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. 
Ask, K., Rhodin, M., Tamminen, L.-M. et al. 2020. Identification of body behaviors and facial expressions associated with induced orthopedic pain in four equine pain scales. Animals 10(11), 2155.

Equine orthopedic pain scales are targeted towards horses with moderate to severe orthopedic pain. Improved assessment of pain behavior and pain-related facial expressions at rest may refine orthopedic pain detection for mild lameness grades. Therefore...

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)...

Cohen, S., Beths, T. 2020. Grimace scores: Tools to support the identification of pain in mammals used in research. Animals 10(10), 1726.

The 3Rs, Replacement, Reduction and Refinement, is a framework to ensure the ethical and justified use of animals in research. The implementation of refinements is required to alleviate and minimise the pain and suffering of...

Kahnau, P., Habedank, A., Diederich, K. et al. 2020. Behavioral methods for severity assessment. Animals 10(7), 1136.

It has become mandatory for the application for allowance of animal experimentation to rate the severity of the experimental procedures. In order to minimize suffering related to animal experimentation it is therefore crucial to develop...

Miller, L. J., Vicino, G. A., Sheftel, J. et al. 2020. Behavioral diversity as a potential indicator of positive animal welfare. Animals 10(7), 1211.

Modern day zoos and aquariums continuously assess the welfare of their animals and use evidence to make informed management decisions. Historically, many of the indicators of animal welfare used to assess the collection are negative...

Orth, E. K., Navas González, F. J., Iglesias Pastrana, C. et al. 2020. Development of a donkey grimace scale to recognize pain in donkeys (Equus asinus) post castration. Animals 10(8), 1411.

The objectives of this study were to establish a donkey ethogram, followed by a donkey grimace scale to be applied to donkeys pre- and post-castration and to test if there was a notable difference in...

Raspa, F., Tarantola, M., Bergero, D. et al. 2020. Time-budget of horses reared for meat production: Influence of stocking density on behavioural activities and subsequent welfare. Animals 10(8), 1334.

Horses reared for meat production can be kept in intensive breeding farms where they are housed in group pens at high stocking densities. The present study aimed to evaluate whether the expressed behaviours correlated with...

Rault, J.-L., Waiblinger, S., Boivin, X. et al. 2020. The power of a positive human–animal relationship for animal welfare. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 7, 590867.

Domestic animals often seek and enjoy interacting with humans. Positive human–animal relationships can elicit positive emotions and other positive welfare outcomes. Nevertheless, our understanding of the underlying processes that govern the positive perception of humans...

Scopa, C., Greco, A., Contalbrigo, L. et al. 2020. Inside the interaction: Contact with familiar humans modulates heart rate variability in horses. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 7, 582759.

A human–animal relationship can be developed through subsequent interactions, affected by the positive or negative emotional valence of the proceeding one. Horses implement a process of categorization to classify humans with whom they interact as...

Taylor, P. 2020. Remote controlled nociceptive threshold testing systems in large animals. Animals 10(9), 1556.

Nociceptive threshold (NT) testing is widely used for the study of pain and its alleviation. The end point is a normal behavioural response, which may be affected by restraint or unfamiliar surroundings, leading to erroneous...

van Loon, J., Verhaar, N., van den Berg, E. et al. 2020. Objective assessment of acute pain in foals using a facial expression-based pain scale. Animals 10(9), 1610.

Pain assessment is very important for monitoring welfare and quality of life in horses. To date, no studies have described pain scales for objective assessment of pain in foals. Studies in other species have shown...

Mogil, J. S., Pang, D. S. J., Silva Dutra, G. G. et al. 2020. The development and use of facial grimace scales for pain measurement in animals. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 116, 480-496.

The measurement of pain in animals is surprisingly complex, and remains a critical issue in veterinary care and biomedical research. Based on the known utility of pain measurement via facial expression in verbal and especially...

Rojas, D., Broom, D. M., Orihuela, A. et al. 2020. Effects of human-animal relationship on animal productivity and welfare. Journal of Animal Behaviour and Biometeorology 8(3), 196-205.

This is a literature review of the effects of humans' relationships with farm animals on animal productivity and welfare, including the following topics: definition of the concept and description of different tests that have been...

Brereton, J. E. 2020. Challenges and directions in zoo and aquarium food presentation research: A review. Journal of Zoological and Botanical Gardens 1(1), 13–23.

From its foundations in agricultural science, zoo animal nutrition has developed into a biologically informed, evidence-based discipline. However, some facets of nutrition still make use of a more traditional approach, such as the field of...

Nawroth, C., Gygax, L. 2020. The legislative, ethical, and conceptual importance of replicability in farm animal welfare science. agriRxiv 2020, 20203211980.

In this commentary, we discuss three replicability issues that are specifically relevant to research regarding farm animal welfare: (1) Legislative action, and its potential economic consequences, should derive from robust and replicable research to benefit...

X. Hui, Kan, E. C. 2019. No-touch measurements of vital signs in small conscious animals. Science Advances 5, eaau0169.

Measuring the heartbeat and respiration of small conscious animals is important for assessing their health and behavior, but present techniques such as electrocardiogram (ECG), ultrasound, and auscultation rely on close skin contact with the animal...

Meagher, R. K. 2019. Is boredom an animal welfare concern? Animal Welfare 28(1), 21-32.

Boredom, while often casually attributed to non-human animals by both laypeople and scientists, has received little empirical study in this context. It is sometimes dismissed by others as anthropomorphic or a trivial concern in comparison...

Bateson, M., Poirier, C. 2019. Can biomarkers of biological age be used to assess cumulative lifetime experience? Animal Welfare 28(1), 41-56.

Objective methods for assessing the cumulative lifetime experience of non-human animals would be valuable. We develop the hypothesis that biological age is a common currency that integrates the overall quality of an animal's lifetime experience...

Luz, M. P. F., Maia, C. M., Arruda, L. A. S. et al. 2019. Preference for heights of feeding troughs in mares: A pilot study. Animal Welfare 28(2), 205-214.

Preferences for the height of feeding troughs of seven mares were evaluated and, as awareness of surroundings when feeding is adaptive for horses, the relationship between preference responses and attention behaviours was also assessed. First...

Popescu, S., Lazar, E. A., Borda, C. et al. 2019. Welfare quality of breeding horses under different housing conditions. Animals 9(3), 81.

This paper investigates the effect of different housing conditions on the welfare quality of breeding horses. Using a welfare protocol that included health and behavioral parameters, 330 stallions (kept in tie-stall housing) and 365 broodmares...

Yngvesson, J., Rey Torres, J. C., Lindholm, J. et al. 2019. Health and body conditions of riding school horses housed in groups or kept in conventional tie-stall/box housing. Animals 9(3), 73.

We compared welfare measures of horses among Swedish riding schools (RS) during winter where horses were kept either in group housing (n = 8) or in tie-stalls/boxes (n = 8), Health data for six previous...

Rault, J.-L. 2019. Be kind to others: Prosocial behaviours and their implications for animal welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 210, 113-123.

Social interactions are central to the health and psychological well-being of domestic animals. Until now, research has overwhelmingly focused on negative social behaviours such as aggression or the lack of social interactions such as social...

Mejdell, C. M., Jørgensen, G. H. M., Buvik, T. et al. 2019. The effect of weather conditions on the preference in horses for wearing blankets. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 212, 52-57.

The use of blankets in horses is widespread in Northern Europe. However, horses are very adaptable to low temperatures and the practice is questioned because blankets may hamper heat dissipation at high temperatures and also...

Raspa, F., Cavallarin, L., McLean, A. et al. 2019. A Review of the appropriate nutrition welfare criteria of dairy donkeys: Nutritional requirements, farm management requirements and animal-based indicators. Animals 9(6), 315.

Data are available in the scientific literature concerning the quality and usefulness of donkey milk for human consumption. However, there is a lack of studies related to the understanding of the welfare of dairy donkeys...

Learmonth, M. J. 2019. Dilemmas for natural living concepts of zoo animal welfare. Animals 9(6), 318.

This ethical discourse specifically deals with dilemmas encountered within zoological institutions, namely for the concept of natural living, and a new term—wilding. It is agreed by some that zoos are not ethically wrong in principle...