Kitchen A M, Martin A A
Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
Lab Anim. 1996 Oct;30(4):317-26. doi: 10.1258/002367796780739853.
Conditions of captivity of primates used in biomedical research may have deleterious effects on the welfare of the animals and consequently on the reliability of the research. We investigated the effects of cage size and cage complexity, two fundamental characteristics of captive conditions, on the behaviour of the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus jacchus). We found an increase in the general level of activity and significant variation in the frequencies of specific behaviours with an increase in cage size and also with cage complexity. Stereotyped behaviours, which occurred in the small cages, were never exhibited in the large cages. The effect of the novelty of the changed conditions was also assessed and found to be significant for some behaviours. We also measured the time taken to capture an animal, a task frequently performed by the animal technician, under the various cage conditions. Capture time increased significantly in the larger cages, but the overall effect of the changes to the marmosets' housing conditions on the animal technician's work was not regarded as substantial. We conclude that the welfare of captive marmosets is enhanced by the provision of larger and more complex cages, and that such cages do not significantly affect the efficiency of the research laboratory.
用于生物医学研究的灵长类动物的圈养条件可能会对动物的福利产生有害影响，进而影响研究的可靠性。我们研究了圈养条件的两个基本特征——笼子大小和笼子复杂度，对普通狨猴（Callithrix jacchus jacchus）行为的影响。我们发现，随着笼子大小和笼子复杂度的增加，动物的总体活动水平有所提高，特定行为的频率也有显著变化。在小笼子里出现的刻板行为，在大笼子里从未出现过。我们还评估了条件变化带来的新奇感的影响，发现对某些行为来说这种影响是显著的。我们还测量了在各种笼子条件下捕捉一只动物所需的时间，这是动物技术人员经常执行的一项任务。在较大的笼子里捕捉时间显著增加，但狨猴饲养条件的变化对动物技术人员工作的总体影响并不被认为很大。我们得出结论，提供更大、更复杂的笼子可以提高圈养狨猴的福利，而且这样的笼子不会显著影响研究实验室的效率。
