Hair cortisol concentrations in bovine neonates born to healthy and ill cows

摘要

The goal of this study was to investigate the hair cortisol concentration (HCC) in healthy and ill cows and their new-born calves. A total of 40 cows and their 42 newborn calves were divided into two groups: group 1 consisted of 19 clin-ically healthy cows and their 20 newborn calves, and group 2 comprised 21 cows that had had a chronic illness in the third trimester of gestation and their 22 newborn calves. A liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) system was used to measure the HCC in hair samples that were collected from the cows and calves on the day the calves were born.In both groups, the mean HCCs of the calves was signifi-cantly higher than that of the cows (group 1, 31,0 vs. 0,6 pg/mg; group 2, 19,4 vs. 0,8 pg/mg; P<0,01). There was a trend for lower HCCs in cows of group 1 compared with cows of group 2 (0,6 vs. 0,8 pg/mg, P=0,06), whereas calves of group 1 had significantly higher HCCs than calves of group 2 (31,0 vs 19,4 pg/mg, (P<0,01). Based on our find-ings, newborn calves have much higher HCCs than their dams, and calves born to chronically ill cows have lower HCCs than calves born to healthy cows. More studies are needed to examine potential adverse long-term effects of chronic illness in the pregnant dam on the offspring.