This study’s findings contradict previous research, questioning established views on how prenatal maternal stress affects offspring behaviour. Our findings suggest that moderate prenatal maternal stress exposure may offer long-term advantages for the offspring; CORT-offspring seems to be more proficient at handling stressful situations compared to Placebo-offspring. For this study, prenatal maternal stress seems to be good, but a lot of existing research claims otherwise. Therefore, more research is needed to find where the stress “tipping point” goes from giving an advantage to having a negative effect on offspring behaviour, physiology and cognition.
This study highlights the importance of multi-day testing, revealing that significant intra-individual variation within test subjects is overlooked when single measurement approaches are used in these types of testing circumstances.
If the results from this study are corroborated by others in the future, our findings could potentially have a large impact on the poultry industry, which may lead to a reassessment of current practices and policies within the industry.