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The Laboratory Rat: A Natural History
The goal of this documentary is to instill two main points. These include; a greater understanding of the natural physiological and psychological needs that are fundamental to our domestic rats when considering their welfare and also a scientific look at the cumulative effect of millions of years of evolution. In addition, this documentary fills a big gap in the lack of resources that are available for teaching and giving presentations. It's a superbly interesting documentary that I've watched over and over again. It's relevant for the expert, the casual hobbyist, the breeder, and even children. The topics covered in this film are listed as:
1. Food selection More details on this experiment, an interview with one of the rat stars, approximately 23 minutes of downloadable video clips and a chapter commentary can be found at the ratlife.org website here: The Laboratory Rat: A Natural History Here is a compilation of all the downloadable video content added to Google Video. Google Video allows large uploads but watching at a high screen resolution reduces quality so it's best to watch at actual size of standard Google Video screen resolution. The DVD version of the documentary is very high quality and can be purchased from the ratlife.org website. The price is not expensive at all and it really makes all the difference watching it on the big screen. Uploading the video to Google Video and embedding into this website fits within the copyright and conditions of use: (6)...those gaining access to this Website (ratlife.org) are authorised to make use of the contents of the Website for the purposes of personal and academic work, teaching and presentations/seminars but not for the purpose of commercial gain or any other commercial purpose. Full legal notice here.
The Laboratory Rat - A Natural History - Manuel Berdoy - Oxford University Berdoy, M. 2002. The Laboratory Rat: A Natural History. Film. 27 minutes. www.ratlife.org
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Dr. Manuel
Berdoy, a zoologist at Oxford University, released 50 laboratory strains
of the domestic Brown Rat back into a controlled wild
environment in order to show that generations of domestication have not
removed a rats natural range of behaviours and needs. The rats were
released into an outdoor enclosure and filmed as they competed in the same
manner as their wild cousins. The rats instantly displayed a multitude of behavioural
instincts that a cage in a laboratory had kept suppressed and soon adapted
to their new environment very successfully. The video was shot in the
style of a narrated documentary and is split into short behavioural
sequences that, in total, run for 27 minutes of quality edited film. 