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. 
Saville, J. W., Ross, J. A., Trefz, T. et al. 2020. Development and field validation of lidocaine-loaded castration bands for bovine pain mitigation. Animals 10(12), 2363.

Castration is among the most common management procedures performed in the dairy and beef cattle industries and is mainly performed by surgery or elastic banding. Despite the various benefits of castration, all methods produce pain...

Podturkin, A. A., Papaeva, N. 2020. Development of an environmental enrichment programme: Case study of white Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris bengalensis) and jaguar (Panthera onca) at Moscow Zoo. Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research 8(2), 139-145.

Zoos are urged to implement enrichment programmes that include constant feedback to increase efficacy. However, such work is time consuming for zookeepers. The goal of this case study was to establish an enrichment programme in...

Tan, S. L. T., Handasyde, K. A., Rault, J.-L. et al. 2020. Insensitivity to reward shifts in zebrafish (Danio rerio) and implications for assessing affective states. Animal Cognition 23(1), 87–100

Theory and empirical findings predict that individuals in a negative affective state are more sensitive to unexpected reward loss and less sensitive to unexpected reward gain compared to individuals in a neutral or positive affective...

Ninomiya, S. 2019. Grooming device effects on behaviour and welfare of Japanese black fattening cattle. Animals 9(4), 186.

In livestock farming, a stark or barren environment compromises animal welfare. Environmental enrichment has been used to address the issue. For this study, after fattening cattle were provided with a grooming device (a brush), its...

Van der Saag, D., Lomax, S., Windsor, P. A. et al. 2019. Effect of lignocaine and a topical vapocoolant spray on pain response during surgical castration of beef calves. Animals 9(4), 126.

This study assessed the efficacy of pre-operative injected lignocaine and peri-operative topical vapocoolant spray, administered as most practical for incorporation into routine calf castration procedures. Calves were randomly allocated to: (1) sham castration (SHAM); (2)...

Mandel, R., Wenker, M. L., van Reenen, K. et al. 2019. Can access to an automated grooming brush and/or a mirror reduce stress of dairy cows kept in social isolation? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 211, 1-8.

In dairy farming, social isolation of cattle is commonly practiced for husbandry procedures such as artificial insemination, claw trimming and at times, for provision of medical treatment. When isolated, cows express physiological and behavioural signs...

Gladden, N., Ellis, K., Martin, J. et al. 2019. A single dose of ketoprofen in the immediate postpartum period has the potential to improve dairy calf welfare in the first 48 h of life. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 212, 19-29.

The welfare impact of birth on newborn calves has rarely been studied. Dystocia in particular may have significant welfare costs for calves. While analgesia is sometimes provided to calves born to difficult parturition by veterinary...

Eagan, T. 2019. Evaluation of enrichment for reptiles in zoos. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(1), 69-77.

Studies on environmental enrichment for reptiles are lacking in the scientific literature. Although the literature reflects a limited take on reptile enrichment in the zoological community, it may not be the case in reality as...

Arechavala-Lopez, P., Saraiva, J. L. 2019. Welfare of Cultured and Experimental Fishes. Basel, Switzerland: MDPI, 132 pages.

This open access book is a printed edition of the Special Issue on Welfare of Cultured and Experimental Fishes that was published in the journal Fishes. The PDF is free for download.

Woodward, M. A., Winder, L. A., Watt, P. J. 2019. Enrichment increases aggression in zebrafish. Fishes 4(1), 22.

Environmental enrichment, or the enhancement of an animal’s surroundings when in captivity to maximise its wellbeing, has been increasingly applied to fish species, particularly those used commercially. Laboratory species could also benefit from enrichment, but...

Ninomiya, S. 2019. Grooming device effects on behaviour and welfare of Japanese black fattening cattle. Animals 9(4), 186.

In livestock farming, a stark or barren environment compromises animal welfare. Environmental enrichment has been used to address the issue. For this study, after fattening cattle were provided with a grooming device (a brush), its...

DePasquale, C., Fettrow, S., Sturgill, J. et al. 2019. The impact of flow and physical enrichment on preferences in zebrafish. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 215, 77-81.

Environmental enrichment is used extensively to improve the welfare of animals in captivity, however, the importance of physical exercise as enrichment is only now coming to light. A key question in assessing the welfare of...

Ede, T., von Keyserlingk, M. A. G., Weary, D. M. 2019. Assessing the affective component of pain, and the efficacy of pain control, using conditioned place aversion in calves. Biology Letters 15(10), 20190642.

Pain in animals is typically assessed using reflexive and physiological responses. These measures allow inferences regarding nociception but provide little basis for conclusions about the affective component of pain (i.e. how negatively the experience is...

Marti, S., Meléndez, D. M., Pajor, E. A. et al. 2019. Effect of a single dose of subcutaneous meloxicam before knife castration alone or combined with hot-iron branding on scrotal healing, inflammatory response, and behaviour in 2-mo-old beef calves over 42 d post procedure. Canadian Journal of Animal Science 99(1), 179-190.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of a single subcutaneous injection of meloxicam on scrotal healing, inflammatory response, and behaviour in castrated or castrated and branded beef calves for 42 d...

Chatigny, F. 2019. The controversy on fish pain: A veterinarian’s perspective. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(4), 400-410.

Fish welfare is still a relatively new field. As such, regulations and protocols to ensure fish welfare are currently limited and vary considerably in different jurisdictions. This is in part because of the ongoing controversy...

Lee, C. J., Paull, G. C., Tyler, C. R. 2019. Effects of environmental enrichment on survivorship, growth, sex ratio and behaviour in laboratory maintained zebrafish Danio rerio. Journal of Fish Biology 94(1), 86-95.

Environmental enrichment involves increasing the complexity of a fish's environment in order to improve welfare. Researchers are legally obliged to consider the welfare of laboratory animals and poor welfare may result in less robust data...

Sloman, K, A., Bouyoucos, I. A., Brooks, E. J. et al. 2019. Ethical considerations in fish research. Journal of Fish Biology 94(4), 556-577.

In this review, we focus primarily on the refinement of common methods used in fish research based on emerging knowledge with the aim of improving the welfare of fish used in scientific studies. We consider...

Jones, N. A. R., Spence, R., Jones, F. A. M. et al. 2019. Shade as enrichment: Testing preferences for shelter in two model fish species. Journal of Fish Biology 95(4), 1161-1165.

We compared preferences shown by zebrafish (Danio rerio) and three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) for shelter provided by above-tank shade and artificial plants. Zebrafish showed no preference for either shelter, whereas sticklebacks showed a preference for...

ur Rahman, M. A., Xia, C., Ji, L. et al. 2019. Nutrient intake, feeding patterns, and abnormal behavior of growing bulls fed different concentrate levels and a single fiber source (corn stover silage). Journal of Veterinary Behavior 33, 46-53.

Twenty-eight bulls weighing 227 ± 6.8 (SD) kg were randomly assigned to four concentrate levels (1-1.5 kg [low level of concentrate {LC}], 1.5-2 kg [medium level of concentrate], 2-2.5 kg [high level of concentrate {HC}]...

Kop Fogsgaard, K., Bertelsen, M., Winther Christensen, J. 2019. Does shelter design matter? A note on the effect of two shelter types on shelter use by cattle during winter. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 34, 18-21.

Little is known about the effect of shelter design on sheltering behavior in out-wintered cattle. In this pilot study, we explored the effects of two different shelter designs (rectangular: 50 m2 vs. hexagonal 53 m2...

Marinath, L., Vaz, J., Kumar, D. et al. 2019. Drivers of stereotypic behaviour and physiological stress among captive jungle cat (Felis chaus Schreber, 1777) in India. Physiology & Behavior 210, 112651.

Zoos play a vital role in managing and conserving a wide range of threatened species and in enhancing their populations in natural habitats through captive breeding and reintroduction programmes. Most small felids are poor breeders...

Egelkamp, C. L., Ross, S. R. 2019. A review of zoo-based cognitive research using touchscreen interfaces. Zoo Biology 38(2), 220-235.

In the past few decades, there has been an increase in the number of zoo-based touchscreen studies of animal cognition around the world. Such studies have contributed to the field of comparative cognition despite the...

Cox, R. J., Nol, P., Ellis, C. K. et al. 2019. Research with agricultural animals and wildlife. ILAR Journal 60(1), 66-73.

In fiscal year 2016, agricultural animals such as swine, sheep, goats, and cattle represented 10% of the 820 812 animals used in USDA-regulated research. In addition to traditional agricultural animals, research studies using captive wildlife...

Schmitt, V. 2019. Implementing portable touchscreen-setups to enhance cognitive research and enrich zoo-housed animals. Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research 7(2), 50-58.

To understand the evolutionary development of cognition, comparing the cognitive capacities of different animal species is essential. However, getting access to various species with sufficient sample sizes can be very challenging. Zoos, housing large ranges...

Gomes, D., McSweeney, L., Santos, M. 2019. Effects of environmental enrichment techniques on stereotypical behaviours of captive Sumatran tigers: A preliminary case study. Journal of Animal Behaviour and Biometeorology 7(4), 144-148.

Wild animals are maintained in Zoological facilities for purposes of education, conservation, research, and recreation. Several studies have proven that the surroundings of an animal's artificial habitat, as well as environmental enrichment techniques, are factors...