Branding or microchips? Let's ask the foals!
Like many other livestock, foals have long been identified via branding. But today the practice has become a controversial animal welfare issue with some suggesting implanting microchips is more humane and others defending the age-old practice. But what do the foals themselves think? This was the question asked by a team of Austrian and German scientists as they set out to examine how the two methods affected foals. The work was carried out at the Graf Lehndorff Institute for Equine Science, a joint research unit of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, in Austria, and the Brandenburg State Stud at Neustadt in Germany. Their findings, presented in The Veterinary Journal, show that although the short-term differences are far less dramatic than animal rights activists may proclaim, hot-iron branding does have prolonged effects that may negatively affect the welfare of foals. Their team aimed to move beyond focusing solely on the acute stress responses and look also at the effect of branding on the long-term welfare of the animals. It is important for farmers to be able to identify their animals, and the practise of using hot irons to brand an animal can be dated back to the ancient Egyptians. Nowadays it is common for dogs and cats to be identified by the implant of a microchip transponder, and although horses have traditionally been branded the old fashioned way, in many countries we are now seeing a shift of attitudes towards the use of microchips for these animals too. Denmark banned branding in 2009 and Germany could soon be following their lead with discussions on the issue ongoing in the German parliament. Similar debates are also taking place in Australia and the United States. This study is the first time the effects of branding have been investigated in foals; previous studies have only focused on adult horses despite the fact that the branding is almost always carried out when the horse is a foal. This previous body of work suggested that branding was significantly more stressful than implanting a microchip but the Austro-German team wanted to test the hypothesis in foals too. The team examined the levels of stress hormones in the saliva of foals when they were branded or when a microchip was implanted in their necks. They also looked at behaviour, body temperature and heart rate during and after the marking process. The findings show that both methods are associated with similar acute levels of stress to the animals as for both methods cortisol concentrations in the saliva increased and there was a similar transient increase in heart rate and in aversive behaviour. But interestingly, it appears that the stress experienced was in part due to handling and fixation of the foals and not by the actual marking procedures themselves. But whilst both practices may be equally stressful at the initial stage, the skin burn caused by the branding lasted for a week, and this was also coupled with a general increase in skin temperature that lasted for several days. These results show that the damage burning causes to tissue is more pronounced than scientists previously expected. Therefore, the most important conclusion from their study is that branding induces more prolonged alternations in foals than microchip implants do, as lead researcher on the study Christine Aurich from the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna emphasises. 'Branding but not microchip implantation causes a necrotising burn wound and a generalised increase in superficial body temperature, which together are indicative of significant tissue damage.'For more information, please visit:University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna:http://www.vetmeduni.ac.at/
Countries
Austria, Germany