Environmental enrichment and social housing for laboratory animals reduces their stress, improves the quality of research data, and represents both welfare and scientific best practice.
Research animals in standard laboratory housing experience chronic stress from barren environments, social isolation, and frequent handling. This stress creates confounding variables in research data — stressed animals have different physiology from naturally behaving ones, potentially compromising research quality. The welfare case for improved housing is also a scientific case for more reproducible, generalisable data. Simple interventions like nesting material and social housing improve both.