Welfare assessment in dairy cows using hair cortisol as a part of monitoring protocols

Vesel, Urška (author), Pavić, Tea (author), Ježek, Jožica (author), Snoj, Tomaž (author), Starič, Jože (author)

Welfare of dairy cows can be assessed using welfare assessment protocols consisting ofresource, management and animal-based measures. Welfare Quality® Assessment Protocolis one of the best-known protocols, which depends almost entirely on animal-based measures.To gain more objective and rapid welfare assessment, new techniques have been developed tomeasure welfare of animals, such as hair cortisol concentration. As cortisol is released inresponse to stress, it has long been used as a biomarker of stress in animals. While the precisemechanism of cortisol incorporation into hair is unknown, hair cortisol concentration seemsto be a marker of long-term systemic cortisol concentration. Hair cortisol is, therefore, apotential marker of chronic stress and is not likely to be affected by acute stress. Studies oncattle show connections between hair cortisol concentration and factors such as pregnancy,parity, diseases, ectoparasites, body condition score, environmental changes, stocking densityand milk yield. Hair cortisol concentration appears to be affected by time of sampling, cow ageand breed, UV radiation, season, body region of sampled hair and hair colour. Its concentra-tion also depends on sampling and analytical methods. Hair cortisol is a promising non-inva-sive tool to evaluate welfare of dairy cows, however, more research is needed to determine theextent of effects on its concentration and the appropriate method of sampling and analysis.Correlations between Welfare Quality® Assessment Protocol scores and pooled hair cortisolconcentrations have not yet been found, and more research is needed with larger samplesize, a standardized protocol of hair sampling, processing and analysis. With proper attentionto detail, hair cortisol levels in pooled hair samples might come to be used as a reliable indi-cator of dairy animal welfare.

• Language: English
• Keywords: Cattle, cortisol, hair, HPA axis, stress, welfare protocol
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: VF - Veterinary Faculty
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2020
• Number of pages: Str. 72-78
• Numbering: Vol. 87, suppl. S1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-118709
• UDC: 636.2.083:57.087
• ISSN on article: 0022-0299
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022029920000588
• COBISS.SI-ID: 26069763
• Publication date in RUL: 31.08.2020

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Journal of Dairy Research
• Shortened title: J. Dairy Res.
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• ISSN: 0022-0299
• COBISS.SI-ID: 6400007

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 31.08.2020

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Project number: COST Action FA1308
• Name: DairyCare