Moberg G P
Dept. of Anim. Sci., University of California, Davis 95616.
J Anim Sci. 1987 Nov;65(5):1228-35. doi: 10.2527/jas1987.6551228x.
Animal scientists need a reliable measure of behavioral stress in domestic animals if they are going to be able to assess the stress of various management practices and to answer public concern about the well-being of animals used in agriculture. Popular measures of stress, alterations in behavior or changes in hormone secretion, are not adequate because of a failure to establish any direct correlation between changes in these characteristics with adverse effects on animal well-being. Further complicating the use of these indicators of stress is the variation in their pattern of response to different kinds of stressors. Even the same stressor can elicit divergent responses in different animals because of inter-animal variation in the stress response. To address these problems, a model of animal stress is discussed and tested. From this model it is proposed that the best indicator of an animal suffering from stress is the development of a pre-pathological state; i.e., a stress-related change in biological function that threatens the animal's well-being. Examples of such pre-pathological states would be a suppression of the immune system, the loss of reproductive events critical for normal reproduction, or the development of behaviors that would lead to such undesirable acts as tail-biting or excessive fighting. Although determining the existence of such pre-pathological states is not convenient, their existence is currently the only defensible indicator of an animal suffering from behavioral stress.
如果动物科学家想要评估各种管理措施对家畜造成的压力，并回应公众对农业中使用的动物福利的关注，他们就需要一种可靠的家畜行为应激测量方法。常用的应激测量方法，如行为改变或激素分泌变化，并不适用，因为未能在这些特征的变化与对动物福利的不利影响之间建立任何直接关联。这些应激指标的使用进一步复杂化的原因是它们对不同类型应激源的反应模式存在差异。即使是相同的应激源，由于动物个体对应激反应的差异，也可能在不同动物中引发不同的反应。为了解决这些问题，本文讨论并测试了一种动物应激模型。从这个模型中可以提出，动物遭受应激的最佳指标是出现病理前状态；即生物功能中与应激相关的变化，这种变化会威胁到动物的健康。这种病理前状态的例子包括免疫系统的抑制、对正常繁殖至关重要的生殖活动的丧失，或者出现会导致如咬尾或过度打斗等不良行为的行为。虽然确定这种病理前状态的存在并不容易，但它们的存在目前是动物遭受行为应激的唯一合理指标。
