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. 
Zomeño, C., Birolo, M., Gratta, F. et al. 2018. Effects of group housing system, pen floor type, and lactation management on performance and behaviour in rabbit does. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 203, 55-63.

This work aimed at evaluating the effects of housing system, pen floor type, and lactation management on rabbit doe and kit performance throughout a reproductive cycle, including categorization of aggressiveness and injuries. Forty multiparous pregnant...

Bastian, M. L., Glendinning, D. R., Reddy, A. J. et al. 2018. Nest location preferences in zoo-housed orangutans. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 207, 123-128.

Nest building is an advanced and complex activity that wild orangutans engage in, yet they do so on a daily basis and with potential safety consequences. Like their wild counterparts, zoo-housed orangutans also make nests...

Thurston, S., Burlingame, L., Lester, P. A. et al. 2018. Methods of pairing and pair maintenance of New Zealand white rabbits (Oryctolagus Cuniculus) via behavioral ethogram, monitoring, and interventions. JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) 133, e57267.

Though European rabbits are a social species, socially housing them can be challenging. Therefore, there must be a thorough understanding of behaviors and social structures of pair-housed laboratory rabbits. Here we present a protocol to...

Wolfe, A. M., Rahman, M., McFadden, D. G. et al. 2018. Refinement and successful implementation of a scoring system for myxomatosis in a susceptible rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) model. Comparative Medicine 68(4), 280–285.

Myxoma virus is a member of Leporipoxviridae whose tropism is tightly restricted to lagomorphs. In susceptible Oryctolagus rabbits, the virus causes a highly lethal disease known as myxomatosis, which begins as a localized infection but...

De, K., Saxena, V. K., Balaganur, K. et al. 2018. Effect of short-term seclusion of sheep on their welfare indicators. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 27, 1-7.

Separation from the group is a potent stressor for sheep and may have an adverse effect on animal welfare. Therefore, the present study was initiated to determine the effect of short-term seclusion of sheep on...

Ekesbo, I., Gunnarsson, S. 2018. Farm Animal Behaviour: Characteristics for Assessment and Welfare (2nd ed). CABI, Wallingford, UK.

Completely updated and revised, and with a new author team, this second edition of Farm Animal Behaviour continues to provide essential information on normal and stereotypic behaviors in a wide variety of farm animals to...

Editorial. 2017. Reducing lameness in sheep: new approach recommended. Veterinary Record 180(23), 555.

Farm vets can recommend that sheep farmers stop routine foot trimming to treat lameness in their flocks. Instead, they should treat cases of footrot, the major cause of lameness, with an injectable antibiotic and a...

DiVincenti, L. Jr., Rehrig, A. 2017. Social behavior of adult male New Zealand White rabbits housed in groups or pairs in the laboratory. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 20(1), 86-94.

Rabbits are usually singly housed in laboratories, but a new emphasis on providing social housing for social species has prompted exploration of alternative housing for this species. However, a paucity of literature on the social...

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...

Marshall, K., Wolford, H., Martin, L. 2017. Creatively meeting the standards – taking rabbit housing to the next level. Animal Technology and Welfare 16(3), 226-228.

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...

Harvey, B. S., Dudzinski, K. M., Kuczaj, S. A. 2017. Associations and the role of affiliative, agonistic, and socio-sexual behaviors among common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). Behavioural Processes 135, 145-156.

Little is known about the specific behavioral exchanges that occur on a day-to-day basis between dyads of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). This study assesses the proportion of time dyads spend in proximity (within ∼2...

Clegg, I. L., Rödel, H. G., Delfour, F. 2017. Bottlenose dolphins engaging in more social affiliative behaviour judge ambiguous cues more optimistically. Behavioural Brain Research 322, 115-122.

Cognitive bias tests measure variation in emotional appraisal and are validated methods to assess animals’ affective states. However, the link between social behaviours and cognitive bias has not yet been investigated. Bottlenose dolphins are a...

Zomeño, C., Birolo, M., Zuffellato, A. et al. 2017. Aggressiveness in group-housed rabbit does: Influence of group size and pen characteristics. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 194, 79-85.

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...

Sands, C., Evans, C., Buckmaster, C. A. 2017. The grooming sleeve: Encouraging conspecific-like behavior and strengthening the human-animal bond. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 5(2) (June), 52-53.

The act of grooming has been found to greatly decrease stress, heart rate, and cortisol levels in nonhuman primates; this decrease in stress and cortisol is seen in the animal being groomed, as well as...

Cooper, J. E., Hull, G. 2017. Gorilla Pathology and Health: With a Catalogue of Preserved Materials. Elsevier/Academic Print, London, UK.

Gorilla Pathology and Health: With a Catalogue of Preserved Materials consists of two cross-referenced parts. The first, the book itself, is a review of pathological changes and tissue responses in gorillas (Gorilla gorilla and G...

Riley, J. L., Noble, D. W. A., Byrne, R. W. et al. 2017. Does social environment influence learning ability in a family-living lizard? Animal Cognition 20(3), 449–458.

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...

Averós, X., Beltrán de Heredia I., Ruiz, R. et al. 2016. The impact of group size on welfare indicators of ewes during pregnancy. PLOS ONE 11(11), e0167061.

Group size (GS) and space allowance have major implications for the welfare of production species, however their effects are often confounded. In a previous study we investigated the impact of varying space allowance at constant...

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...

Buijs, S., Vangeyte, J., Tuyttens, F. A. M. 2016. Effects of communal rearing and group size on breeding rabbits’ post-grouping behaviour and its relation to ano-genital distance. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 182, 53-60.

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...

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)...

McEntee, D., Borg, K., Markiewicz, V. 2016. Establishment of a home-cage in vivo method of New Zealand white rabbit urine collection. Laboratory Animal Science Professional 4(4) (December), 44-46.

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...

Buijs, S., Maertens, L., Hermans, K. et al. 2015. Behaviour, wounds, weight loss and adrenal weight of rabbit does as affected by semi-group housing. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 172, 44-51.

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...

Caron, A., Lelong, C., Pascual, M. H. et al. 2015. Miniaturized blood sampling techniques to benefit reduction in mice and refinement in nonhuman primates: Application to bioanalysis in toxicity studies with antibody-drug conjugates. JAALAS 54(2), 145-152.

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...

Buijs, S., Tuyttens, F. A. M. 2015. Evaluating the effect of semi-group housing of rabbit does on their offspring's fearfulness: Can we use the open-field test? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 162, 58-66.

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...

Bayne, K. A., Beaver, B. V., Mench, J. A. et al. 2015. Laboratory animal behavior. In: Laboratory Animal Medicine, 3rd edition. Fox, J. G., Anderson, L., Otto, G., et al. (eds). Elsevier, Inc., Amsterdam, NL. pp. 1617-1651.

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...