Animals 2015, 5, 1268-1295; doi:10.3390/ani5040411 OPEN ACCESS animals ISSN 2076-2615 www.mdpi.com/journal/animals Article Models and Methods to Investigate Acute Stress Responses in Cattle Yi Chen 1,2, Ryan Arsenault 3, Scott Napper 1,2 and Philip Griebel 1,4,* 1 Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E3, Canada; E-Mails:
[email protected] (Y.C.);
[email protected] (S.N.) 2 Department of Biochemistry, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E5, Canada 3 Department of Animal and Food Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA; E-Mail:
[email protected] 4 School of Public Health, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E3, Canada * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail:
[email protected]; Tel.:+1-306-966-1542; Fax:+1-306-966-7478. Academic Editor: Lee Niel Received: 29 September 2015 / Accepted: 25 November 2015 / Published: 3 December 2015 Abstract: There is a growing appreciation within the livestock industry and throughout society that animal stress is an important issue that must be addressed. With implications for animal health, well-being, and productivity, minimizing animal stress through improved animal management procedures and/or selective breeding is becoming a priority. Effective management of stress, however, depends on the ability to identify and quantify the effects of various stressors and determine if individual or combined stressors have distinct biological effects. Furthermore, it is critical to determine the duration of stress-induced biological effects if we are to understand how stress alters animal production and disease susceptibility.