The effects of different enclosure enrichment on the behaviour of mice in captivity

Environmental enrichment had been widely used to improve the welfare of animals in captivity such as animals in zoo and laboratory animals. Some studies showed a great deal of improvement in the welfare of animals as they were able to carry out behaviours that they were highly motivated to perform when they were given environmental enrichment. On the other hand, there were also studies demonstrated the opposite effects. An experiment was carried out to determine the effects of environmental enrichment on the behaviour of mice. A total of 16 mice were used which consisted of 8 male and 8 female. They were housed in groups of four in either standard laboratory cages or complex cages and each group was comprised of 4 mice based on gender for 6 weeks including a week of habituation. During the 4
^th
to 6
^th
week, complex cages were installed with environmental enrichment items or novel and different novel was used each week which were running wheel, jingle bell roller and chewing sticks. The results showed that environmental enrichment reduced stereotypy specifically bar chewing in both male and female mice. However, running wheel was the only enrichment item that had significantly reduced bar chewing in female mice. Furthermore, in male mice, all enrichment had significantly reduced sleeping behaviour. On the other hand, all enrichments were found to increase sleeping behaviour in female mice. For grooming behaviour, most of the enrichment reduced grooming in both male and female mice. In addition, jingle bell roller had significantly increased aggressive behaviour in male mice. Meanwhile for female mice, all enrichment had no effects on aggressive behaviour in them. Furthermore, this experiment also determined the most preferred environmental enrichment items by the mice and the result was as expected. Running wheel was the most preferred enrichment item by both male and female mice. In summary, environmental enrichment had positive effects on the mice in terms of their behaviour and welfare.