Pair-Housed Monkeys with Head Cap Implants (2007)

Anonymous

Abstract

Our university tries to pair all rhesus macaques regardless of cranial implants. Normally the pairs are established before they have undergone surgery for head caps, but we have successfully paired primates after surgery as well. Over a period of ten years, we have had no incidents of damage to the implants. We have more problems, with coils of head caps breaking, in single-housed than in pair-housed rhesus. The head caps of pair-housed animals are cleaner as they groom each other than those of individually caged animals. We have ten pair-housed male rhesus and long-tailed macaques with head caps. The animals were 3 to 6 years old at the time of pair formation. They are presently approximately 10 years old. Some of them had head caps before they were paired, others got them afterwards. It didn't seem to matter. In my experience, pair-housing does not create a risk factor when the animals have head cap implants. In all the time I've been working with these monkeys, they've never damaged one another's head caps.