Includes play and sleep.
Refinement typically is viewed as a means of reducing harms to animals used in laboratory research. Examples of recent research on refinement include improved methods of handling and euthanasia. Focus in the animal welfare literature...
The authors provide an update to their 2006 report on the successful large-scale captive breeding of the 13-lined ground squirrel (TLGS; Ictidomys tridecemlineatus) in their colony, now a single-source supplier of purpose-bred TLGSs for several...
The eighth edition of The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals establishes social housing as the "default" for social species including non-human primates. The advantages of social housing for primates have been...
Despite growing interest in promoting positive welfare, rather than just alleviating poor welfare, potential measures of good welfare, and means to provide it, have remained elusive. In humans social support improves stress-coping abilities, health, and...
Pigs may affect each other's health, welfare and productivity through their behaviour. The effect of a pig on the growth rate of its pen mates is partly heritable and is referred to as its social...
To promote the psychological well-being of captive non-human primates, facilities develop and implement an environmental enhancement plan (Animal Welfare Act, Section 3.81). Enrichment options described in the plan should be selected to demonstrably promote species-typical...
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...
Xenopus are a hardy, long-lived, aquatic amphibian species which readily adapt to a captive environment. This characteristic makes Xenopus ideal for the laboratory, where they are used extensively in basic and biomedical research. Though husbandry...
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...
In mammals, helping is preferentially provided to members of one’s own group. Yet, it remains unclear how social experience shapes pro-social motivation. We found that rats helped trapped strangers by releasing them from a restrainer...