Cage changes are a routine but stressful procedure for laboratory mice. Simple refinements to cage change protocols can significantly reduce the acute stress response and improve mouse welfare throughout a study.
Cage changes illustrate how small procedural refinements can have significant welfare impacts for laboratory animals. For mice that spend their entire lives in small enclosures, the cage change is a major event - sudden exposure, unfamiliar handlers, loss of scent marks that define home territory. The resulting stress response is real and measurable, affecting both welfare and potentially research data quality. Refinements like bedding transfer, reduced change frequency, and same-sex pair housing that allows social buffering of the stress response are low-cost interventions with meaningful welfare benefits.