It's getting hairy - External contamination may affect the validity of hair cortisol as an indicator of stress in pigs and cattle

General and Comparative Endocrinology
Winfried OttenArmin Tuchscherer

Abstract

Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) is increasingly used for the assessment of enhanced hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity, e.g., caused by repeated or long-term stressful conditions or pathologies. However, there is still a lack of knowledge regarding the mechanisms and sources of cortisol incorporation into the hair and possible confounding factors, especially in non-human animals. Farm animals are usually kept under confined housing conditions, have close contact with each other and with soiled environments and may thus be exposed to contamination with urine, feces and saliva, which are known to contain substantial concentrations of cortisol or its metabolites. Therefore, the aim of our study was to investigate the impact of contamination with urine, feces and saliva on the cortisol concentration in the hair of pigs and cattle. In an in vitro experiment, hair strands of 12 pigs and 12 cattle were repeatedly contaminated with urine and saliva, containing either low or high cortisol concentrations, or with the feces of the respective species and were compared with hair treated with water or untreated hair. Contamination was performed over 20 days for two hours daily. Thereafter, all samples were washed, ground, e...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jan 21, 2021·Sensors·Suresh NeethirajanBas Kemp
Feb 22, 2021·General and Comparative Endocrinology·J Di FrancescoS Kutz

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