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. 
Soriano, V. S., Stamm, F. O., Taconeli, C. A. et al. 2020. To dock or not to dock? Faecal soiling measurement in sheep. Animal Welfare 29(1), 81-87.

Faecal soiling is one of the welfare indicators in the AWIN welfare assessment protocol for sheep (Ovis aries) and is measured by dag scores. Studies on dag scoring for ewes with docked and undocked tails...

Harris, C., White, P., Mohler, V. et al. 2020. Electroencephalography can distinguish between pain and anaesthetic intervention in conscious lambs undergoing castration. Animals 10(3), 428.

Australian sheep routinely undergo painful surgical husbandry procedures without anaesthesia or analgesia. Electroencephalography (EEG) has been shown to be a successful measure of pain in livestock under a general anaesthetic. The aim of this study...

Kells, N. J., Beausoleil, N. J., Godfrey, A. J. R. et al. 2020. Effect of analgesic strategies on pain behaviour associated with combined ring castration and hot iron tail docking in Merino lambs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 222, 104914.

Most countries don’t require analgesia to be provided to lambs

Vittis, Y., Kaler, J. 2020. Environmental and field characteristics associated with lameness in sheep: A study using a smartphone lameness app for data recording. Veterinary Record 186(12), 384.

Sheep lameness is a major concern among farmers and policymakers with significant impacts on animal welfare standards as well as financial and production performance. The present study attempts to identify the relative importance of environmental...

Ijichi, C., Evans, L., Woods, H. et al. 2020. The Right Angle: Validating a standardised protocol for the use of infra-red thermography of eye temperature as a welfare indicator. Animal Welfare 29(2), 123-131.

Infra-red thermography (IRT) is a non-invasive tool for measuring eye temperature as an indicator of stress and welfare in animals. Previous studies state that images are taken from 90° but do not specify a reference...

Harvey, A., Beausoleil, N., Ramp, D. et al. 2020. A ten-stage protocol for assessing the welfare of individual non-captive wild animals: Free-roaming horses (Equus ferus caballus) as an example. Animals 10(1), 148.

Knowledge of the welfare status of wild animals is vital for informing debates about the ways in which we interact with wild animals and their habitats. Currently, there is no published information about how to...

Young, T., Whiteside, T., Locklear, J. 2020. What is your tattoo ink telling you? Laboratory Animal Science Professional 8(2) (March/April), 62-65.

Tattooing traumatizes the skin, which can result in microbial infections with the severity ranging from minor to life-threating septicemia. Additionally, the metals in colored tattoo ink are known to cause dermal inflammation in some people...

Zemanova, M. A. 2020. Towards more compassionate wildlife research through the 3Rs principles: Moving from invasive to noninvasive methods. Wildlife Biology 2020(1), no page numbers.

Research in ecology and wildlife biology remains crucial for increasing our knowledge and improving species management and conservation in the midst of the current biodiversity crisis. However, obtaining information on population status often involves invasive...

Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour and Animal Behavior Society. 2020. Guidelines for the treatment of animals in behavioural research and teaching. Animal Behaviour 159, I-XI.

While the furthering of scientific knowledge is a proper aim, and may itself advance an awareness of human responsibility towards animal life, the investigator must always weigh the potential gain in knowledge against any adverse...

Spigarelli, C., Zuliani, A., Battini, M. et al. 2020. Welfare assessment on pasture: A review on animal-based measures for ruminants. Animals 10(4), 609.

Outdoor and extensive farming systems allow animals to behave in a natural way and are often perceived as welfare friendly. Nonetheless, the natural environment poses multiple challenges to the welfare of animals, sometimes hampering their...

Petrović, T. G., Vučić, T. Z., Nikolić, S. Z. et al. 2020. The effect of shelter on oxidative stress and aggressive behavior in crested newt larvae (Triturus spp.). Animals 10(4), 603.

Shelters are important for animal survival. Provision of adequate hiding places allow animals to express their natural sheltering behavior and it can have different positive effects on cortisol levels, physiological processes and mental performance. Although...

Wolfensohn, S. 2020. Too cute to kill? The need for objective measurements of quality of life. Animals 10(6), 1054.

The recognition of animal suffering is influenced by cultural and societal prejudices and the cuteness of an animal leads to bias in the way it is treated. It is important to consider the animal’s behaviour...

Piirsalu, P., Kaart, T., Nutt, I. et al. 2020. The effect of climate parameters on sheep preferences for outdoors or indoors at low ambient temperatures. Animals 10(6), 1029.

Threshold temperatures for cold stress in sheep are not well understood, the available literature is somewhat dated and reports relate to winter temperatures that are relatively benign. Sheep’s preferences for outdoor versus indoor environments, when...

Larson, C. M., Wilcox, G. L., Fairbanks, C. A. 2019. Defining and managing pain in stroke and traumatic brain injury research. Comparative Medicine 69(6), 510–519.

Neurologic conditions such as stroke and traumatic brain injury are challenging conditions to study in humans. Animal models are necessary to uncover disease processes and develop novel therapies. When attempting to model these or other...

Browning, H. 2020. The natural behavior debate: Two conceptions of animal welfare. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 23(3), 325-337.

The performance of natural behavior is commonly used as a criterion in the determination of animal welfare. This is still true, despite many authors having demonstrated that it is not a necessary component of welfare...

Mondragón-Ancelmo, J., García Hernández, P., Rojo Rubio, R. et al. 2020. Small flocks show higher levels of welfare in Mexican semi-intensive sheep farming systems. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 23(3), 348-355.

In order to assess the level of sheep welfare in small traditional farms as compared with farms of increased size we evaluated several animal-based parameters and applied a modified Animal Needs Index (ANI) protocol in...

De, K., Sharma, S., Kumar Kumawat, P. et al. 2020. Provision of desert cooler in shed of ewes during summer in hot semi-arid region. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 37, 76-80.

In hot arid and semi-arid regions, heat stress is a major constraint in animal production due to prolonged summers with high temperatures. In dairy husbandry, the desert cooler and evaporative cooling system are effectively used...

Skidmore, T., Roe, E. 2020. A semi-structured questionnaire survey of laboratory animal rehoming practice across 41 UK animal research facilities. PLOS ONE 15(6): e0234922.

If a laboratory animal survives an experiment without lasting compromised welfare, its future must be negotiated. Rehoming may be a consideration. This paper reports on research findings that provide an indication of the uptake of...

Sutherland, M. A., Worth, G. M., Dowling, S. K. et al. 2020. Evaluation of infrared thermography as a non-invasive method of measuring the autonomic nervous response in sheep. PLOS ONE 15(5): e0233558.

Eye temperature measured using infrared thermography (IRT) can be used as a non-invasive measure of autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity in cattle. The objective of this study was to evaluate if changes in eye temperature...

Beck, M. R., Gregorini, P. 2020. How dietary diversity enhances hedonic and eudaimonic well-being in grazing ruminants. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 7, 191.

Ruminants evolved in diverse landscapes of which they utilized, by choice, a diverse arrangement of plants (grasses, forbs, and trees) for food. These plants provide them with both primary (carbohydrates, protein, etc.) and secondary (phenolics...

Llaniguez, J. T., Szczepaniak, M. A., Rickman, B. H. et al. 2020. Quantitative and qualitative behavioral measurements to assess pain in axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum). JAALAS 59(2), 186–196.

Effective pain relief in animals relies on the ability to discern pain and assess its severity. However, few objective measures exist to assess the presence and severity of pain in axolotls, and few resources are...

Chapa, J. M., Maschat, K., Iwersen, M. et al. 2020. Accelerometer systems as tools for health and welfare assessment in cattle and pigs – A review. Behavioural Processes 181, 104262.

Welfare assessment has traditionally been performed by direct observation by humans, providing information at only selected points in time. Recently, this assessment method has been questioned, as ‘Precision Livestock Farming’ technologies may be able to...

Freitas-de-Melo, A., Ungerfeld, R. 2020. The sex of the offspring affects the lamb and ewe responses to abrupt weaning. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 229, 105008.

Female lambs have a stronger attachment with their mothers and show a greater susceptibility to stressors than male lambs. Male lambs grow faster than female lambs do, achieving a greater nutritional independence from their mothers...

Masłowska, K., Mizzoni, F., Dwyer, C. M. et al. 2020. Qualitative behavioural assessment of pain in castrated lambs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 233, 105143.

This study investigates for the first time the application of Qualitative Behavioural Assessment (QBA) to the analysis of acute pain expression in castrated lambs. Eighty 2-day-old male lambs were allocated to one of 4 groups...

Clutton, R. E. 2020. An Anglocentric history of anaesthetics and analgesics in the refinement of animal experiments. Animals 10(10), 1933.

Previous histories of animal experimentation, e.g., Franco (2013) have focused on ethics, the law and the personalities involved, but not on the involvement of anaesthetics or analgesics. Given that these were major subjects of (UK)...