ArticleTropical animal health and production2026
Effects of multimodal early-life stress on transport-induced responses in Pekin and Muscovy ducks.
Article in Tropical animal health and production, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
This study investigated whether exposure to multimodal early-life stress modifies physiological stress responses, fear behaviour and selected caecal bacterial populations in Pekin and Muscovy ducks subjected to road transportation under tropical conditions. A total of 416 one-day-old male ducklings (Pekin, n = 208; Muscovy, n = 208) were assigned to early-stress (ES) or non- early-stress (NES) treatments from day 3 to day 14 of age. Early-stressed ducks were exposed daily for 3 h to a combination of crating, mild cold (24 ± 1 °C), noise (100 dB), and darkness. On day 42 of age, ducks were either transported for 3 h or remained in their home pens. We evaluated serum corticosterone (CORT) and heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) levels, tonic immobility (TI) responses, selected caecal bacterial populations, and growth performance. Early-life stress did not affect growth performance, feed efficiency or mortality. Muscovy ducks exhibited longer TI duration (P < 0.0001) and required fewer inductions (P < 0.0001) than Pekin ducks, suggesting breed-related differences in fear responses. However, neither early-life stress nor transportation affected TI duration (P = 0.3117) and the number of inductions (P = 0.6562). The CORT responses to transportation were strongly breed-dependent (P = 0.0004). Pekin ducks showed higher corticosterone concentrations than Muscovy ducks, and early stressed Pekin ducks exhibited lower CORT concentrations following transportation than non-early-stressed transported ducks. In contrast, early-life stress had little effect on CORT responses in Muscovy ducks. Serum heat shock protein 70 concentrations were not affected by early-life stress or transportation (P = 0.4027). Ducks not exposed to early-life stress and subsequently transported showed the lowest caecal Lactobacillus spp. counts (P = 0.0050). The results suggest that early-life stress across multiple modalities can reduce physiological stress responses triggered by transportation and promote gut microbial stability in Pekin ducks while maintaining their performance. In contrast, Muscovy ducks showed minimal additional advantages, underscoring the breed-specific responses to early-life conditioning strategies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
42714688What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.