Choice by rats for enriched versus standard home cages: Plastic pipes, wood platforms, wood chips, and paper towels as enrichment items (1991)

Bradshaw, A. L., Poling, A.

Abstract

Most [of the individually tested male] rats preferred cages with wood platforms, wood chips, and paper towels to otherwise identical [barren, wire mesh] cages. .... Plastic pipes ... were not preferred by most animals. Both wood platforms and paper towels created no [husbandry routine] problems and appeared to be useful as enrichment items. The latter were preferred to the former. The males showed a strong preference for paper towels and immediately constructed nests with them.