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. 2020 Dec 3:7:593138.
doi: 10.3389/fvets.2020.593138. eCollection 2020.

Habituation to Transport Helps Reducing Stress-Related Behavior in Donkeys During Loading

Francesca Dai  1 , Silvia Mazzola  1 , Simona Cannas  1 , Eugenio Ugo Luigi Heinzl  2 , Barbara Padalino  3 , Michela Minero  1 , Emanuela Dalla Costa  1
Affiliations

Habituation to Transport Helps Reducing Stress-Related Behavior in Donkeys During Loading

Francesca Dai et al. Front Vet Sci. .

Abstract

Adopting proper animal management strategies, including training, might reduce to a substantial extent the adverse effects of transport-related stress in animals. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of habituation to transport on stress-related behaviors and physiological indicators during loading and unloading in donkeys. Fourteen donkeys were recruited and divided in two treatment groups: Habituation (H; M = 5, F = 2) and Control (C; M = 5, F = 2). H donkeys were gradually habituated to be transported, traveling together with their mothers and other adult donkeys well-accustomed to transport, while C donkeys had never been transported before. Loading and unloading phases were video recorded and behavior was analyzed. Saliva samples for cortisol concentration determination were collected at rest and after unloading. Latency time to load was significantly shorter for H donkeys than C donkeys (Mann-Whitney; p = 0.004). C donkeys also showed significantly more stress-related behaviors (Mann-Whitney; p = 0.026) and required a higher but not statistically significant number of human interventions to load. Cortisol concentration increased in both groups, but no differences were found between them (Mann-Whitney; p > 0.05). These results suggest that habituation to transport could mitigate stress during loading procedures in donkeys reducing loading time, frequency of stress-related behaviors and diminishing the need of human intervention.

Keywords: behavior; donkey; habituation; stress; transport; welfare.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The time (sec) for loading is presented on the y-axis (mean ± 1 SD) with the groups (control vs. habituation) on the x-axis (Mann-Whitney test; **p = 0.004).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean percentages of time (±1 SD) of stress related and moving forward behaviors of donkeys in the two treatment groups during loading procedure. (Mann-Whitney test; *p < 0.05).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Box plot of the transport-related salivary cortisol variation (delta) in the two groups of donkeys. Outliers are represented with dots.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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