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Access. --- Cage. --- Environment. --- Laboratory mice. --- Laboratory. --- Method. --- Mice. --- Resources. --- Welfare.

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Several species of animal are routinely housed in small, barren cages with little opportunity for extended or complex locomotion. Various resources could be provided to overcome this limitation, however, these differ in their practicality, cost and presumably in their suitability as perceived by the animal. This study examined the activity of 5 laboratory mice within three resources which provided the opportunity for extended or complex locomotion, namely, a 'locomotion-loop' (a 40 cm torus of plastic tunnel), a complex tunnel environment and a running-wheel. In addition, the perceived importance of these resources was determined by measuring the persistence of their use when the operant cost (switch pressing) of gaining access was increased. When the lowest cost of 1 press/visit was imposed, the mice used the three resources to different extents: the running-wheel was used for the greatest proportion of each 24 h (9.1%), the tunnel system was used for an intermediate amount of time (8.1%) and the loop was used the least (0.3%) (all differences were significant). At the lowest cost the running-wheel was visited 13.7 times each 24 h, the tunnels 14.6 times and the loop only 4.7 times. Over the 15-day duration of the study, the mice reduced the frequency of visits and activity in the loop and tunnel system, but not the running-wheel, i.e. the mice habituated to the loop and tunnels, but not the running-wheel. When the cost of access was increased, the frequency of visits decreased for all three resources. However, activity within visits increased and the duration of visits remained constant for the running-wheel, whereas both decreased for the loop or remained constant for the tunnel system. Therefore, as the costs increased within the range studied here, the mice defended the proportion of 24 h in the running-wheel to a greater extent than time in the tunnel system or the loop. Of the 3 resources, use of the running-wheel was least affected by increasing the cost

Access. --- Activity. --- Animal. --- Behaviour. --- Cage. --- Cost. --- Costs. --- Duration. --- Enrichment. --- Environment. --- Environmental enrichment. --- Frequency. --- Investigation. --- Laboratory mice. --- Laboratory. --- Locomotion. --- Mice. --- Resources. --- Running wheel. --- System. --- Time.

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The limited amount of space that we provide for research animals can adversely influence the validity of behavioural data and animal welfare. Consumer demand studies have examined the strength of motivation that animals have for additional space; however, one problem of these studies is that the animals tested were generally of a gregarious species, but were tested in isolation. I trained a single mouse from each of six groups to perform an operant task to gain access to an additional 319, 777, or 1600 cm2 while group-housed. As the cost of visits increased, the mice continued to gain access to the additional space, although the numbers of visits and the time in the additional space decreased. The slopes of the demand functions for the three amounts of additional space ranged between 0.64 and 0.44, indicating that the mice perceived additional space to be an important resource. The slopes of the demand functions, the areas under the demand functions and the Y-axis intercepts were not significantly different between the three sizes of additional space, thus corroborating previous similar work. These results indicate that group-housed laboratory mice in standard laboratory cages were highly motivated for additional space, but did not discriminate between the amounts offered.

Access. --- Animal welfare. --- Animal-welfare. --- Animal. --- Animals. --- Area. --- Cage. --- Cost. --- Demand function. --- Demand. --- Discriminate. --- Function. --- Group. --- Isolation. --- Laboratory cages. --- Laboratory mice. --- Laboratory. --- Mice. --- Motivation. --- Mouse. --- Mus musculus. --- Mus-musculus. --- Musculus. --- Research. --- Space. --- Strength. --- Task. --- Time. --- Welfare. --- Work.

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Mirrors have been suggested as a potential environmental enrichment for animals that are individually housed. The present study examined the influence of a mirror on the behaviour of individually housed laboratory mice. Sixteen mice were placed into apparatus comprised of two preference cages connected by a tunnel. A mirror was placed in one of the preference cages (mirror) but not in the other (non-mirror) and the position swapped daily for 4 days. Thirteen of the 16 mice spent less time in the mirror cage than the non-mirror cage (Sign test; P = 0.021) indicating an aversion to the mirror, however, the difference in occupation of the cages was not great. Overall, the mice occupied the mirror cage 47.6 +/- 4.7% of the time and the non-mirror cage 52.4 +/- 4.7%. There was no significant effect of the mirror on the number of mice building a nest in the mirror (N = 10) or the non-mirror cage (N = 6). The presence of the mirror significantly reduced feeding from the immediately adjacent feeder. The number of bouts, total time, and the mean feeding bout duration were all decreased by approximately 50-60% (ANOVA; P < 0.05). Overall, these results show that a mirror is slightly aversive to individually housed mice during general cage occupancy, and more highly aversive during feeding. These data therefore indicate that in contrast to some other species, mirrors are probably not a suitable environmental enrichment for individually housed laboratory mice. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Animal. --- Animals. --- Behaviour. --- Boxes. --- Cage. --- Cages. --- Chimpanzees. --- Duration. --- Enrichment. --- Environmental enrichment. --- Feeding. --- Heart-rate. --- Laboratory mice. --- Laboratory. --- Mice. --- Mirror. --- Nest. --- Position. --- Preference. --- Sign. --- Stabled horse. --- Stereotypic weaving behavior. --- Test. --- Time. --- Welfare.

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Tests of emotionality conducted outside the home-cage show that rodents from standard laboratory housing are more anxious than animals from enriched housing, however, it is not known if this also indicates increased anxiety within the home-cage. We used a novel method, recording the self-administration of a psychoactive anxiolytic, to examine home-cage anxiety levels of laboratory mice (three per cage) in Standard (n = 10 cages), Unpredictable (n = 10 cages) and Enriched (n = 6 cages) housing. The mice were given a choice of drinking either non-drugged water or a solution of the benzodiazepine Midazolam. There was a significant effect of housing on the proportion of total fluid consumed from the bottle containing Midozolam solution (P = 0.02). Mice from Standard and Unpredictable cages drank a greater proportion than mice from Enriched cages. This indicates that mice from the Standard and Unpredictable laboratory caging may have been experiencing greater anxiety than mice from the Enriched cages. There was also a significant effect of bottle position (P = 0.002). Mice from the Standard and Unpredictable cages drank a greater proportion of total fluid from the bottle containing Midozolam solution when this was toward the rear of the cage rock, ie in a location that was less susceptible to extraneous disturbance. Monitoring self-administration of psychoactive drugs as a method of welfare assessment could be applied to a wide variety of housing conditions, husbandry practices, or experimental procedures that putatively induce negative mental states. The major finding is that standard cages for laboratory rodents may induce greater anxiety than enriched cages. This is discussed in terms of animal welfare and the validity of data from animals housed in minimalistic environments

Animal welfare. --- Animal-welfare. --- Animal. --- Animals. --- Anxiety. --- Anxiolytic. --- Assessment. --- Behavior. --- Benzodiazepine. --- Broiler-chickens. --- Cage. --- Caging. --- Choice. --- Chronic pain. --- Drinking. --- Drug. --- Drugs. --- Elevated plus-maze. --- Emotionality. --- Enriched. --- Enrichment mice. --- Environment. --- Environmental enrichment. --- Environments. --- Ethanol intake. --- Experimental-model. --- Housing conditions. --- Housing. --- Husbandry. --- Laboratory mice. --- Laboratory. --- Level. --- Method. --- Mice. --- Midazolam. --- Mouse. --- Old. --- Position. --- Rats. --- Rodent. --- Rodents. --- Self-administration. --- States. --- Test. --- Tests. --- Time. --- Welfare.