Includes refinements to diet, bedding or flooring, cage changing, lighting, temperature, noise levels, etc.
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...
Rabbits are known to be finicky about food and will reject it based upon several factors: odor, texture, form, or method of presentation. It can be an even greater challenge to get rabbits to eat...
Electric eels (Electrophorus electricus) are a unique species used for behavioral research in the Vanderbilt Animal Care and Use Program. Few resources are available to describe the housing and handling of this species in captivity...
Here, we provide a few easy steps on how to trim guinea pigs’ nails.
This article describes the natural behaviors of tree shrews and how to accommodate for their care and welfare in a laboratory, including information on infant rearing and diet, caging, environmental enrichment, and mitigation of stressors.
Husbandry staff set a goal to develop a health monitoring program for a Xenopus laevis colony that included not only specific pathogen freedom, but wellness. This article describes environmental enrichment and a water recipe for...
Xenopus laevis have a unique process for consuming food. They lack a tongue and must utilize inertial suction, jaw prehension, forearm scooping, overhead kicking, and terrestrial lunges when hunting prey. The mechanism by which Xenopus...
Fasting of mice is a common procedure, which can affect the outcome of the study as well as animal welfare. In this study, we assess the effects of fasting, fasting duration and fasting initiation time...
A simple method for sex determination can reduce the number of sea urchins used in the lab and help to optimize experimental design. Our new methodology developed with Paracentrotus lividus is simple and inexpensive, requiring...
Dogs form toileting preferences that may influence canine elimination behaviors. This study aimed to assess the effect of providing a novel substrate (synthetic grass) on indices of canine willingness to eliminate, plus associated behavioral parameters...