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. 

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...

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...

The 8th Edition of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals clarified its language regarding housing social species, specifying that, “Single housing of social species should be the exception…”. This is a...

Tortoises perceive different colours and rely on the visual system to find food. However, few studies have considered colour preference in tortoises, especially in land species. The aim of this study is to investigate whether...

The aim of this work was to study how the group size and the number of doorways in a pen may influence the aggressive interactions throughout the reproductive cycle among does kept in a part-time...

Whilst a great deal of research has been focused on identifying ways to assess the welfare of captive mammals and birds, there is comparatively little knowledge on how reptilian species are affected by captivity, and...

To examine these issues [transportation of laboratory animals], the Roundtable on Science and Welfare in Laboratory Animal Use held a workshop on September 3-4, 2014, in Washington, DC. More than 200 people participated in the...

Many oviparous animals construct well-designed nests to provide relatively favourable conditions for their eggs and hatchlings, but the direct evidence that nest structure can determine their reproductive success is insufficient. In the present study, we...

Reproducibility in animal studies has been defined as the ability of a result to be replicated through independent experiments within the same or among different laboratories. Over the past few years, much has been written...

A common dilemma faced by all animal bioethics committees arises when exceptions are proposed to the use of analgesics in painful procedures. The committee and researcher must weigh the possible confounding effects of including additional...

In the US, the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and its enabling regulations (AWAR) cover all warm-blooded animals used for research, testing, experimentation, or exhibition. The only exceptions, made in the enabling regulations, are for two...

Performance of abnormal repetitive behavior (ARB) is noted in many captive wild species. ARB can be categorized into 2 basic forms: those whose aim appears to be to compulsively reach an inappropriate goal and those...

At Colorado State University we have an investigator who requested care for 2 different species of pythons, the green tree python (Morelia viridis) and the ball python (Python reguis), to study the pathology of an...

Environmental enrichment is an integral part of animal care practices. Enrichment generally refers to items we provide to the animals to support their behavioral needs. It provides a way to functionally simulate the natural environment...

In June 2006 a loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) was admitted to a rescue centre on the Mediterranean coast with severe fishing net entanglement in its fore right flipper. The flipper could not be saved...

Despite the diversity of animal welfare definitions, most recognise the centrality of the feelings of animals which are currently impossible to measure directly. As a result, animal welfare assessment is heavily reliant upon the indirect...

Cognitive enrichment” is a subset of enrichment that has gained interest from researchers over the past decade, particularly those working in zoos. This review explores the forms of cognitive enrichment that have been attempted for...

Early developmental environment can have profound effects on individual physiology, behaviour, and learning. In birds and mammals, social isolation during development is known to negatively affect learning ability; yet in other taxa, like reptiles, the...

Here we describe a case of pseudopregnancy in a New Zealand White rabbit as a result of pair housing with an aggressive conspecific. Clinical signs included fur pulling and nest building that developed shortly after...

Literary fiction has been credited with considerable power to improve attitudes toward outgroups. It was even argued that it has been an important factor behind the global decline of violence against various minorities in the...

Marine turtles are caught and slaughtered for consumption as part of traditional indigenous community harvest in Australia as well as in many countries in which marine turtles can be found. However, changes to the Animal...

While the international zoological community is committed to enhancing the welfare of individual animals, researchers have yet to take full advantage of the tools available for non-invasively tracking behavioural and physiological indicators of welfare. We...

Score sheets are an essential tool of animal welfare. They allow transparent assessments to be made of animal health and behavior during animal experiments and they define interventions when deviations from normal status are detected...

Although the recognition of pain, distress and discomfort has already been described in 1985 by Morton and Griffiths there is still very little known about the establishment of score sheets especially, regarding postsurgical pain and...

Fecal corticosterone concentration (FCC) was measured in 14 buck rabbits individually housed in standard-dimension cages (SC) or in bigger cages (BC; with a volume more than double that of SC and equipped with a plastic...