Handling small animals such as rats can lead to several adverse effects. These include the fear of humans, resistance to handling, increased injury risk for both the animals and the hands of their handlers, decreased animal welfare, and less valid research data. To minimize negative effects on experimental results and human-animal relationships, research animals are often habituated to being handled. However, the methods of habituation are highly variable and often of limited effectiveness. More potently, it is possible for humans to mimic aspects of the animals' playful rough-and-tumble behavior during handling. When applied to laboratory rats in a systematic manner, this playful handling, referred to as tickling, consistently gives rise to positive behavioral responses. This article provides a detailed description of a standardized rat tickling technique. This method can contribute to future investigations into positive affective states in animals, make it easier to handle rats for common husbandry activities such as cage changing or medical/research procedures such as injection, and be implemented as a source of social enrichment. It is concluded that this method can be used to efficiently and practicably reduce rats' fearfulness of humans and improve their welfare, as well as reliably model positive affective states.

Despite evidence for rat tickling’s animal welfare benefits, the technique is rarely implemented in part because of a lack of training. This study’s purpose was to determine the efficacy of online-only or online + hands-on training programs on key outcomes for rat tickling in comparison to a waitlist control condition. After completing a baseline survey, laboratory animal personnel currently working with rats in the United States were semi-randomized to receive online-only training (n = 30), online + hands-on training (n = 34), or waitlist control (n = 32). Participants received further surveys directly after training and 2 months later. Data were analyzed using general linear mixed models. At the 2-month follow-up compared to baseline, both training groups reported increased implementation, self-efficacy, knowledge, and familiarity of rat tickling while only the online + hands-on training participants reported increased control beliefs (while the waitlist group stayed the same). At the 2-month follow-up compared to the waitlist, hands-on training participants reported increased self-efficacy and familiarity with rat tickling. Overall, findings show that both online-only and online + hands-on training can improve key outcomes for rat tickling. Although online + hands-on training is slightly more effective, the interactive online-only training has the potential to improve widescale implementation of a welfare-enhancing technique.

"Playful handling before blood sampling improves laboratory rat affective state" published on 01 Nov 2015 by Wageningen Academic.