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The effect of early life experience, environment, and genetic factors on spontaneous home-cage aggression-related wounding in male C57BL/6 mice

Lab Animal volume 46, pages 176–184 (2017)Cite this article

An Addendum to this article was published on 25 March 2019

Abstract

Aggression is a major welfare issue in mice, particularly when mice unfamiliar to each other are first placed in cages, as happens on receipt from a vendor, and following cage cleaning. Injuries from aggression are the second leading cause of unplanned euthanasia in mice, following ulcerative dermatitis. Commonly employed strategies for reducing aggression-related injury are largely anecdotal, and may even be counterproductive. Here we report a series of experiments testing potential explanations and interventions for post-shipping aggression-related injuries in C57BL/6 mice. First, we examined the effects of weaning: testing whether manipulating weaning age reduced aggression-related injuries, and if repeated mixing of weaned mice before shipping increased these injuries. Contrary to our predictions, repeated mixing did not increase post-shipping injurious aggression, and early weaning reduced aggression-related injuries. Second, we examined potential post-shipping interventions: testing whether lavender essential oil applied to the cage reduced aggression-related injuries, and whether a variety of enrichments decreased injurious aggression. Again, contrary to predictions, lavender increased wounding, and none of the enrichments reduced it. However, consistent with the effects of weaning age in the first experiment, cages with higher mean body weight showed elevated levels of aggression-related wounding. Finally, we tested whether C57BL/6 substrains and identification methods affected levels of intra-cage wounding from aggression. We found no effect of strain, but cages where mice were ear-notched for identification showed higher levels of wounding than cages where mice were tail-tattooed. Overall, these results emphasize the multifactorial nature of home-cage injurious aggression, and the importance of testing received wisdom when it comes to managing complex behavioral and welfare problems. In terms of practical recommendations to reduce aggressive wounding in the home cage, tail tattooing is recommended over ear notching and late weaning should be avoided.

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Figure 1: The effect of days of age at weaning on the weighted PALS.
Figure 2: The effect of post-weaning housing of mice either being mixed weekly at cage change to combine pups of similar weight or kept in stable groups until shipment at 7 weeks of age.
Figure 3: Scent treatment effects on weighted PALS.
Figure 4: The effect of environmental treatments on PALS.
Figure 5: Substrain differences in end of study weighted PALS.
Figure 6: The effect of identification method on weighted PALS.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Geomaris Maldonado and Marie Heyer for excellent animal care and support during the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Purdue University Department of Comparative Pathobiology, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

    Brianna N Gaskill

  2. Department of Comparative Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

    Aurora M Stottler

  3. Department of Comparative Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Stanford University, and by courtesy, Stanford, California, USA

    Joseph P Garner

  4. Columbia University, Institute of Comparative Medicine, Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, New York, New York, USA

    Christina W Winnicker

  5. Charles River, Wilmington, Massachusetts, USA

    Brianna N Gaskill, Christina W Winnicker, Guy B Mulder & Kathleen R Pritchett-Corning

  6. Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Office of Animal Resources, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Kathleen R Pritchett-Corning

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Correspondence to Kathleen R Pritchett-Corning.

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Competing interests

This work was supported in part by Somark, through the loan of a LabStamp tattooer, although all supplies for tattooing mice were purchased by Charles River. The work was funded by Charles River, as BNG, CW, and KPC were employees of Charles River at the time the work was conducted. BNG and KPC maintain active consulting relationships with Charles River. GBM is a current employee of Charles River.

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Gaskill, B., Stottler, A., Garner, J. et al. The effect of early life experience, environment, and genetic factors on spontaneous home-cage aggression-related wounding in male C57BL/6 mice. Lab Anim 46, 176–184 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.1225

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