Lelláková Monika, Pavľak Alexander, Lešková Lenka, Florián Martin, Skurková Lenka, Mesarčová Lýdia, Kottferová Lucia, Takáčová Daniela, Kottferová Jana
Department of Public Veterinary Medicine and Animal Welfare, University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy in Košice, Košice, The Slovak Republic.
Department of Nutrition and Animal Breeding, University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy in Košice, Košice, The Slovak Republic.
J Appl Anim Welf Sci. 2023 Oct-Dec;26(4):530-539. doi: 10.1080/10888705.2021.2008249. Epub 2021 Dec 13.
To assess stress in horses, a method of monitoring eye blinks (full and half) and eyelid twitches while collecting saliva and blood samples before and after annual intensive police training was carried out. This noninvasive monitoring method was used to determine whether blood collection, which is considered invasive, is more stressful for horses than saliva collection. We discovered no significant difference in stress related manifestations between saliva sampling and blood collection in our study. In both cases, sampling (blood and saliva) reduced the number of full and half eye blinks. Based on our hypothesis, we expected a statistically significant changes in the number of eye blinks and eyelid twitches as the number of potential stressors increased (in our case, we considered police training and sampling). Saliva cortisol levels, on the other hand, revealed that police training for horses was not stressful. The method of measuring eye blinks and eyelid twitches appears to be an appropriate alternative method for monitoring stress factors in horses.
为了评估马匹的应激情况，在年度高强度警队训练前后采集唾液和血液样本时，采用了一种监测眨眼（完全眨眼和半眨眼）及眼睑抽搐的方法。这种非侵入性监测方法用于确定被认为具有侵入性的采血对马匹而言是否比采集唾液更具应激性。在我们的研究中，我们发现唾液采样和采血之间在应激相关表现上没有显著差异。在这两种情况下，采样（采血和采唾液）都会减少完全眨眼和半眨眼的次数。基于我们的假设，随着潜在应激源数量的增加（在我们的案例中，我们考虑警队训练和采样），我们预期眨眼次数和眼睑抽搐次数会有统计学上的显著变化。另一方面，唾液皮质醇水平表明，对马匹进行警队训练并无应激性。测量眨眼和眼睑抽搐的方法似乎是监测马匹应激因素的一种合适的替代方法。
