Early stress is contagious in adulthood

Caitlyn D. -- Scientists say that if a zebra finch is exposed to stress as a nestling that their life span decreases dramatically. When the zebra finches are nestlings they produce a stress hormone, but if stressed out they will produce more of the hormone. Not only will this shorten the life of one zebra finch but it will be given to their partner. Scientist describes it as giving them a disease. Even if the finch has a non stressful life after the nestling stage and have food and water with no predators their life is still shortened. This demonstrates how much your partner is in control of your life.

I still have questions about the finches that the article didn’t address but it was written with good facts and emotion. I have zebra finches as pets and this gave me a lot of information that could help me in the future. I love this type of bird and I didn’t realize that this would happen. Many of the finches died as young adults and I’m now questioning if that was the reason. This was a good article and gave me a lot of interesting facts.

Link:  Early stress is contagious in adulthood