Report of the 2009 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare Group meeting - focusing on fifty years of the Three Rs and welfare assessment

摘要

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent Welfare Group holds a one-day meeting every autumn so that its members can discuss current welfare research, exchange views on rodent welfare issues and share experiences of the implementation of the 3Rs of replacement, reductionand refinement with respect to rodent use. A key aim of the Group is to encourage people to think about the whole lifetime experience of laboratory rodents, ensuring that every potential impact on their wellbeing has been reviewed and minimised. The 2009 meeting began with a keynote presentation reviewing fifty years of the Three Rs. Speakers then focussed on welfare assessment, including standardising language for describing observations of mice; communicating outcomes of welfare assessments; definingindicators of positive welfare; considering how housing, care and accommodation affect welfare; and the current welfare status of stock mice in the UK.