Surgical procedures in laboratory animals are a significant source of pain and distress. Advances in anesthesia, analgesia, and post-operative care have substantially improved welfare — but implementation varies widely across institutions.
Surgical welfare in laboratory animals has improved substantially in recent decades but remains inconsistently applied across institutions and species. The greatest ongoing challenge is post-operative analgesia: research animals have historically been under-treated for pain partly because of the mistaken assumption that analgesia might confound experimental results, and partly because pain assessment in non-verbal species is challenging. Validated grimace scales — based on facial muscle movements — now allow objective pain scoring in mice, rats, rabbits, and ferrets, removing the subjectivity that previously limited recognition of suffering. Institutions with embedded veterinary specialists who review and improve surgical protocols consistently achieve better welfare outcomes. The 3Rs framework applied to surgery requires both minimizing the number of procedures and maximizing the quality of analgesia and care for those that are performed.