Gaskill, B. N., Winnicker, C., Garner, J. P. et al. 2013. The naked truth: Breeding performance in nude mice with and without nesting material. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 143(2-4), 110-116.

In laboratories, mice are housed at ambient temperatures between 20 and 24 C, which is below their lower critical temperature of 30 C, but comfortable for human workers. Thus, mice are under chronic thermal stress, which can compromise many aspects of physiology from metabolism to pup growth. These effects may be exacerbated in nude mice. We hypothesized that provision of nesting material would allow nude mice to behaviourally thermoregulate, reducing heat loss to the environment, and that this reduction would improve feed conversion as well as breeding performance. .. The breeding index (pups weaned/female/week) was significantly higher when nesting material was provided (P = 0.006). The energy conserved by nesting material was reallocated from heat generation to improved breeding performance. Thus nests lessen the thermal stress of cool laboratory temperatures on nude mice. Together these data show that good welfare can be good business and good science.