Abstract

Aggression among group-housed male mice is a major animal welfare concern often observed at animal facilities. Studies designed to understand the causes of male mice aggression have used different methodological approaches and have been heterogeneous, using different strains, environmental enrichments, housing conditions, group formations and durations. By conducting a systematic literature review based on 198 observed conclusions from 90 articles, we showed that the methodological approach used to study aggression was relevant for the outcome and suggested that home cage observations were better when studying home cage aggression than tests provoking aggression outside the home cage. The study further revealed that aggression is a complex problem; one solution will not be appropriate for all animal facilities and all research projects. Recommendations were provided on promising tools to minimize aggression, based on the results, which included what type of environmental enrichments could be appropriate and which strains of male mice were less likely to be aggressive.

Keywords

male mice; group housing; aggression; animal welfare; environmental enrichment; group formation; housing conditions; resident-intruder; social dominance; wound scoring

Published in

Animals
2023, Volume: 13, number: 1, article number: 143

SLU Authors

• Weber, Elin

  • Department of Applied Animal Science and Welfare, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Zidar, Josefina

  • Department of Applied Animal Science and Welfare, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Associated SLU-program

SLUsystematic


UKÄ Subject classification

Animal and Dairy Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13010143

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/123659