Effect of Cage Enrichment on the Daily Use of Running Wheels by Syrian Hamsters

Abstract

Institutional animal care committees may one day require for the welfare of captive hamsters more floor space and the introduction of tunnels and toys. As hamsters are popular animal subjects in chronobiological research, and as clock phase is usually measured through running wheel activity, it is important to determine what effect cage enrichment might have on daily wheel use. Here the daily number of wheel revolutions, the daily duration of the running activity phase, the phase relationship between lights-off and onset of running activity, and the free-running period of circadian activity rhythms were measured in Syrian hamsters, Mesocricetus auratus, housed in single cages or in multiple cages linked by tunnels and supplied with commercial wooden toys. Free-running periodicity was not affected by cage enrichment. In multiple-cage systems, there were fewer daily revolutions, shorter wheel-running activity phases, and delayed running activity onsets. These effects, however, were small as compared to interindividual and week-to-week variation. They were statistically significant only under a light:dark cycle, not in constant darkness, and only when interindividual variation was eliminated through a paired design or when the number of cages was increased to five (the maximum tested). Daily wheel use is thus affected by cage enrichment, but only slightly.

Running wheel choice by Syrian hamsters

“…The mesh (Vexar Inc) had ribs of 1.2 mm forming openings of 4 Â 4 mm. The order in which the three types of wheel occurred along the three-cage arrangement was systematically varied from hamster to hamster (so that each wheel type occupied the same cage position approximately the same number of times) to minimize the effect of any bias that could occur from the fact that hamsters like to nest in end cages (Reebs & Maillet 2003) and that only one of the three cages had a water bottle. A smallgauge electronic wire was used to secure the mesh in evenly distributed places along the running surface.…”

“…Exceptions include Arnold and Estep (1994) on cage floor choice, Mrosovsky et al (1998) on running wheel choice, Kuhnen (1999) on cage size, and Reebs and Maillet (2003) on environmental enrichment. In the case of Mrosovsky et al (1998), Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) had constant access to running wheels, and it was noted that small skin lesions occasionally appeared on the side of the animals' hind legs.…”

Effect of Green Tea (Camellia sinensis) Extract Feeding and Bedding Material on Growth Performance in Hamsters

“…Among the aspects of hamster welfare that have been studied so far are social housing (Arnold and Estep, 1990), cage floor preference (Arnold and Estep, 1994), cage dimensions, environmental enrichment (Reebs and Maillet, 2003), running wheels (Gebhardt et al, 2005;Reebs and St-Onge, 2005) and bedding material requirements for hamsters.…”

Rhythmic profiles of cell cycle and circadian clock genes' transcripts in mice: a possible association between two periodic systems

“…The choice of Clock and Per2 was based on studies that include these genes as regulators in the gating of the cell cycle stages (G1 to S transition) (Johnson, 2010;Lahti et al, 2012). Locomotor activity was monitored in order to establish the circadian organization of the SCN's master pacemaker (Davis and Viswanathan, 1996;Earnest et al, 1999;Reebs and Maillet, 2003).…”