Implementation of non-aversive mouse handling for welfare refinement and reduction of mouse numbers

动物护理人员在进行健康检查、笼子清洁和执行科学任务(如注射)时，通常会用尾巴抬起实验室小鼠。不幸的是，这可能会导致压力和老鼠变得焦虑，这可能会导致它们提供不那么可靠的科学结果。因此，预防压力和焦虑不仅会改善福利，还可能提高研究结果的质量和可靠性。最终，这可能会导致研究成功所需的动物数量减少。这在动物福利成本方面具有明显的优势，但也将降低研究的经济成本。现在已经知道，用杯状的手处理老鼠可以减少它们的焦虑，而且使用开放的透明塑料管(称为非厌恶处理(NAH)隧道)甚至更好。尽管如此，动物护理和研究人员似乎仍然更喜欢拉尾巴。这似乎主要是因为担心NAH会增加时间，从而增加与执行常规畜牧程序相关的成本。可以理解的是，研究人员还担心，改变处理老鼠的方法可能会改变它们的行为，或者产生其他隐藏的影响，使数据解释变得更加困难。然而，最近的研究表明，不仅这些担忧不太可能成立，而且小鼠对搬运隧道的适应比之前想象的更快。无论研究人员是自己培育小鼠还是通过商业途径获得小鼠，动物供应成本都是另一项主要的研究运行成本。根据一位主要饲养员的说法，常规护理程序造成的压力会显著降低繁殖性能；增加了隧道处理也可能导致更高效的动物生产，这最终将降低动物供应成本。因此，该项目的主要目标是：1.解决阻碍更广泛使用搬运隧道的问题；目前由于工作人员或动物培训造成的障碍有多大，以及如何打破这些障碍？2.评估NAH作为在更广泛的背景下改善福利的手段；能否在几个不同的实验室实现其益处？3.确定隧道搬运是提高还是损害科学成果的质量，并评估它是否有可能降低动物的使用。我们认为，实现这些目标的最好方法是与我们自己的研究机构中的研究人员接触，他们对实施NAH表示担忧，但也包括那些在英国以外工作的人，在那里这种情况甚至更不常见；一个在美国，一个在意大利。在申请者的指导下，他们将开始使用NAH，并报告其实施经验。通过将他们的发现与接受NAH的小鼠进行比较，我们将能够确定质量和效率是否得到了改善。我们相信，一旦这些研究人员体验到NAH的福利和科学益处，他们就会发表他们的发现，从而鼓励更广泛地使用这项技术。

Animal care staff usually lift laboratory mice by their tails when undertaking routine procedure such as health checking, cage-cleaning and performing scientific duties such as giving injections. Unfortunately this can cause stress and mice to become anxious, which can lead to them providing less reliable scientific results. Preventing stress and anxiety would therefore not only improve welfare but might also increase the quality and reliability of research findings. Ultimately, this could lead to fewer animals being needed for studies to be successful. This has obvious advantages in terms of animal welfare costs, but would also lower the financial costs of studies. It is now known that handling mice in cupped hands can reduce their anxiety, and that it is even better to use an open-ended clear plastic tube (known as non-aversive handling (NAH) tunnel). Despite this, both animal care and research staff still seem to prefer tail-lifting. This seems to be primarily due to concerns that NAH would increase the time and consequently the costs associated with performing routine husbandry procedures. Understandably, researchers also worry that changing the method by which their mice are handled may alter their behaviour, or have other hidden effects making data interpretation more difficult. However, recent research suggests, not only that these concerns are unlikely to be valid, but that mice adjust more rapidly to handling-tunnels than was previously thought. Whether researchers breed their own mice or obtain them commercially, animal supply costs are another main study running cost. According to one major breeder, stress caused by routine care procedures can significantly lower breeding performance; raising the possibility that tunnel handling could also lead to more efficient animal production, which would ultimately lower animal supply costs. The main aims of this project are therefore:1: To address the issues preventing more widespread use of handling-tunnels; to what extent are the present barriers due to staff or animal training and how can they be broken?2. To assess NAH as a means of improving welfare in a broader context; can the benefits be realised in several different laboratories?3. To establish whether tunnel-handling enhances or harms the quality of scientific results and evaluate whether it has potential for lowering animal use.4. To establish if it improves breeding success; generally enabling more efficient use of scientific resources.We believe the best way of achieving these aims is to engage with researchers in our own research facility who have expressed concerns about implementing NAH, but also those working outside the UK where it is even less common; one in the USA and one in Italy. With guidance from the applicants they will begin using NAH and report on their experience of its implementation. By comparing their findings with mice that have undergone NAH with equivalent mice that have been tail-lifted will allow us to determine if quality and efficiency has been improved. We believe that once these researchers experience the welfare and scientific benefits of NAH that they will publish their findings and so encourage wider use of the technique.