ArticleAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI2020
HPLC MS-MS Analysis Shows Measurement of Corticosterone in Egg Albumen Is Not a Valid Indicator of Chicken Welfare.
Article in Animals : an open access journal from MDPI, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of Cool Water Supply on Laying Performance, Egg Quality, Rectal Temperature and Stress Hormones in Heat-Stressed Laying Hens in Open-Type Laying Houses.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Effects of vitamin C and early-age thermal conditioning on pituitary adrenocorticotropic hormone cells in broilers chronically exposed to heat stress: an immunohistomorphometric and hormonal study.Veterinary research forum : an international quarterly journal · 2024Article
- The Effect of Low Temperature on Laying Performance and Physiological Stress Responses in Laying Hens.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Heat stress and poultry production: a comprehensive review.Poultry science · 2023Review
- Chronic Heat Stress Part 2: Increased Stress and Fear Responses in FAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Chronic treatment with glucocorticoids does not affect egg quality but increases cortisol deposition into egg albumen and elicits changes to the heterophil to lymphocyte ratio in a sex-dependent manner.Frontiers in physiology · 2023Article
- Catecholamine concentrations in duck eggs are impacted by hen exposure to heat stress.Frontiers in physiology · 2023Article
- Simultaneous determination of steroid hormones and pharmaceuticals in killer whale (Conservation physiology · 2023Article
- Transportation Stress Increases Fos Immunoreactivity in the Paraventricular Nucleus, but Not in the Nucleus of the Hippocampal Commissure in the Pekin Duck,Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Research Note: Sex difference in changes in heterophil to lymphocyte ratios in response to acute exposure of both corticosterone and cortisol in the Pekin duck.Poultry science · 2022Article
- Chronic heat stress part 1: Decrease in egg quality, increase in cortisol levels in egg albumen, and reduction in fertility of breeder pekin ducks.Frontiers in physiology · 2022Article
- Rearing Enrichments Affected Ranging Behavior in Free-Range Laying Hens.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Assessment of animal welfare can include analysis of physiological parameters, as well as behavior and health. Levels of adrenocortical hormones such as cortisol (and corticosterone in chickens) have been relied on as indicators of stress. Elevations in those hormones have been said to be correlated with poor welfare, while levels in the normal range have been interpreted to mean that animals are in a good state of welfare. Procuring blood samples from animals for hormone measures can in itself be stressful and cause increases in the target hormones. To overcome this problem, indirect measures of cortisol and corticosterone have been developed. In chickens, corticosterone levels in egg albumen are said to be a useful indirect measure, and have been used in several recent studies as indicators of chicken welfare. All of the measures of chicken egg albumen corticosterone in welfare studies have used immunoassays, and have reported values ranging from about 0.5 to over 20 ng/g. Using these measures, egg albumen from chickens housed in conventional cages or free ranging has been said to have indistinguishable corticosterone levels. This has been used to support the conclusion that chickens kept in conventional cages are not experiencing stress and are in a good state of welfare. In this study, we have used high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) to measure corticosterone in egg albumen. We found levels of corticosterone (median level about 50 pg/g) in egg albumen which were just above the limit of detection. By contrast, we found significant levels of progesterone and cortisol, hormones which would be expected to cross react with anti-corticosterone antibodies, and which therefore might explain the high reported levels of corticosterone using immunoassay. We conclude that because corticosterone levels in egg albumen are negligible, they cannot be used as an indicator of chicken welfare.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.