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Animal handling describes how people respond to and interact with animals within the animal's environment. Proper handling techniques can reduce animal pain and distress and improve animal welfare. Animal handling methods require training, skill, and behavioral knowledge of the species you are working with. Find resources that include training videos, guidelines, and peer-reviewed publications on animal handling.
Rat Tickling
What is Rat Tickling?
Rat tickling is a technique that mimics how rats playfully socialize with each other. Rat tickling reduces fearful reactions to humans and improves their welfare among other benefits.
Resources
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Tickling: A Technique for Inducing Positive Affect When Handling Rats
Journal of Visual Experiments.
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Rat Tickling
National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs).
Rat Handling Literature in NAL's Collections
Mouse Handling
New Mouse Handling Methods
Research shows that new mouse handling techniques such as tunnel handling and cupping (shown below) are less stressful compared to the traditional method of picking a mouse up by the tail. Additionally, when restraining a mouse it's better to scruff them using three fingers rather than two.
Resources
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How to Pick Up a Mouse
National Centre for Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs).
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Refined Mouse Scruffing Technique
Norecopa.
Mouse Handling Literature in PubMed
Literature for Animal Handling, Restraint, and Capture
Below are results from a literature search on animal handling, restraint, and capture. If you want to find literature on these topics for a certain species, you can build upon this search string by including animal search terms. For example, edit the search and include "(dog OR dogs OR canines OR "canis familiaris")" to find information on handling and restraint of dogs. To learn more about building search strings, visit AWIC's alternatives literature searching page or if you need help finding information, contact us.