Abou-Ismail Usama A, Burman Oliver H P, Nicol Christine J, Mendl Michael
Centre for Behavioural Biology, University of Bristol, Langford House, Langford, Bristol BS40 5DU, UK.
Behav Processes. 2010 Oct;85(2):172-80. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2010.07.002. Epub 2010 Jul 14.
This experiment was carried out to investigate the long-term effects of enhancing cage complexity on behavioural measures of welfare in laboratory rats. We housed 72 rats in groups of four in either 'enriched' or 'unenriched' cages for six weeks. Scan and focal animal sampling were conducted in both the light and dark phase of the second, fourth and sixth weeks. Results revealed that rats in the 'enriched' cages showed longer durations of sleep behaviour, and low levels of agonistic behaviour compared to rats in the 'unenriched' cages. Results importantly demonstrated that the behavioural changes observed in the enriched environment were due to the presence of the enrichments themselves in the cages (indirect effects) and not due merely to rats interacting with the enrichment items in their environment. Thus, enhancing the complexity of conventional laboratory cages can promote behaviour such as longer bouts of sleep that is likely to be indicative of good welfare, and diminish levels of behaviour such as aggression that is likely to lead to poor welfare.
本实验旨在研究增加笼子复杂性对实验大鼠福利行为指标的长期影响。我们将72只大鼠以每组4只的方式饲养在“丰富型”或“非丰富型”笼子中，为期六周。在第二周、第四周和第六周的光照和黑暗阶段进行扫描和焦点动物取样。结果显示，与“非丰富型”笼子中的大鼠相比，“丰富型”笼子中的大鼠睡眠行为持续时间更长，攻击行为水平更低。重要的是，结果表明在丰富环境中观察到的行为变化是由于笼子中丰富物本身的存在（间接影响），而不仅仅是由于大鼠与环境中的丰富物品相互作用。因此，增加传统实验室笼子的复杂性可以促进诸如较长睡眠时间等行为，这可能表明福利良好，同时减少诸如攻击性行为等可能导致福利不佳的行为水平。
