Biology of Stress in Farm Animals: An Integrative Approach

A seminar in the CEC programme of coordination research on animal welfare, held on April 17–18, 1986, at the Pietersberg Conference Centre, Oosterbeek, The Netherlands

This book contains the contributions to a workshop on stress in farm animals held on April 17-18,1986 at the Pietersberg Con­ ference Centre Oosterbeek. The workshop was financed by the Commis­ sion of the European Communities from its budget for the coordina­ tion of Community Agricultural Research and the Agricultural Uni­ versity of Wageningen (The Netherlands). Its aim was to bring together experts from different disciplines all having in common that in one way or another they were involved in stress research. Such a multidisciplinary encounter should not only provide an interesting description of present day knowledge on stress, but also promote a more integrated view on stress phenomena as they occur in higher vertebrates. In the course of this workshop the following fields of research were related to stress: endocrinology, immunology, pathology, neurobiology, ethology and theoretical bio­ logy. Each of these relationships was introduce& by one speaker presenting a concise state of the art. The same relationship was elaborated by a second speaker implementing the available knowledge as far as possible to the farm animal situation. Therefore in this book each discipline is represented by a duo and introduced by some integrating remarks.