Influence of Fetal and Maternal Factors on Hair Cortisol Concentrations in Neonatal Foals
Loading...
Date
2025-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
It is well known that cortisol plays an important role in the fetal maturation of many species, including the horse. Although plasma, salivary, and fecal samples reflect acute cortisol concentrations, they are not able to offer the long-term retrospective analysis that hair samples can provide. In the horse, hair starts to grow at approximately 270 d of gestation. Therefore, non-invasive measurements of cortisol concentrations in hair samples collected at birth may reflect cortisol accumulation during the last 50-90 d of gestation and may provide insight to factors influencing cortisol concentrations during fetal development. The purpose of this study was to evaluate hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) of neonatal foals in relation to their physical characteristics (sex, birthweight, coat color) and maternal factors (parity, gestation length, month of parturition). Hair samples were collected from healthy Quarter Horse foals (n=8) born at The Ohio State University Equine Facility within 2 hr of birth. Cortisol concentrations were measured via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and data were analyzed using PROC MIXED and PROC CORR (SAS v. 9.4). The mean HCC of neonatal foals in this study was 35.3 ± 5.6 pg/mg. There were no differences observed in the HCC between colts and fillies (33.3 ± 2.4 pg/mg vs. 38.6 ± 3.0 pg/mg, p = 0.22). HCC were also not influenced by the foal’s birthweight or base coat color (p > 0.05). Similarly, HCC were not influenced by the mare’s parity, gestation length, or month of parturition (p > 0.05). No significant correlations were observed between the HCC of the neonatal foals, their physical characteristics, or maternal factors evaluated in the present study. Hair samples provide a non-invasive approach to measuring cortisol concentrations in neonatal foals.
Description
Keywords
hair cortisol concentrations, neonatal foals, retrospective study, non-invasive approach