Characteristics of the Donkey's Dorsal Profile in Relation to Its Functional Body Condition Assessment.

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.