Publikationsdatenbank

Rating enrichment items by female group-housed laboratory mice in multiple binary choice tests using an RFID-based tracking system (2023)

Art

Zeitschriftenartikel / wissenschaftlicher Beitrag

Autoren

Hobbiesiefken, Ute

Urmersbach, Birk

Jaap, Anne

Diederich, Kai

Lewejohann, Lars (WE 11)

Quelle

PLOS ONE

Bandzählung: 18

Heftzählung: 1

Seiten: Artikelnummer: e0278709

ISSN: 1932-6203

Sprache

Englisch

Verweise

URL (Volltext): https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278709

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278709

Kontakt

Institut für Tierschutz, Tierverhalten und Versuchstierkunde

Königsweg 67
14163 Berlin
+49 30 838 61146
tierschutz@vetmed.fu-berlin.de

Abstract / Zusammenfassung

Laboratory mice spend most of their lives in cages, not experiments, so improving housing conditions is a first-choice approach to improving their welfare. Despite the increasing popularity of enrichment, little is known about the benefits from an animal perspective. For a detailed analysis, we categorized enrichment items according to their prospective use into the categories ‘structural’, ‘housing’, and ‘foraging’. In homecage-based multiple binary choice tests 12 female C57BL/6J mice chose between enrichment items within the respective categories over a 46-hour period. A new analyzing method combined the binary decisions and ranked the enrichment items within each category by calculating worth values and consensus errors. Although there was no unequivocal ranking that was true in its entire rank order for all individual mice, certain elements (e.g. lattice ball, second plane) were always among the top positions. Overall, a high consensus error in ranking positions reflects strong individual differences in preferences which could not be resolved due to the relatively small sample size. However, individual differences in the preference for enrichment items highlights the importance of a varied enrichment approach, as there does not seem to be one item that satisfies the wants and needs of all individuals to the same degree. An enrichment concept, in which the needs of the animals are central, contributes to a more specific refinement of housing conditions.