Abstract
Simple SummaryEven though animal posture is known to reflect an emotional state, the presence of chronic postures associated with poor welfare has already been investigated in horses. Measuring, quantifying, and comparing postures requires an application of an objective tool, such as geometric morphometrics. This study aimed to use geometric morphometrics to characterize the dorsal profile of donkeys in relation to their individual features. Forty donkeys were photographed and characterized using the body condition score (BCS), fatty neck score (FNS), dental condition score (DCS), sex, and breed. Then, photographs were analyzed using geometric morphometrics and the differences in dorsal profile between the examined criteria were tested. Within the entire set of donkey dorsal profiles, deformation related to BCS and FNS was observed. FNS measurement seems to have the strongest influence on a donkey’s dorsal profile among the examined criteria. Concluding, the donkeys’ body condition affects their dorsal profile, and both FNS and BCS measurements should be considered when the donkeys’ dorsal profiles are investigated. However, to evaluate the link between the dorsal profile and the welfare state of donkeys, more studies are required.As the breeding of donkeys has increased due to different types of use, welfare evaluation importance increases. This equid’s welfare state has been described using body condition indicators and the geometric morphometrics method. However, the dorsal profile has not yet been assessed in donkeys. In this study, the body condition score (BCS), fatty neck score (FNS), dental condition score (DCS), sex, and breed were used as criteria of dorsal profile deformations. Photographs of 40 donkeys were analyzed using geometric morphometrics. Within the entire set of dorsal profiles, the variance of the first three principal components (PCs) was PC1 = 37.41%, PC2 = 23.43%, and PC3 = 13.34%. The dorsal profiles displayed deformation as an effect of FNS and BCS on size (FNS p = 0.012; BCS p = 0.024) and shape (FNS p < 0.0001; BCS p < 0.0001), rather than as an effect of DCS (p < 0.0001), sex (p = 0.0264), and breed (p < 0.0001) only on shape. The highest distances among the categories (Mahalanobis distances: MD ≥ 13.26; Procrustes distances: PD ≥ 0.044) were noted for FNS. The lowest distances were noted between jennets and males (MD = 4.58; PD = 0.012) and between BCS 1 and BCS 2 (MD = 4.70; PD = 0.018). Donkeys’ body condition affects their dorsal profile and both FNS and BCS measurements should be considered when a donkey’s dorsal profile is investigated.
Highlights
Their set of physiological characteristics and social nature has made donkeys very useful to people in many cultures throughout the ages [1]
principal components (PCs) represent the weight of the partial wraps in the whole warps between all the conformations
Since the adipose tissue of donkeys tends to cumulate in the neck region and droop on both sides of the crest of the neck [6], it is not surprising that fatty neck score (FNS) had a stronger influence on the dorsal profile than body condition score (BCS)
Summary
Their set of physiological characteristics and social nature has made donkeys very useful to people in many cultures throughout the ages [1]. These animals nowadays are not an integral part of human life in developed countries; currently, a resurgence of interest them can be seen, especially in the dairy industry [2] and in onotherapy [3,4]. The fatty neck score (FNS) enables a complex evaluation of donkeys’ body condition [5]. It has been concluded that FNS, BCS, and the dental condition score (DCS) are necessary to be evaluated simultaneously as an indicator of the donkey’s welfare [5]. As body condition can be considered a key criterion of the overall welfare of the animals [5,6], it became one of the most frequently used morphometric measurements
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