Monitoring Blinks And Eyelid Twitches In Horses To Assess Stress During The Samples Collection Process.

The research paper is about assessing stress in horses via monitoring eye blinks and eyelid twitches during saliva and blood sample collection and after police training, and determining if these are viable methods of evaluating stress in horses.

Methodology

• The research was conducted to understand the stress levels in horses through the process of finding and monitoring eye blinks (full and half), and eyelid twitches.
• This method was utilized while collecting blood and saliva samples from horses before and after they underwent annual intensive police training.
• The focus of the research was to evaluate whether the collection of blood, typically perceived as a more invasive sampling technique, is more stressful for the horses than saliva collection.

Findings

• Researchers found no significant difference in stress-related manifestations between the saliva sampling and blood collection processes in horses.
• It was observed that in both sampling cases (blood and saliva), the number of full and half eye blinks reduced. This reduction may suggest that the sampling act itself could induce some level of stress in horses.

Hypothesis

• Based on the hypotheses set at the beginning of the research, an increase in potential stressors was expected to bring statistically significant changes in the number of eye blinks and eyelid twitches.
• The potential stressors in this case were identified as, police training and the various sampling processes.

Cortisol Levels

• Despite the intensive training they received, saliva cortisol levels indicated that the police training seemed not to significantly stress the horses.

Conclusion

• The researchers concluded that the method applied in the study, measuring the number of eye blinks and eyelid twitches, appears to be adequate in determining stress levels in horses.
• This method may offer a less-invasive, alternative approach for monitoring stress factors in horses and thereby maximizing their well-being.