects of housing conditions have focused on performance and mortality. We conducted a meta-analysis...

Tsang, B., Zahid, H., Ansari, R. et al. 2017. Breeding zebrafish: A review of different methods and a discussion on standardization. Zebrafish 14(6), 561-573.

In recent years, a rapidly increasing number of scientific papers have been published that utilize zebrafish (Danio rerio) as an alternative model organism in the study of a wide range of biological phenomena from cancer...

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...

Devenport, M., Levent, S., Storer, R. 2017. Rabbits housed in pens: Do they have an enrichment preference? Animal Technology and Welfare 16(2), 130-132.

Since the antibody production facility at Envigo RMS opened in 2015 we have been offering our rabbits a variety of disposable and non-disposable enrichment in a floor pen arrangement. There is a perception that our...

Holmes, J., Waters, D., Maisonave, I. et al. 2017. Social interaction for non-sibling pregnant New Zealand white rabbits on reproductive toxicology. Animal Technology and Welfare 16(2), 139-141.

Rabbits are gregarious animals that live in social groups in the wild so individually housing our animals, while meeting the present scientific objectives, restricts their natural social behaviour. How to meet the social needs of...

Mortell, D., Moores, S. 2017. Increasing survival rates in the Zebrafish (Zebra danio) at the University of Manchester. Animal Technology and Welfare 16(3), 214-215.

The average survival rate for our Zebrafish (ZF) embryos was 65%. When it was time to create our next generation of Wild Type (WT) (used for embryo production), we decided to run a trial focussing...

Ellis, J. J., Stryhn, H., Spears, J. 2017. Environmental enrichment choices of shelter cats. Behavioural Processes 141, 291-296.

Choices made by cats between different types of environmental enrichment may help shelters to prioritize how to most effectively enrich cat housing, especially when limited by space or funds. This study investigates the environmental enrichment...

Vitale Shreve, K. R., Mehrkam, L. R., Udell, M. A. R. 2017. Social interaction, food, scent or toys? A formal assessment of domestic pet and shelter cat (Felis silvestris catus) preferences. Behavioural Processes 141, 322-328.

Domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) engage in a variety of relationships with humans and can be conditioned to engage in numerous behaviors using Pavlovian and operant methods Increasingly cat cognition research is providing evidence of...

McGowan, R. T. S., Ellis, J. J., Bensky, M. K. et al. 2017. The ins and outs of the litter box: A detailed ethogram of cat elimination behavior in two contrasting environments. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 194, 67-78.

Few studies have sought to describe cat elimination behavior in detail and much of the information presently available focuses on factors that potentially cause cats to reject a litter box. Thus, the ethograms published in...

Burton, D., Burton, M. (Eds). 2017. Essential Fish Biology: Diversity, Structure and Function. Oxford University Press: Oxford, U.K., 448 pp.

This book summarizes the basic features of living fish. It is introduced by a chapter on the diversity of a group which has over 30,000 species, the largest within the vertebrates, describing the classification systems...

Lidster, K., Readman, G. D., Prescott, M. J. et al. 2017. International survey on the use and welfare of zebrafish Danio rerio in research. Journal of Fish Biology 90(5), 1891-1905.

A survey was conducted regarding zebrafish Danio rerio use for scientific research with a focus on: anaesthesia and euthanasia; housing and husbandry; breeding and production; refinement opportunities. A total of 98 survey responses were received...

Dantas, L. M., Delgado, M. M, Johnson, I. et al. 2016. Food puzzles for cats: Feeding for physical and emotional wellbeing. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery 18(9), 723-732.

Many pet cats are kept indoors for a variety of reasons (eg, safety, health, avoidance of wildlife predation) in conditions that are perhaps the least natural to them. Indoor housing has been associated with health...

Önal, U., Langdon, C. 2016. Diet size preference of zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae fed on cross-linked protein-walled capsules. Zebrafish 13(6), 556-562.

To optimize diet particle size for ingestion by zebrafish larvae, Danio rerio, a series of diet selection experiments were carried out using two different length classes: 5-day-old, first feeding larvae with a mean standard length...

Goodwin, N., Westall, L., Karp, N. A. et al. 2016. Evaluating and optimizing fish health and welfare during experimental procedures. Zebrafish 13(S1), S127-S131.

Many facilities house fish in separate static containers post-procedure, for example, while awaiting genotyping results. This ensures fish can be easily identified, but it does not allow for provision of continuous filtered water or diet...

Varga, Z. M., Wilson, C., Alestrøm, P. 2016. European Zebrafish Meeting 2015 Husbandry Session Report. Zebrafish 13(3), 230-231.

A workshop to address husbandry and animal welfare was held during the 9th European Zebrafish Meeting in Oslo, Norway, from June 28 to July 2, 2015. The husbandry workshop took place on Monday, June 29...

Hawkins, P., Atkinson, J., Birt, R. et al. 2016. Report of the 2015 RSPCA/UFAW rodent and rabbit welfare group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 15(1), 9-22. [Meeting Report]

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare Group has held a one-day meeting every autumn for the last 21 years, so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on rodent welfare issues and share experiences...

Nichols, C., Wilson, C. 2016. Review: Zebrafish environmental enrichment. Animal Technology and Welfare 15(1), 23-25.

Recently environmental enrichment for laboratory housed fish has received increasing levels of attention from a variety of interested parties from hobbyists, through animal technologists and aquaculturists, to scientists. Over the last few years, the growth...

Enser, S. 2016. Comparison of housing and welfare of group housed rabbits. Animal Technology and Welfare 15(1), 77-79.

This poster is based on welfare improvements gained from group housing rabbits in floor pens in the new Antibody Production Facility with a focus on development, behaviours and environmental enrichment in both male and female...

Blackledge, S., Goodwin, N., Clark, B. 2016. Assessing husbandry requirements of Zebrafish (Danio rerio) and Medaka (Oryzias latipes) using background literature and comparative information. Animal Technology and Welfare 15(3), 191-193.

Zebrafish are the most common species of fish used for research in the UK. However, the species Medaka is establishing itself as a complimentary species to the Zebrafish. Despite having similar husbandry requirements and physiology...

Loberg, J. M., Lundmark, F. 2016. The effect of space on behaviour in large groups of domestic cats kept indoors. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 182, 23-29.

The domestic cat (Felis silvestris catus) originates from the solitary living African wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica). However, through domestication, the domestic cat has become more social towards conspecifics and group housing of cats is common...

Bozicovich, T. F. M., Moura, A. S. A. M. T., Fernandes, S. et al. 2016. Effect of environmental enrichment and composition of the social group on the behavior, welfare, and relative brain weight of growing rabbits. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 182, 72-79.

The objective of the study was to investigate if environmental enrichment and the composition of the social group would affect the behavior and relative brain weight of growing rabbits. Rabbits (72 males and 72 females)...