The effect of cage size and enrichment on core temperature and febrile response of the golden hamster (1999)

Kuhnen, G.

Abstract

Male golden hamsters were studied. The results indicate that housing in small cages induce chronic stress which obviously affects thermoregulation. .... The comparison of the mean values between different sizes of standard cages and between standard and enriched cages of the same size shows that the effect of cage size and cage enrichment is nearly the same in relation to baseline core temperature. But regarding the febrile response the effect of cage size is stronger than the influence of cage enrichment. ....The findings demonstrate that the results of some physiological experiments are significantly influenced by the pre-experimental housing condition. Cleaning of cage caused results similar to chronic housing in small cages. It was concluded that cage sizes of 825 sq.cm and larger are more appropriate for housing golden hamsters than cage sizes of 363 sq.cm and smaller. The minimal cage size for housing golden hamsters given by the European Convention for the Protection of Experimental Animals seems too small to cause sound interpretation of experimental results. For the comparison and assessment of results, the description of the housing conditions seems to be as essential as the description of the experimental procedure.