Animals housed in a cage with clustered environmental enrichments may deal with higher aggression when they have tocompete for depleting resources. In this study, the effects of the way environmental enrichments distributed betweenindividuals were investigated. Sixteen adult male mice (Mus musculus) were housed in four different treatments withmanipulation in terms of food choices availability and distribution of resources. Each male was observed for theiraggressive and stereotypic behaviours for seven minutes twice a day for five days. The faeces were also collected after eachtreatment for measuring the corticosterone level in order to indicate the stress level of the mice. The results showed reducedaggression (p<0.05), stereotypic behaviour (p<0.05) and corticosterone level (p<0.05) in both dispersed environment andfood available environment compared to the clustered environment as well as in the environment where the food choiceswere not available. From the results, it can be suggested that resources are better arranged in a dispersed way, so that theresources are easier to be shared. Thus, with lesser aggression and stereotypic behaviour, the welfare of the laboratory micecan be improved and easily managed
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..