Laboratory rodent housing conditions vary significantly across laboratories and facilities. Variation in housing can be associated with animal stress leading to study variability and the subsequent inability to replicate experimental findings. Optimization and standardization of animal housing are...

The presence of a conspecific can be calming to some species of animal during stress, a phenomenon known as social buffering. For rodents, social buffering can reduce the perception of and reaction to aversive experiences. With a companion, animals may be less frightened in conditioned fear...

The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (the Guide) recommends that terrestrial mammals be provided space free of urine and feces in which to rest. To evaluate the feasibility of meeting this recommendation, the author examined the availability of feces-free resting areas in standard...

Environmental enrichment provides physiological and emotional benefits to laboratory rodents. Red tinted shelters are a common enrichment found in laboratories that provide rodents with a hiding space shielded from bright light. Red tinting alters the light's spectral make-up which reduces the...

There is considerable interest in refining laboratory rodent environments to promote animal well-being, as well as research reproducibility. Few studies have evaluated the long term impact of enhancing rodent environments with resources and additional cagemates. To that end, male and female Sprague ...

The environmental sampling of layer housing systems is essential to identifying potential pathogens that are of concern to human health. To identify the natural occurrence of pathogens (Listeria, Campylobacter, and Salmonella) at various locations in a cage-free aviary housing system, swabs were...

The use of metabolic cages is established housing protocol in small-animal, gastrointestinal research. Physiological data, as primarily observed through secretions of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis has shown that rodents housed in this manner experience an increased stress response. Few...

Resilience, the degree to which individuals are physiologically and behaviourally impacted by stressors, can be enhanced by positive experiences (e.g. positive moods in human, environmental enrichment in rodents). Such effects are important for human health, but could also have important animal ...

Much of the research done on aging, oxidative stress, anxiety, and cognitive and social behavior in rodents has focused on caloric restriction (CR). This often involves several days of single housing, which can cause numerous logistical problems, as well as cognitive and social dysfunctions....

The biological overview, uses in the laboratory, laboratory management and breeding, laboratory procedures, and common welfare problems encountered with the laboratory guinepigs are discussed in this chapter.