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

动物护理人员通常在进行常规程序（如健康检查、笼子清洁和执行科学任务（如注射））时用尾巴举起实验室小鼠。不幸的是，这会导致压力和老鼠变得焦虑，这可能导致它们提供不太可靠的科学结果。因此，防止压力和焦虑不仅可以改善福利，而且还可以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，但也会降低研究的财务成本。现在已知，用杯状手处理小鼠可以减少它们的焦虑，并且使用开放式透明塑料管（称为非厌恶处理（NAH）隧道）更好。尽管如此，动物护理人员和研究人员似乎仍然更喜欢提尾巴。这似乎主要是由于担心NAH会增加时间，从而增加与执行常规饲养程序相关的成本。可以理解的是，研究人员也担心改变处理小鼠的方法可能会改变它们的行为，或者有其他隐藏的影响，使数据解释更加困难。然而，最近的研究表明，不仅这些担忧不太可能是有效的，而且小鼠对处理隧道的适应速度比以前认为的要快。无论研究人员是自己繁殖小鼠还是通过商业途径获得小鼠，动物供应成本都是另一个主要的研究运行成本。根据一位主要的饲养员的说法，常规护理程序造成的压力会显著降低饲养性能;提高隧道处理也可能导致更有效的动物生产，最终降低动物供应成本。因此，本项目的主要目标是：1：解决问题，防止更广泛地使用处理隧道;在多大程度上是由于工作人员或动物训练，目前的障碍，以及如何才能打破？2.在更广泛的背景下评估NAH作为改善福利的一种手段;在几个不同的实验室中可以实现这些好处吗？3.确定隧道处理是否会提高或损害科学结果的质量，并评估其是否有可能降低动物使用。我们认为实现这些目标的最佳方法是与我们自己的研究机构中对实施NAH表示担忧的研究人员以及在英国以外工作的研究人员进行接触，因为在英国以外的地方，NAH更不常见;一个在美国，一个在意大利。在申请人的指导下，他们将开始使用NAH并报告其实施经验。通过将他们的研究结果与经历NAH的小鼠和尾巴抬起的同等小鼠进行比较，将使我们能够确定质量和效率是否得到了提高。我们相信，一旦这些研究人员体验到NAH的福利和科学效益，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.