Lecture: Animal species, the numbers used and the impact on animal
welfare
For the exam you must memorize:
- Species-specific biological characteristics
- Species-specific biological characteristics and their relationship with welfare
Animal Welfare
Animal welfare is a multidisciplinary principle since many fields are related to animal
welfare e.g. science, ethics, economics, politics, psychology, ethology, human-animal
interactions etc.
Animal welfare popped up when humans acknowledged animals as sentient beings.
Sentient means that these animals are aware of what is going on, e.g. the experiment you
are conducting; they realize you are doing an experiment on them and that they will be
done harm.
Animal welfare must be defined in a scientific assessable manner to be able to judge
animal welfare according to certain criteria. It must also be useable and understandable
by the scientific community, law and legislation agencies and by the public.
The old definition of animal welfare is according to ‘Biological functioning of the animal’
- If an animal is healthy and producing (growth, performance, reproduction) well,
behaving normally, it is faring well … the absence of disease indicates good
animal welfare.
- We use biological measurements to judge the welfare of our animals
- Disadvantage: the mental state of the animal is not taken into account
The new definition: Animal welfare comprises the state of the animal’s body (indicating
the biological component) and mind (indicating the mental state), and the extent to
which its nature (genetic traits manifest in breed en temperament) is satisfied. According
to this definition the absence of disease is not enough to state if its good or bad welfare.
Disadvantages:
- How do we measure how happy an animal is?
- Again we as human beings are going to judge animal welfare. The estimation of
feelings is prone to an anthropomorphic approach
Since it is so difficult, the concept of 5 F’s was created. Animal is going to have good
welfare when there is freedom of:
- Thirst and hunger
- Pain, lesions and disease
- Discomfort
- Expressing natural behavior
- Fear and distress
When we want to judge the animal welfare we take these concepts into account. But
again these 5 concepts fit more into the ‘biological approach’.
Saif Haify Laboratory Animal Science – Summary 6-November-2015
,In every animal unit there should be a logbook or welfare diary. Every day the animals
should be checked and everything is registered in this welfare diary:
- Do the animals have enough feed and water?
- Additional remarks can be noted e.g. a new litter was born, my animal has scars…
All the animals must get daily care to improve animal welfare (enough food, water, light
intensity is good, not too hot or too cold, fresh bedding material, trained personnel).
Some things are mentioned in the 5 F’s concept. On top of that we can socially house our
animals and use cage enrichment, which is intended to stimulate species-specific
behavior e.g. mice must be able to hide or rabbits must be able to dig or hide. Again one
of the 5 F’s is thought of (expressing natural behavior).
Number of animals used
Every laboratory should report to its government how much animals are used. There are
differences in national statistics and legislation. And then the Belgian committee sends
its report to the European commission and they publicly announce how much animals
that year are killed per country.
If you see that Belgium has more animals then the Netherlands, you might think the
legislation in Belgium is much easier and that the ethical committee easily grants animal
experiments. But most of the time the differences are due to:
- Killed mice did not count as animal experiment. E.g. if you ordered 1000 mice and
killed them, these were not counted as animal experiments. Nowadays every
animal that is order and killed must be counted as an animal experiment. This
will result in an increase in statistics
- Animals killed as surplus did also not count but nowadays you might record
them.
- Nowadays cephalopods must be reported when used.
- Due to observational studies statistics increase.
- Fish tagging and other environmental studies on wild animals are seen as animal
experiments nowadays.
You see an extreme decline in the use of animals after 1995. This is due to the guideline
of 1986. It took several years before the Belgium government applied these rules in their
legislation. This was approved in 1994 and after that we see the decline and if not for the
availability of transgenic animals we would have reached the 0 point of animal use. Due
to the fact that more labs had access to transgenic animals, we had a great relative
increase in the use of mice (from 1999). Since the new EU directive of 2010 we see back
a decline in the use of animals.
Saif Haify Laboratory Animal Science – Summary 6-November-2015
, Due to the new European guideline more and more labs are forced to throw away their
old cages and buy a lot of new ones since this guideline is more focused on refinement
(e.g. increasing cage dimensions). This new legislation requires a great investment,
which most labs don’t have that much money.
This legislation also forced a lot of researchers to move out of the European Union and
precede their research somewhere else where the legislation is not so strict as in
Belgium.
Most animals used in research are the rodents (rats & mice). The reason they are used
that often is:
- Easy housing (small, a lot of mice per square meter)
- Transgenic possibility
- Cheap (e.g. buying and housing)
- Resemble humans and are well characterized
- Large litters (high fecundity) à 6-12 pups
- Lifespan (e.g. when studying aging) à mice are old when they are 8 months!
- ‘Pest animals’… therefore its easier to kill them compared to for example dogs
Species-specific facts
- Mouse
- Rat
- Guinea-pig
- Rabbit
- Other rodents
o Gerbil
o Hamster
Mouse
General
400-500 strains are available with a variety of colors (majority is albino).
Anatomical and physiological features
Mice are omnivores (like humans). They only have one stomach (=monogastric) with
a glandular and non-glandular part. Mice are also caecotrophic (= they have two rounds
of intestinal traficing). So when a mouse eats, food passes through the GI-tract and the
mouse defecates. But the first feces is very fluidic and the mouse will eat these first
feces and then the fluids are absorbed and then it defecates again, this time the feces are
relatively hard. They only eat their own feces.
Mice have 5 pairs of mammary glands: 3 thoracic and 2 abdominal.
They have an open inguinal canal: normally this inguinal canal narrows when these
animals get older (happens also in humans) and the testis cannot retract. In mice we see
that this inguinal canal stays open! In rabbits this can also happen. Here it is very tricky
when you are sexing a rabbit. Very important to keep in mind when distinguishing between
males and females.
Saif Haify Laboratory Animal Science – Summary 6-November-2015
welfare
For the exam you must memorize:
- Species-specific biological characteristics
- Species-specific biological characteristics and their relationship with welfare
Animal Welfare
Animal welfare is a multidisciplinary principle since many fields are related to animal
welfare e.g. science, ethics, economics, politics, psychology, ethology, human-animal
interactions etc.
Animal welfare popped up when humans acknowledged animals as sentient beings.
Sentient means that these animals are aware of what is going on, e.g. the experiment you
are conducting; they realize you are doing an experiment on them and that they will be
done harm.
Animal welfare must be defined in a scientific assessable manner to be able to judge
animal welfare according to certain criteria. It must also be useable and understandable
by the scientific community, law and legislation agencies and by the public.
The old definition of animal welfare is according to ‘Biological functioning of the animal’
- If an animal is healthy and producing (growth, performance, reproduction) well,
behaving normally, it is faring well … the absence of disease indicates good
animal welfare.
- We use biological measurements to judge the welfare of our animals
- Disadvantage: the mental state of the animal is not taken into account
The new definition: Animal welfare comprises the state of the animal’s body (indicating
the biological component) and mind (indicating the mental state), and the extent to
which its nature (genetic traits manifest in breed en temperament) is satisfied. According
to this definition the absence of disease is not enough to state if its good or bad welfare.
Disadvantages:
- How do we measure how happy an animal is?
- Again we as human beings are going to judge animal welfare. The estimation of
feelings is prone to an anthropomorphic approach
Since it is so difficult, the concept of 5 F’s was created. Animal is going to have good
welfare when there is freedom of:
- Thirst and hunger
- Pain, lesions and disease
- Discomfort
- Expressing natural behavior
- Fear and distress
When we want to judge the animal welfare we take these concepts into account. But
again these 5 concepts fit more into the ‘biological approach’.
Saif Haify Laboratory Animal Science – Summary 6-November-2015
,In every animal unit there should be a logbook or welfare diary. Every day the animals
should be checked and everything is registered in this welfare diary:
- Do the animals have enough feed and water?
- Additional remarks can be noted e.g. a new litter was born, my animal has scars…
All the animals must get daily care to improve animal welfare (enough food, water, light
intensity is good, not too hot or too cold, fresh bedding material, trained personnel).
Some things are mentioned in the 5 F’s concept. On top of that we can socially house our
animals and use cage enrichment, which is intended to stimulate species-specific
behavior e.g. mice must be able to hide or rabbits must be able to dig or hide. Again one
of the 5 F’s is thought of (expressing natural behavior).
Number of animals used
Every laboratory should report to its government how much animals are used. There are
differences in national statistics and legislation. And then the Belgian committee sends
its report to the European commission and they publicly announce how much animals
that year are killed per country.
If you see that Belgium has more animals then the Netherlands, you might think the
legislation in Belgium is much easier and that the ethical committee easily grants animal
experiments. But most of the time the differences are due to:
- Killed mice did not count as animal experiment. E.g. if you ordered 1000 mice and
killed them, these were not counted as animal experiments. Nowadays every
animal that is order and killed must be counted as an animal experiment. This
will result in an increase in statistics
- Animals killed as surplus did also not count but nowadays you might record
them.
- Nowadays cephalopods must be reported when used.
- Due to observational studies statistics increase.
- Fish tagging and other environmental studies on wild animals are seen as animal
experiments nowadays.
You see an extreme decline in the use of animals after 1995. This is due to the guideline
of 1986. It took several years before the Belgium government applied these rules in their
legislation. This was approved in 1994 and after that we see the decline and if not for the
availability of transgenic animals we would have reached the 0 point of animal use. Due
to the fact that more labs had access to transgenic animals, we had a great relative
increase in the use of mice (from 1999). Since the new EU directive of 2010 we see back
a decline in the use of animals.
Saif Haify Laboratory Animal Science – Summary 6-November-2015
, Due to the new European guideline more and more labs are forced to throw away their
old cages and buy a lot of new ones since this guideline is more focused on refinement
(e.g. increasing cage dimensions). This new legislation requires a great investment,
which most labs don’t have that much money.
This legislation also forced a lot of researchers to move out of the European Union and
precede their research somewhere else where the legislation is not so strict as in
Belgium.
Most animals used in research are the rodents (rats & mice). The reason they are used
that often is:
- Easy housing (small, a lot of mice per square meter)
- Transgenic possibility
- Cheap (e.g. buying and housing)
- Resemble humans and are well characterized
- Large litters (high fecundity) à 6-12 pups
- Lifespan (e.g. when studying aging) à mice are old when they are 8 months!
- ‘Pest animals’… therefore its easier to kill them compared to for example dogs
Species-specific facts
- Mouse
- Rat
- Guinea-pig
- Rabbit
- Other rodents
o Gerbil
o Hamster
Mouse
General
400-500 strains are available with a variety of colors (majority is albino).
Anatomical and physiological features
Mice are omnivores (like humans). They only have one stomach (=monogastric) with
a glandular and non-glandular part. Mice are also caecotrophic (= they have two rounds
of intestinal traficing). So when a mouse eats, food passes through the GI-tract and the
mouse defecates. But the first feces is very fluidic and the mouse will eat these first
feces and then the fluids are absorbed and then it defecates again, this time the feces are
relatively hard. They only eat their own feces.
Mice have 5 pairs of mammary glands: 3 thoracic and 2 abdominal.
They have an open inguinal canal: normally this inguinal canal narrows when these
animals get older (happens also in humans) and the testis cannot retract. In mice we see
that this inguinal canal stays open! In rabbits this can also happen. Here it is very tricky
when you are sexing a rabbit. Very important to keep in mind when distinguishing between
males and females.
Saif Haify Laboratory Animal Science – Summary 6-November-2015
