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. 

Vervets, also known as African green monkeys, are a nonhuman primate species widely used in biomedical research. However, there are currently few references available describing techniques and rates of success for pair‐housing this species. We...

Oral sucrose was evaluated for its ability to reduce pain following castration. Piglets (n = 126) were assigned to one of the five treatments: (1) castrated and given 3 mL of water (C); (2) castrated...

The prevalence of harmful and unwanted behavior in fattening pigs is influenced by different factors including housing. Housing may include the opportunity to hide from aggressive pen mates and this ability is related to pen...

Weaning stress accompanied by outburst of aggression is a critical point in pig production as it compromises piglets’ welfare and leads to poor growth rate and health problems. Therefore, a weaning methods to smoothen the...

The aims of this study were to investigate the occurrence of stereotypic behaviours and the activity level in farmed mink when group housed in climbing cages and if group housing increase aggression by assessing the...

After-effects of events that elicit an emotional state on both the animals that experienced these events and on their group members have only scarcely been studied. We investigated effects of a positive vs. negative treatment...

Commercial pigs globally are routinely mixed into new social groups. This results in regrouping aggression predominantly during the first 24h which compromises welfare and productivity. Chronic aggression persists thereafter and is also undesirable. Management strategies...

Chronic stress response in fearful animals can result in depression of growth and reproductive performance. It is therefore important to be aware of at risk animals in the herd. Thus far ‘hierarchy’ calculations have involved...

In boars, social relationships could influence pubertal development and feeding behaviour. The objectives of the present study were to determine the relationships between behaviour (agonistic, mounting and feeding behaviours), plasma sex steroids (oestradiol, testosterone) and...

The assessment and provision of welfare in farm animals has become a major issue in animal science. A key element for providing good welfare is the enabling of positive affective states in the animals. As...

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...

Non-human primates have complex relationships with conspecifics and also other animals with whom they share their habitat in the wild. Some primates, such as capuchin monkeys (Sapajus apella) and squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus), naturally associate...

In recent years, the concept of animal welfare began to be accepted by the Chinese people. On some intensive pig farms, the stocking density for growing pigs is too great, leading to decreased animal welfare...

Until today, anti-microbial drugs have been the therapy of choice to combat bacterial diseases. Resistance against antibiotics is of growing concern in man and animals. Stress, caused by demanding environmental conditions, can reduce immune protection...

Housing lactating sows with piglets in a multi-suckling pen from around 14 days post-farrowing is common practice in Swedish organic piglet production. However, nursing-suckling interaction is less frequent in multi-suckling pens than in individual farrowing...

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...

The main objectives of this prospective cohort study were a) to describe lameness prevalence at drying off in large high producing New York State herds based on visual locomotion score (VLS) and identify potential cow...

Contentious issues in calf rearing include milk feeding level and single versus group housing. The current study was performed on a high-producing 170 Holstein cow dairy farm to investigate the impact of nutrition and housing...

Synthetic olfactory agonists mimic odours secreted by mammary glands in several mammal species and their application can reduce anxiety levels in both juvenile and adult animals. This investigation determined the effect of a commercially available...

Introduction: The Safety Pharmacology Society (SPS) and National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) conducted a survey and workshop in 2015 to define current industry practices relating to housing...

This study tested whether emotional contagion occurs when piglets directly observe a penmate in distress (restraint) and whether there is an effect of previous experience on the response to subsequent restraint or exposure to conspecific...

Mixing of growing pigs results in aggressive contests between group members. As aggression serves to establish dominance relationships, it is possible that increased initial aggression may facilitate the formation of social hierarchies. The objective of...

This work investigated the differences in the reactivity of Sarda (primiparous n = 18, multiparous n = 17) and Dorset (multiparous n = 8) breeds of sheep and their singleton lambs to two challenging test...

In organic farming, the production of pork from entire male pigs seems to be the most promising alternative to castration, as organic animal husbandry aims at high standards of animal welfare and elimination of mutilations...

Anticipatory behaviours may serve a useful tool in studying positive emotional states in animals. This study aimed to investigate if lambs express anticipatory behaviours for opportunities to play or a food reward and if these...