Rodent

The effects of cage color and light intensity on rat affect during heterospecific play

Environmental enrichment provides physiological and emotional benefits to laboratory rodents. Red tinted shelters are a common enrichment found in laboratories that provide rodents with a hiding space shielded from bright light. Red tinting alters the light's spectral make-up which reduces...

Year Published: 2019Topics: Emotion, Pain, & Sentience, Environmental Enrichment, Housing, Husbandry & ManagementAnimal Type: Rat, Rodent

Citation: LaFollette, M. R., Swan, M. P., Smith, R. K. et al. 2019. The effects of cage color and light intensity on rat affect during heterospecific play. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 219, 104834.

Time’s up for tick-over colonies… Do we now need to maintain so many GA mouse lines?

The practice of continually breeding lines to maintain them as a live resource either in-between studies or indefinitely “just in case” is common practice in many animal facilities. This process of “ticking over” colonies has historically occurred due to the...

Year Published: 2019Topics: ReproductionAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Newman, S., Woodley, S. 2019. Time's up for tick-over colonies… Do we now need to maintain so many GA mouse lines? Animal Technology and Welfare 17(3), 155-157.

Report of the Enrichment; Awareness and Uptake Workshop 2018 on 26th June at College Court, Leicester

The point of the session was to have a collaborative discussion about environmental enrichment. The organisers wanted to know people's experiences with enrichment, the barriers they have faced, if they have overcome any, and also to share some of their...

Year Published: 2019Topics: Environmental Enrichment, ReproductionAnimal Type: Mouse, Rat, Rodent

Citation: King, J. 2018. Report of the Enrichment; Awareness and Uptake Workshop 2018 on 26th June at College Court, Leicester. Animal Technology and Wefare 17(3), 163-167. [Meeting Report]

Why are enriched mice nice? Investigating how environmental enrichment reduces agonism in female C57BL/6, DBA/2, and BALB/c mice

Compared to female mice raised in large, environmentally enriched (EE) cages, those from “shoebox” non-enriched (NE) cages demonstrate more stereotypic behaviour (SB) and depressive-like effects (i.e. learned helplessness; and inactive-but-awake behaviour [IBA], where a mouse simply stands still). Past research...

Year Published: 2019Topics: Environmental Enrichment, Social Housing & CompanionshipAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Nip, E., Adcock, A., Nazal, B. et al. 2019. Why are enriched mice nice? Investigating how environmental enrichment reduces agonism in female C57BL/6, DBA/2, and BALB/c mice. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 217, 73-82.

Social environment as a cause of litter loss in laboratory mouse: A behavioural study

Perinatal mortality is a widespread problem in laboratory mouse breeding and is often manifested by the loss of the entire litter within the first days of life. High mortality is an animal health and welfare concern that violates the 3R...

Year Published: 2019Topics: Rearing & Weaning, Social Housing & CompanionshipAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Brajon, S., Morello, G. M., Teixeira, M. S. et al. 2019. Social environment as a cause of litter loss in laboratory mouse: A behavioural study. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 218, 104827.

Parental behavior and anxiety in isogenic and outbred mice given access to two types of nesting materials

The objective was to investigate if providing two types of nesting materials could modulate parental behavior and anxiety in laboratory mice. For that, 54 full-sib BALB/cJ and 50 randomly mated Swiss Webster mouse pairs were employed in a completely randomized...

Year Published: 2019Topics: Environmental EnrichmentAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Moreira, V. B., Mattaraia, V. G. M., Rodrigues, M. V. et al. 2019. Parental behavior and anxiety in isogenic and outbred mice given access to two types of nesting materials. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 215, 68-76.

Humanely ending the life of animals: Research priorities to identify alternatives to carbon dioxide

The use of carbon dioxide (CO2) for stunning and killing animals is considered to compromise welfare due to air hunger, anxiety, fear, and pain. Despite decades of research, no alternatives have so far been found that provide a safe and...

Year Published: 2019Topics: EuthanasiaAnimal Type: Bird, Chicken, Mouse, Pig, Rat

Citation: Steiner, A. R., Axiak Flammer, S., Beausoleil, N. J. et al. 2019. Humanely ending the life of animals: Research priorities to identify alternatives to carbon dioxide. Animals 9(11), 911.

Use of the rat grimace scale to evaluate visceral pain in a model of chemotherapy-induced mucositis

The rat grimace scale (RGS) is a measure of spontaneous pain that evaluates pain response. The ability to characterize pain through a non-invasive method has considerable utility for numerous animal models of disease, including mucositis, a painful, self-limiting side-effect of...

Year Published: 2019Topics: Welfare AssessmentAnimal Type: Rat, Rodent

Citation: George, R. P., Howarth, G. S., Whittaker, A. L. 2019. Use of the rat grimace scale to evaluate visceral pain in a model of chemotherapy-induced mucositis. Animals 9(9), 678.

Alternatives to carbon dioxide—Taking responsibility for humanely ending the life of animals

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is commonly used to kill rodents. However, a large body of research has now established that CO2 is aversive to them. A multidisciplinary symposium organized by the Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office discussed the drawbacks...

Year Published: 2019Topics: EuthanasiaAnimal Type: Chinchilla, Gerbil, Guinea Pig, Hamster, Mouse, Other Rodent, Rat, Rodent

Citation: Axiak Flammer, S., Eskes, C., Kohler, I. et al. 2019. Alternatives to carbon dioxide—Taking responsibility for humanely ending the life of animals. Animals 9(8), 482.

Corticosterone assimilation by a voluntary oral administration in palatable food to rats

Drug delivery in research on nonhuman animals in the laboratory is still challenging because it is usually invasive and stressful. Stress-free voluntary oral drug administration in water lacks precise control of dose and timing of substance ingestion. Voluntary oral consumption...

Year Published: 2018Topics: Drug/Substance AdministrationAnimal Type: Rat, Rodent

Citation: Raya, J., Neves Girardi , C. E., Hipólide, D. C. 2019. Corticosterone assimilation by a voluntary oral administration in palatable food to rats. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 22(1), 37-41.