A recent study led by the University of Mississippi helped progress the understanding of animal feelings through this innovative technique.
Working in conjunction with researchers from the United Kingdom, the specialists concentrated on how vocalizations of domestic chicks indicate stress levels, which might open new avenues for animal welfare interventions in poultry operations.
The findings show insights that could benefit not only the animals but also research into human mental health.
Chick vocalizations and animal welfare
The central experiment of the study was simple but revealing: placing one chick alone in a box and another in a box with a mirror.
The chick that could see its reflection dispensed quiet calls since it thought it was not alone, whereas the lone chick produced loud, screechy sounds indication of anxiety-like states.
The team used advanced and sophisticated acoustic devices to do this comparison in vocalizations and linked them with stress responses.
Improving animal welfare principles
These current analyses implicate wider ramifications for the enhancement of welfare practices in the meat and egg production sector.
According to co-author Kenneth Sufka, a professor of psychology and pharmacology at the University of Mississippi, he believes monitoring stress in chickens, pigs, and cattle through their vocalizations-a valuable way to assess the humane conditions of industrialized facilities-is a worthwhile endeavor.
“Is this one of those cheap ideas where acoustics can be used to provide information on animal welfare in those production facilities? I would think so!” Sufka underlined the potential broader applicability of this technique.
Analyzing emotions in animals
Lead author Sarah Collins associate professor of animal behavior at the University of Plymouth-correlates the findings with the vast improvements that enable a deeper understanding of sentience in other animal species.
“It’s further evidence of animal sentience – the ability to enjoy emotions,” she said. The ability to assess how stressed an animal is through vocal cues could allow for more accurate measurements of its well-being.
Measuring Stress in Chicks
Beyond animal welfare, this study offers a noninvasive and cost-effective technique for reading anxiety-like states in animals other than chicks.
Conventional techniques for assessing stress include shooting animals, taking blood samples, and measuring corticosterone, a stress hormone — a process that can induce stress on its own.
Sufka points out the advantage of his method: “That in itself is annoying — grab, grab, grab, release. We think it is a better way.”
Since chicks are often used in the early studies of anti-anxiety and depression drugs, measuring their stress levels correctly may lead to improvements in treatment effects.
“To claim that an anti-anxiety drug alleviates an anxiety-like state, this chick, mouse, or rat has to have an anxiety state very similar to yours,” Sufka said.
Ethical issues about animal welfare
The research also touches on deeper ethical questions about animals’ emotional capacities and their rights.
Traditionally, animals have been considered to be much less emotionally complex than humans, leading to the belief that they have fewer desires.
However, recent findings suggest that animals like chickens experience terrible emotional states.
“My argument is that all the work we’ve done so far suggests that the similarities between this avian version and human stress and depressive states make an absolutely strong argument that those animals have poor emotional states,” Sufka explained.
“If that’s true, then, ethically, we must care about animal welfare and the best possible conditions for their lives.”
This view accentuates the necessity of providing captive animals, in human care, with environments conducive to their state of well-being.
Further implications of the research
The studies of Sufka open a door to new understandings and improvements in the welfare of animals in agriculture and research. By highlighting the context of stress on the welfare of an animal such as the chick, this study will assist in the development.