Week 4

Hello everyone!

During this week I started working independently to analyze footage on my own. It took me a few weeks to get to this point because of the subjective nature of the scoring. Although our scoring chart is one taken and improved upon from other publications, the scoring itself is extremely subjective as one person could easily “see” something that wasn’t as clear cut as they believed and vice versa. Because of this, I had spent the last few weeks scoring at the same time as Bret and comparing our scoring until the differences between our data were marginal. This week was definitely challenging. Hours of video has been difficult to get through while watching it with someone else, but being attentive every second for hours on end was difficult and every instance that was missed could be a behavior that went unrecorded. I ended up watching and rewinding and rewatching large sections of video during this week until I felt more comfortable with my own judgement. 

Common Enrichment Device

I also read a little bit more about common enrichment devices available on the market today and compared their functionality to our prototype. Often the most common types of enrichment are igloos, which are supposed to provide the mice with some semblance of their own space, the major premise behind our device, but can become quite dangerous and cause more aggression as they become a territory to have disputes over and the raised perch can serve as a launching point for mice to jump on others (a behavior of posturing – pouncing). The device we are proposing is the only one like it currently and serves many different purposes for the mice. Mice are social animals and do much better when housed with other animals than in isolation, but are also used to having some space to burrow in and spend time away from other mice. Because of the open caging designs used today, most cages hold five animals and do not allow for any personal space. Our device tries to mimic the natural burrowing of the mice without closing them off from each other. They are also cost efficient, durable, and disposable. All factors that would be important in the potential mass production of these. 

Thanks for reading!

Tasha