Urinary cortisol as an additional tool to assess the welfare of pregnant sows kept in two types of housing

Abstract

-The use of urinary cortisol (UC) as an additional tool to evaluate sows welfare was assessed in two experiments. In a preliminary methodological experiment, the kinetics of cortisol excretion in urine was studied during an Adreno Cortico Trophic Hormone (ACTH) challenge test in 10 pregnant sows. In a second experiment, 96 primiparous sows of an experimental unit were assigned to two different housing systems: 48 animals were housed in individual pens (IP) and 48 animals in collective pens (CP) with 6 animals per pen. UC was measured at the beginning and at the end of pregnancy and compared with other welfare indicators such as behaviour or skin damage. In both experiments, UC was measured using a high pressure liquid chromatography assay. In experiment 1, UC was constant on the day before injection of ACTH, with no variations related to circadian rhythm. It began to rise 2 h after the injection, peaked between 2 to 5 h after then returned to the basal concentration on the day after the injection. In experiment 2, UC concentrations were not different between CP-and IP-housed sows but they were higher in sows exhibiting the less stereotypies in comparison with sows exhibiting the most stereotypies. The results of this study suggest that UC is a good indicator of acute stress, more convenient than plasma cortisol measurement since it is a non-invasive method avoiding restraint or catheterisation of sows. They also suggest that UC could also give additional information on the assessment of chronic stress and improve the evaluation of animal welfare if used in conjunction with other welfare indicators.pig / urinary cortisol / group housing / stress / welfare Résumé -Le cortisol urinaire comme critère d'évaluation supplémentaire du bien-être de la truie gravide dans deux systèmes de logement. L'intérêt du cortisol urinaire (CU) comme critère d'éva-luation du bien-être des truies a été testé dans deux expériences. Dans une première expérience méthodo-logique, la cinétique d'excrétion du CU dans les urines de dix truies gravides a été mesurée suite à un test à l'hormone adrénocorticotrope (ACTH). Dans une deuxième expérience, 96 truies primipares d'une (33) 2 96 01 62 23; e-mail: jp.cotte@ploufragan.afssa.fr station expérimentale ont été réparties, pendant la gestation, dans deux systèmes de logement : 48 truies en stalles individuelles (SI) et 48 autres en cases collectives (CC) de 6 animaux. Leur CU a été mesuré en début et fin de gestation puis comparé aux autres critères d'évaluation du bien-être comme le comportement ou les blessures cutanées. Dans chacune des expériences, le CU a été dosé par une méthode de chromatographie liquide haute pression (HPLC). Dans la première expérience, aucun rythme circadien du CU n'a été observé le jour précédant le test à l'ACTH. Le CU a commencé à augmenter deux heures après l'injection d'ACTH, atteint un pic entre 2 et 5 h après puis est revenu à un taux de base le lendemain. Dans la deuxième expérience, le CU des truies logées en SI n'était pas différent de celui des t...

Validation of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay developed for measuring cortisol concentration in human saliva and serum for its applicability to analyze cortisol in pig saliva

“…Cortisol metabolites can be measured in urine, but to obtain accurate results urine concentration must be taken into account. Furthermore, urine sampling can be time-consuming as an observer must be present to collect urine when the sow urinates [4]. On the other hand, faeces is easy to collect.…”

Cortisol-binding globulin and meat quality in five European lines of pigs1

“…It also has been shown in humans that plasma, but not urine, cortisol concentrations were significantly influenced by variation in CBG-Bmax (Bright and Darmaun, 1995;Dhillo et al, 2002). Thus, according to Pol et al (2002) and Hay et al (2000), urine cortisol excretion seems to be more suitable for the detection of variations in cortisol production because concentrations are not influenced by variation in CBG-Bmax, rapid changes in hormone secretion (urine accumulates over several hours), or sample handling (urine collection is a noninvasive method).…”

Physiological indicators of stress in gestating sows under different cooling systems

“…Hay & Mormède (1997) showed lower mean values (28.1 or 6.2 ng mg -1 creatinine for Meishan or Large White sows respectively), but higher values (up to 300 ng mg -1 creatinine) can be reached when the animals are injected with adrenocorticotropic hormone (Pol et al, 2002). Likewise, these markers tended to an asymmetric distribution (Figure 1), because one group of animals had baseline values, while others showed peaks of these hormones concentrations, probably due to nonspecific response to acute challenges (Mormède et al, 2007).…”