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. 
White, K. 2019. Effects of captivity on the activity budgets of lar gibbons (Hylobates lar). Canopy 20(1), 43-45.

The keeping of gibbons in a captive environment and recreating an appropriate habitat is essential to enable them to exhibit species-specific behaviour. This research was designed to provide baseline data on the activity budgets of...

Mather, J. A., Carere, C. 2019. Consider the individual: Personality and welfare in invertebrates. In: The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals. Carere, C., Mather, J. (eds), 229-245. Springer, Cham.

Personality, defined as consistent between-individual variation in clusters of behavioral traits independent of factors such as age or sex, emerges in most animal species tested so far. The number of invertebrate species discovered to have...

Cooke, G. M., Tonkins, B. M., Mather, J. A. 2019. Care and enrichment for captive cephalopods. In: The Welfare of Invertebrate Animals. Carere, C., Mather, J. (eds), 179-208. Springer, Cham.

Cephalopods have become an archetype for invertebrate cognition, sentience and welfare studies. Their convergence with so-called ‘higher’ vertebrates (birds, mammals) in memory, learning, problem-solving, tool use and likely sentience has made biologists completely rethink the...

Špinka, M. 2019. Animal agency, animal awareness and animal welfare. Animal Welfare 28(1), 11–20.

In nature, animals need to actively engage with the environment in order to prosper in survival and reproduction. Hence, agency is a central adaptive characteristic of animal life. In this paper, I propose that from...

Volkmann, N., Kemper, N. 2018. Claw condition and claw health in dairy cows: how important is access to pasture? Veterinary Record 182(3), 76-78.

Housing cows on hard flooring is associated with increased claw disorders. Pasture access shows a positive effect on claw health, particularly for diseases that are related to moist environments (eg, digital dermatitis). Regular documentation of...

Armbrecht, L., Lambertz, C., Albers, D. et al. 2018. Does access to pasture affect claw condition and health in dairy cows? Veterinary Record 182(3), 79.

The aim of this study was to examine effects of pasturing in dairy cows on claw condition (claw length, hardness) and on the prevalence of claw diseases. At claw trimming, a total of 240 Holstein-Friesian...

Costa, R., Sousa, C., Llorente, M. 2018. Assessment of environmental enrichment for different primate species under low budget: A case study. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 21(2), 185-199.

The 2011 European Union Zoo Inquiry presented evidence that most zoos fail to achieve adequate levels of nonhuman animal welfare. Appropriate environmental enrichment (EE) can play a role in the promotion of welfare. However, financial...

Verdon, M., Rawnsley, R., Raedts, P. et al. 2018. The behaviour and productivity of mid-lactation dairy cows provided daily pasture allowance over 2 or 7 intensively grazed strips. Animals 8(7), 115.

Research into the effects of intense grazing regimes on cattle behaviour and productivity will support the ethical intensification of pastoral dairy production. Two treatments were applied to two herds of 30 mid-lactation cows over 28...

Yeates, J. 2018. Naturalness and animal welfare. Animals 8(4), 53.

Naturalness is considered important for animals, and is one criterion for assessing how we care for them. However, it is a vague and ambiguous term, which needs definition and assessments suitable for scientific and ethical...

Wagner, K., Brinkmann, J., March, S. et al. 2018. Impact of daily grazing time on dairy cow welfare—results of the Welfare Quality® protocol. Animals 8(1), 1.

Grazing provides livestock better opportunities to act out their species-specific behavior compared to restrictive stable conditions. The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of daily grazing time on welfare of dairy...

Edmonds, D., Razaiarimahefa, T., Kessler, E. et al. 2018. Natural exposure to ultraviolet-B radiation in two species of chameleons from Madagascar. Zoo Biology 37(6), 452-457.

Many reptiles require ultraviolet-B radiation between 290 and 315 nm (UV-B) to synthesize vitamin D3 and process dietary calcium. In captivity, exposure to too little or too much UV-B can result in health problems such...

Miranda, A., Pego, J. M., Correia-Pinto, J. 2017. Animal facility videoendoscopic intubation station: Tips and tricks from mice to rabbits. Laboratory Animals 51(2), 204-207.

Endotracheal intubation of laboratory animals is a common procedure shared by several research fields for different purposes, such as mechanical ventilation of anaesthetized animals, instillation of cytotoxic nanoparticles, infectious agents or tumour cells for induction...

Lahvis, G. 2017. Unbridle biomedical research from the laboratory cage. eLife 6, e27438.

Many biomedical research studies use captive animals to model human health and disease. However, a surprising number of studies show that the biological systems of animals living in standard laboratory housing are abnormal. To make...

von Keyserlingk, M. A. G., Amorim Cestari, A., Franks, B. 2017. Dairy cows value access to pasture as highly as fresh feed. Scientific Reports 7, 44953.

Many dairy cows in the developed world are now housed exclusively indoors with fewer than 5% of the 10 million lactating cows in the United States having access to pasture during the grazing season. Indoor...

Lopes, V. M., Sampaio, E., Roumbedakis, K. et al. 2017. Cephalopod biology and care, a COST FA1301 (CephsInAction) training school: Anaesthesia and scientific procedures. Invertebrate Neuroscience 17, 8.

Cephalopods are the sole invertebrates included in the list of regulated species following the Directive 2010/63/EU. According to the Directive, achieving competence through adequate training is a requisite for people having a role in the...

Rose, P. E., Nash, S. M., Riley, L. M. 2017. To pace or not to pace? A review of what abnormal repetitive behavior tells us about zoo animal management. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 20, 11-21.

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...

Roth, T. S., Bionda, T. R., Sterck, E. H. M. 2017. Recapturing the canopy: Stimulating Bornean orang-utan (Pongo pygmaeus) natural locomotion behaviour in a zoo environment. Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research 5(1), 16-24.

Orang-utans are the largest mainly arboreal animal: wild orang-utans rarely come to the forest floor. In contrast, the locomotion behaviour of captive orang-utans encompasses more time on the ground and they spend less time on...

Kanghae, H., Thongprajukaew, K., Jatupornpitukchat, S. et al. 2016. Optimal?rearing density for head?starting green turtles (Chelonia mydas Linnaeus, 1758). Zoo Biology 35(5), 454-461.

While ex situ conservation programs of juvenile green turtles (Chelonia mydas Linnaeus, 1758), before release to natural habitats, have been conducted in several countries, the optimal‐stocking density for husbandry has not yet been reported. The...

Shepley, E., Bergeron, R., Bécotte, F. et al. 2016. Dairy cow preference for outdoor access during winter under Eastern Canada climatic conditions. Canadian Journal of Animal Science 97(1), 1-5.

Cows on two separate farms were submitted to a 6 d preference test, repeated four times, consisting of three 2 d phases (3 h d−1 phase−1): forced-indoor, forced-outdoor, and free-choice. A majority of cows on...

Anderson, C., Yngvesson, J., Boissy, A. et al. 2015. Behavioural expression of positive anticipation for food or opportunity to play in lambs. Behavioural Processes 113, 152-158.

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...

Blois-Heulin, C., Rochais, C., Camus, S. et al. 2015. Animal welfare: Could adult play be a false friend? Animal Behavior and Cognition 2(2), 156–185.

There is no consensus regarding the functions of play. As play behavior is a characteristic of young stages of development, it has been suggested that the higher prevalence of adult play observed in domestic animals...

Dinets, V. 2015. Play behavior in crocodilians. Animal Behavior and Cognition 2(1), 49–55.

Play behavior in crocodilians is not uncommon, but it remains virtually undescribed in scientific literature. I present the first overview of play behavior of three types (locomotor play, object play and social play) in crocodilians...

Bergman, T. J., Sheehan, M. J. 2013. Social knowledge and signal in primates. American Journal of Primatology 75(7), 683-694.

Primates are notable for having a rich and detailed understanding of their social environment and there has been great interest in the evolution and function of social knowledge in primates. Indeed, primates have been shown...

Burghardt, G. M. 2013. Environmental enrichment and cognitive complexity in reptiles and amphibians: Concepts, review, and implications for captive populations. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 147(3-4), 286-298.

Reptiles and amphibians have been neglected in research on cognition, emotions, sociality, need for enriched and stimulating environments, and other topics that have been greatly emphasized in work on mammals and birds. This is also...

Warwick, C., Arena, P., Lindley, S. et al. 2013. Assessing reptile welfare using behavioural criteria. In Practice 35(3), 123-131.

While clinical reptile medicine as a science is in its ascendancy among veterinary surgeons and other interested groups, familiarity with the often related issue of reptilian behavioural and psychological health appears less common. Behavioural change...