Evaluation of secondary stress biomarkers during road transport in rabbit

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of road transport, excluding the effect of cages, on rectal temperature (RT), glucose, lactate, packed cell volume (PCV) and total proteins (TP) in rabbits. The animals were divided into three groups of 10 subjects: Group A was transported into plastic transport crates by road for 2. h over a distance about 160. km with an average speed of 80. km/h, Group B was untransported and placed into plastic transport crates and Group C was untransported and placed into battery-style cages. RT, glucose, lactate, PCV and TP were measured before (T0) and after the road transport (T2) as well as after 6 (T6) and 24. h (T24) rest time in Groups A-C. The GLM (General linear model) Repeated Measures procedure, followed by Duncan multiple post-hoc comparison test, showed statistically significant differences among the Groups A-C (P<0.0001) and a significant effect of sampling time (P<0.0001) on RT, glucose, lactate and PCV in Group A. The results suggest that in rabbits, the changes of rectal temperature, together with the secondary stress markers, play an important role in providing complementary information for the assessment of transportation stress suggesting that these modifications are useful not only for monitoring stressful conditions but also for evaluating health and animal welfare.