Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Metabolic and behavior monitoring systems are commonly used in laboratory animal facilities. Most animal monitoring systems require mice to be singly housed, often for a period of several days, without environmental enrichment and nesting material to ensure that there is no interference with the collection of metabolic measurements. However, social isolation in barren environments negatively affects animal welfare and can introduce unintended variation in metabolic phenotypes induced by factors such as stress and impaired thermoregulation.
Our study aims to determine the amount of nesting material that may be provided without interfering with data collection when using metabolic and behavior monitoring systems. It is also of interest to know if providing 6g of nesting material, the minimum required to create a sufficient nest, affects mouse metabolism.
All mice were singly housed on corn cob bedding with a red dome and wood stick for enrichment, and provided with either 0g, 3g or 6g of shredded paper-strip nesting material.
Body weight was measured at the beginning and end of the study. Metabolic phenotypes observed between groups was nearly homogenous indicating that the nesting material provided did not interfere with data collection and metabolism in mice. Interestingly, there was a slight, yet statistically significant reduction in locomotion in the 3g nesting condition on d 2 and 3 of data collection. Access to sufficient nesting material, in addition to enrichment consisting of a shelter and wood stick, are important refinements to maintain mouse welfare when using similar metabolic and behaviour phenotyping systems.
Group-housed settings can present problems with daily health and behavioral observations of olive baboons Papio anubis. Injury or medical care often require an animal to be separated from the group for staff to examine in detail. Olive baboons have highly established social hierarchies and removal of an individual animal from the group can create stress and disrupt said hierarchy. In order to prevent these disruptions, we created a standardized, cooperative, group-housed training program for the baboons.
