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A mapping review of refinements to laboratory rat housing and husbandry

Lab Animal volume 52, pages 63–74 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Refining the housing and husbandry of laboratory rats is an important goal, both for ethical reasons and to allow better quality research. We conducted a mapping review of 1,017 studies investigating potential refinements of housing and husbandry of the laboratory rat to assess what refinements have, and have not, been studied, and to briefly assess whether there is evidence to support any impact on rat welfare. Among the many refinements studied, the majority involve changes to the cage, but some also involve alterations to the wider environment. The effects of these refinements were assessed using a range of readouts, many of which are difficult to interpret from a welfare perspective. Preference studies, which are easier to interpret, provide evidence that rats prefer complex environments, including shelters and multiple objects, which offer different areas/resources allowing the rat to engage in diverse behaviors. The reporting of methodology in papers was often poor, indicating that studies were potentially subject to biases. Given that many refinements co-occurred, it was often difficult to tease apart which ones were most beneficial for rat welfare. Effects of refinements were also moderated by a number of factors including age, sex, strain and photoperiod. Altogether our findings show that a one-size-fits-all approach to refinements is not appropriate, because different refinements will impact different rats in different ways. Our review has also produced a database of >1,000 articles that can be used for further and more detailed analyses. Our findings have also highlighted areas where future research is likely to be valuable, including refinements to rat transport, handling and the use of training.

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Fig. 1: The literature review process.
Fig. 2: The publication year of included articles.
Fig. 3: The number of articles using different types of refinements.
Fig. 4: The number of articles using each of the top 30 most common outcome measures (excluding preference).
Fig. 5: The number of articles using different measures of preference across the different refinements.

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Data availability

Data are provided in Supplementary Table 1.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) grant BB/T002654/1 (principal investigator: M.M.) and a Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) small project award (principal investigator: V.N.). For the purpose of open access, the authors have applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising.

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  1. Animal Welfare and Behaviour Research Group, Bristol Veterinary School, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Vikki Neville, James Lind, Elsa Mendl, Nathalie E. Cozma, Elizabeth S. Paul & Michael Mendl

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  1. Vikki Neville
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  2. James Lind
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  3. Elsa Mendl
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  4. Nathalie E. Cozma
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Contributions

V.N., E.S.P. and M.M. were responsible for conceptualization and methodology. V.N., J.L., E.M. and N.E.C. were responsible for data collection. V.N. analyzed the data and wrote the original draft. All authors wrote, reviewed and edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Vikki Neville.

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Lab Animal thanks Cathalijn Leenaars, Patricia Turner and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Neville, V., Lind, J., Mendl, E. et al. A mapping review of refinements to laboratory rat housing and husbandry. Lab Anim 52, 63–74 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41684-023-01124-1

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