Meijer Margot K, van Loo Pascalle L P, Baumans Vera
Department of Animals, Science, & Society, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
J Appl Anim Welf Sci. 2009;12(4):293-305. doi: 10.1080/10888700902955849.
In general, guidelines on housing and care of animals in the laboratory state that rats and mice should not be housed in the same room. Mice may perceive rats as predators. Although one theory says this can cause stress, there is little scientific evidence to support this theory. In the wild, rats and mice usually do not share the same microhabitat, but this appears to be true for most small rodent species. Furthermore, reports of predatory behavior of rats toward mice mainly originate from experimental settings using rats with high inbred levels of aggression. This experiment measured heart rate (HR), body temperature (BT), activity (AC), and urinary corticosterone in female C57BL/6 mice before, during, and after introducing Wistar rats into their room. The study found no chronic effects of rat introduction on any parameters. The study concluded that housing rats and mice in the same room is at least less disturbing than cage cleaning, which caused a temporary increase of HR, BT, and AC. Current results do not support legislation based on compromised welfare.
一般来说，实验室动物饲养与护理指南规定，大鼠和小鼠不应饲养在同一房间。小鼠可能将大鼠视为捕食者。尽管有一种理论认为这会导致压力，但几乎没有科学证据支持这一理论。在野外，大鼠和小鼠通常不会共享相同的微栖息地，但大多数小型啮齿动物物种似乎都是如此。此外，关于大鼠对小鼠的捕食行为的报告主要来自使用具有高度近交攻击性水平的大鼠的实验环境。本实验测量了将Wistar大鼠引入雌性C57BL/6小鼠房间之前、期间和之后小鼠的心率（HR）、体温（BT）、活动量（AC）和尿皮质酮水平。研究发现引入大鼠对任何参数均无慢性影响。研究得出结论，将大鼠和小鼠饲养在同一房间至少比笼具清洁的干扰性小，笼具清洁会导致心率、体温和活动量暂时增加。目前的结果不支持基于福利受损的立法。
