Development and assessment of a stair ascension challenge as a measure of aging and physical function in nonhuman primates
Nonhuman primates (NHPs) are valuable models for studying healthspan, including frailty development. Frailty metrics in people centers on functional measures, including usual gait speed which can be predictive of all-cause mortality. This concept that physical competencies are able to prognosticate an individual’s health trajectory over chronologic aging is well-accepted and has led to refinements in […]
Assessing chimpanzees’ fluency of movement: applications for monitoring health and welfare
With age, primates’ activity levels and ease of movement may decline and changes in locomotory behaviour may reflect changes in health. Thus, developing quick and reliable measures of movement has important applications for measuring recovery from disease, injury, or any age-related mobility declines. While behavioural observations can offer a rich understanding of primates’ activity budgets […]
The effect of keel fractures on egg-production parameters, mobility and behaviour in individual laying hens
A majority of laying hens fracture their keel bones during the laying cycle. It is not easy for a farmer to identify hens with fractures and hen survival rate seems high. Thus, the effect of both recent and healed fractures on bird welfare is unclear. We aimed to investigate the impact of these keel-bone fractures […]
Effects of carprofen, meloxicam and butorphanol on broiler chickens’ performance in mobility tests
Lame broiler chickens perform poorly in standardised mobility tests and have nociceptive thresholds that differ from those of non-lame birds, even when confounding factors such as differences in bodyweight are accounted for. This study investigated whether these altered responses could be due to pain, by comparing performance in a Group Obstacle test and a Latency […]