ATLA 19 108-114 1991 108

Improved Housing of Mice, Rats and

Guinea-pigs: A Contribution to the Refinement
of Animal Experiments

Wolfgang Scharmann

Bundesgesundheitsamt, Zentrale Versuchstierzucht, Diedersdorfer Weg l, D-1000 Berlin 48,

Germany

Summary - The keeping of experimental animals requires housing systems appropriate to

the needs and behaviour of each species, as demanded by various supranational and national
guidelines. It is questionable whether conventional housing systems for rodents such as mice,
rats and guinea-pigs meet this demand. It is suggested that the housing of laboratory rodents
should be improved by the use of larger and more appropriate cage types, as well as by reducing
the monotony of conventional housing systems.

Key words: housing of rodents, well-being, environmental enrichment.

Introduction attention paid to how these requirements can

Housing, either for the purposes of breeding
or maintaining animals as stock or during an
experiment, has a major effect on the life of
the laboratory animal. Thus, improvements
in housing corresponding to species-specific
requirements can be considered to be an
important step toward refinement (1), if this
term is understood to be the sum of all
measures carried out in order to improve
conditions for laboratory animals.
Following an amendment to the US Animal
Welfare Act (2), which demands that non-
human primates must be housed in a manner
conducive to their "psychological well-being",
there have been a considerable number of
attempts to design appropriate
environmental enrichment techniques, not
only for the housing of non-human primates,
but also for dogs and cats (3-5). However,
little effort has been focused on the
environmental enrichment of cages for
rodents, which also possess a highly-
developed sensory system. Although
supranational (6, 7) and national (8-11)
guidelines for the housing and care of
laboratory animals refer to the "ethological
needs" (6) or "behavioural needs" (10) of the
animals, there has been scarcely any
be met. Among the numerous provisions of
the guidelines, there are detailed descriptions
of the physical and chemical environments of
animal rooms, hygiene, health and
transportation of animals, but there are no
recommendations on how to create an
environment which would enable the animal
to express its species-specific behavioural
patterns. Furthermore, the various
guidelines specify the minimum space to be
allocated to each animal species, but these
specifications are arbitrary, since the
recommended cage standards in different
national guidelines vary considerably. This is
not surprising, since the recommendations
are based more on current practice and
professional opinions than on objective
ethological research. It seems obvious that an
important determining factor for the selection
of cage size was the minimum space required
for housing animals without causing
detectable injuries. As a result, economic
interests, hygiene concerns and convenience
in handling have had priority over ethical
considerations. But it is also debatable
whether these standards are in agreement
with scientific interests, because there is no
information on whether, or how, this present
form of confinement Can comnromise the