Although experimental work on environmental enrichment has answered many important questions, it is not yet known whether beneficial effects of enrichment are more strongly influenced by regular provision of novel objects, or by the diversity...
The naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber) is a relatively rare mammal in zoological collections with only nine zoos in the United Kingdom holding colonies of varying sizes at the time of study. This study aims...
What follows are some case studies in which solid but transparent barriers have been used successfully to provide a sense of security to three different mammal taxa (three-banded armadillo; Kirk’s dikdik; black rat) to reduce...
Extended-release (ER) local anesthetics can be used in multi-modal analgesia or in situations in which systemic analgesics may alter animal physiology and thus introduce interpretational confounds. In this study, we compared the analgesic efficacy of...
Although mice are social animals, individual housing is sometimes requested after surgery. We questioned whether pair-housing mice after surgery resulted in greater trauma to the surgical site as compared with single housing. We further evaluated...
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a conditionally acceptable method for mouse euthanasia, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals. In a 2012 Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) webinar, representatives...
The goals of this study were to determine whether mice would adapt to a low-calorie flavored water gel as their sole source of hydration and whether the addition of acetaminophen, tramadol, meloxicam, or buprenorphine to...
Depilatory creams are widely used in research to remove hair in preparation for surgery, imaging, and other procedures. However, few studies have evaluated the effects of these creams on mouse skin. We sought to determine...
Changes in housing density, including individual housing, are commonly necessary in animal research. Obtaining reproducibility and translational validity in biomedical research requires an understanding of how animals adapt to changes in housing density. Existing literature...
This study compared euthanasia induced by rising concentrations of CO2 in aged rats (n = 59) using different gas displacement rates. Rats were preimplanted with cardiovascular telemetry devices and had been previously used for short...