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. 

Over evolutionary time, light from the sun, moon, and stars has provided organisms with reliable information about the passage of time; but modern artificial lighting has drastically altered these cues. Evidence is accumulating that exposure...

Group housing is becoming the standard for many farm animal species, as it is seen as a more welfare friendly way of keeping gregarious animals. Aggression between female breeding rabbits currently obstructs the implementation of...

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)...

A dorsal-fin photo-identification technique paired with a non-invasive parallel laser photogrammetry technique was used to non-invasively identify individual Sphyrna mokarran over time. Based on the data collected over a duration of 59 days, 16 different...

The Principles and guidelines for the care and use of non-human primates for scientific purposes is a revision of NHMRC’s Policy on the care and use of non-human primates for scientific purposes 2003 (the Policy)...

The most common methods for rabbit urine collection are newborn stroking, cystocentesis, and transfer to a metabolism cage.2 None of these options allow for a significant, quality amount of urine to be collected in vivo...

At Pfizer’s Pearl River site, rabbits are socially housed in pairs or triples in dog runs that have been converted into rabbit pens. The daily husbandry and maintenance of these pens, however, proved to be...

Guidance is almost non-existent as to suitable levels of UV lighting for reptiles and amphibians, or how to achieve satisfactory UV gradients using artificial lighting. The UV-Tool is a working document that seeks to address...

Anaesthetic chamber concentrations of isoflurane, sevoflurane and desflurane that resulted in loss of righting reflex within 15 minutes in 50 per cent of toads (Rhinella marina) exposed (ED50-LRR

Group housing is often assumed to improve the welfare of gregarious species. Whether this is actually the case depends on the advantages (e.g. more opportunity for social and locomotor behaviour) and disadvantages (e.g. increased fighting...

Minimizing the number of animals in regulatory toxicity studies while achieving study objectives to support the development of future medicines contributes to good scientific and ethical practices. Recent advances in technology have enabled the development...

Breeding does are usually housed one doe per cage, but there is an increased interest in (semi-)group housing systems designed to improve welfare. However, there is a lack of information on how such systems actually...

In modern zoos, training should be an integral component of the animal care and management. The benefits of training include the opportunity for positive interactions with caretakers. This study was carried out with a group...

Dietary composition and presentation impacts on the behaviour of animals, and failure to provide a suitable diet can lead to reduced welfare through the development of poor health, the inability to express normal behaviours and...

The study of laboratory animal behavior has increased steadily over the last decade, with expanding emphasis on a variety of commonly used species. In the United States, this trend was initially focused on species for...

Three decades ago, the Animal Welfare Act was amended to require researchers to provide environments that promoted the psychological, as well as the physical, wellbeing of nonhuman primates maintained for research purposes. We developed a...

The most common housing system for reproduction rabbits, individual cage housing on a wire floor, is increasingly scrutinized because of its potential detrimental impact on animal welfare. We compared three types of housing: (1) individual...

The detection and assessment of pain in animals is crucial to improving their welfare in a variety of contexts in which humans are ethically or legally bound to do so. Thus clear standards to judge...

For infectious disease studies, assessment of feline health is traditionally limited to metrics such as body temperature (BT), change in body weight (BW), and clinical signs (CS). Recently, behavioral ethograms designed for assessment of rabbits...

Sewage back-up and overflows in the rooms of our primate facility initiated an analysis of the factors contributing to the clogging of the drains. An investigation reviewing the materials responsible for the clogging of the...

Environmental enrichment for nonhuman primates is an essential requirement in laboratory animal research. The Animal Welfare Regulations and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals state that the facility’s enrichment program must...

The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals requires that all animals, without veterinary or study exemptions, be socially housed. Our current caging only allows enough floor space to house one large rabbit...

Princeton University continually makes efforts to improve and enhance the quality of life of our NHPs used in research. A part of this effort is to continue to improve our environmental enrichment program, promoting the...

We have established ex situ assurance colonies of two endangered Panamanian harlequin frogs, Atelopus certus and Atelopus glyphus, but observed that males fought with each other when housed as a group. Housing frogs individually eliminated...

In practice, consideration is given to providing most of the species used in research,testing and education withsome level of environmental enrichment. However, although the current level of awareness and understanding about the benefits of environmental...