Abstract: Bei einer für die Schweiz repräsentativ und zufällig ausgewählten Stichprobe von 2912 Pferden und Ponys wurden mittels Fragebogen Daten zum aktuellen Gesundheitszustand und zum Auftreten von Erkrankungen und Verletzungen während der vergangenen 12 Monate erfasst. 718 Pferde (24.7%) wurden im Erfassungszeitraum wegen 897 gesundheitlichen Problemen einem Tierarzt vorgestellt. Orthopädische und traumatische Fälle machten den grössten Anteil aus (41.5%), gefolgt von Erkrankungen des Gastrointestinal- (27.1%) und des Respirationstrakts (14.0%). Die Hälfte der Lahmheiten entstand als unmittelbare Folge einer Verletzung. Die Verletzungen waren assoziiert mit Weidegang/Auslauf (38.1%), Schläge/Bissen durch Artgenossen (21.6%), Stall (7.8%), Gelände (13.4%), Training (3.5%), Wettkampf (3.5%), Transport (3.0%) oder mit anderen Umständen (9.1%). In 26.5% der Kolikfälle wurde im Monat vor der Erkrankung Futterumstellung vorgenommen. Bei den Atmungserkrankungen wurde in 13.8% die gleiche Krankheit auch bei anderen Pferden im Stall diagnostiziert. Bei 8.1% aller Fälle erfolgte eine Operation, 6.7% waren mit einem mehrtägigem Klinikaufenthalt verbunden. Bei 25.6% aller tiermedizinisch diagnostizierten Fälle wurden ergänzend oder ausschliesslich komplementärmedizinische Therapiemethoden eingesetzt.

Abstract: Whereas mammalian mothers and young may retain long-term social affiliations in nature, the management of animals in captivity typically dictates that offspring are abruptly and permanently separated from their mothers at a relatively early age, often prior to the time of natural weaning. For animal breeders, this strategy can enhance the yield of offspring from a breeding population. Morbidity and mortality can also precipitate severance of mother-young bonds. Although it is recognized that early weaning provides nutritional challenges for the young, relatively little attention has been paid to the psychological consequences and long-term impacts of breaking the mother-young bond in non-human mammals. Furthermore, whereas great strides are being made in our understanding of the neurobiological and genetic underpinnings of social bonding, the mechanisms underlying the process of detachment following establishment of a mother-young bond remain relatively unexplored, although parallels can be drawn with processes involved in withdrawal from addictive substances. In this review, we outline mechanisms involved in social bonding. We consider the diversity in extent and duration of mother-young attachment across mammalian lineages and implications for predicting the outcome of severing ties between mothers and young at different times post-partum. We identify characteristics signalling emotional distress resulting from separation of mothers and young and discuss strategies for mitigating separation-induced distress. These include postponement of separation, ensuring high-quality maternal care of young prior to separation, providing bonded individuals with opportunities to separate voluntarily for brief periods prior to permanent separation, use of anti-suck devices prior to separation, allowing a period of partial (fence line) contact prior to full separation, providing substitutes for stimuli previously exchanged between mother and young, providing social buffers, gradual introduction to new housing arrangements, and pharmacological intervention. Areas for future research are proposed, including the use of functional neuroimaging technologies and functional genomics approaches, in combination with behavioural assessments of reinstatement motivation, individual recognition memory and long-term consequences of early separation, to shed further light on the nature of mother-young bonding and detachment in animals.

Abstract: Although an early and influential review led to the often-cited conclusion that color discrimination is rare among mammals, more recent findings suggest that it is actually widespread. According to jacobes, all non-nocturnal mammalian species that have adequately exmined show some color vision capacity. Data on the presence and characteristics and the influence of sex and age on color vision in the horse, remain spares and non in Caspian pony. Eight Caspian ponies were presented with a series of two-choice color vs. grey discrimination problems. One mare pony was eliminated due to traumatic injury to her eye. Experiments were performed in a box of 3 * 3 meter containing a wall with two translucent panels that were illuminated from behind by light projected through color or grey filters to provide the discriminative stimuli. Ponies were first adopted to the stall (box) with two panels in it and then learned to push one of the panels in order to receive the food rewards behind positive stimuli in an achromatic light-dark discrimination task. The ponies were then tested on their abilities to discriminate between grey and four individual colors; red; 617nm, yellow; 581nm, green; 538nm and blue 470 nm. The answer to the question \“do the ponies see color\” was yes but sex and age had no influence on the color discrimination of the ponies .

Abstract: Contraception is often considered for population control of wildlife that is otherwise protected from more traditional management strategies, though little is known about the behavioral consequences of contraception in wild populations of socially complex animals. Feral horses, Equus caballus, in the western United States are ideal candidates for contraceptive management due to broad scale federal protection, reported herd growth rates of 15-25% per year, and finite public land allocated for them. We investigated influences of the immunocontraceptive porcine zona pellucida (PZP) on social behavior within bands of feral horses in three discrete populations for 4 years. Each band consisted of a single stallion and a harem of adult females (>1 years old) and their foals, as well as associated yearling males and females. Four mutually exclusive behaviors (herding, reproductive, harem tending, and agonism) were analyzed to investigate the difference between behaviors initiated by band stallions toward control mares and contracepted mares within the bands. Additionally, spatial relationships between each stallion and each harem female were analyzed to assess possible passive interactions. A candidate set of 22 hierarchical mixed effects models, using the discrete populations as a random effect on various fixed effects, was analyzed by restricted maximum likelihood estimation. The most supported models were selected by corrected Akaike"s Information Criteria (AICc). Analyses were done on 3 female age cohorts based on distinct fecundity rates: 2 to 5 year olds, 6 to 14 year olds, and > 14 year olds. Stallions herded control mares in the 6 to 14 year cohort more than contracepted mares (n=128, P=0.037) with treatment being the most supported effect, but foal presence (dependent foal) also contributed significantly to the model. Contracepted mares received more reproductive behaviors than control mares in the 6 to 14 year cohort (n = 151, P=0.020). No differences were detected in herding or reproductive behaviors in
the least fecund groups, the 2 to 5 year olds and &#8805; 15 year olds. The only independent variable in the most supported model for reproductive behavior was treatment, and the covariates of foal presence, band residence (resident or transient female), band size, and body condition did not contribute. There were no differences in any age cohort for harem tending or agonism. Spatially, stallions maintained closer relationships with 2 to 5 year old contracepted females than with the same age control females (n=136, P < 0.001) while the group was feeding (at its most dispersed structure), but there were no differences while the band was resting or in locomotion. There were no spatial differences detected in the other age cohorts. Given the polyestrous nature and high fecundity of feral horses, the observed difference in reproductive behaviors between treatment groups was not surprising; however, the difference detected in herding rates was an unexpected behavioral modification. This change in herding behavior suggests that further investigation is needed to determine if PZP immunocontraception has an underlying influence on mare social rank, band structure, and band stability, as well as the scope and long-term importance of these behavioral dynamics.

Abstract: According to Interpersonal Theory every interaction is motivated by efforts to achieve and maintain self-esteem and to avoid anxiety. People"s characteristic ways of accomplishing these ends are called interpersonal reflexes. Those interpersonal reflexes are evident in interaction with animals, since they are determined by the interpersonal traits of personality. We wanted to catch the typical interpersonal reflexes in between humans and horses compared to pet animals.
We used the self rating assessment instrument “Inventory of Problematic Interactions with Animals” (IPI – Animals), which bases on a Interpersonal Circumplex Model (Human Animal Circumplex; HAC) and was constructed to catch specific dispositions of distress caused by animals using two dimensions (too dominant vrs too submissive and too warm versus too cold). Data of 233 male adolescents (93 of them actual pet owners, from that 12 horse owners) were collected.
We found that different pet preferences holds distinct locations in the HAC. Horse persons differ from dog and cat persons within the dimension dominance (dog: chi2(df126) =161.54 p= .018; cat: chi2(df126) =199.95 p= .045). Persons, who own a horse or would wish to own one, describe themselves as dominant, but warm interactors. They report that they want horses to notice them. They tend do too much for them and behave very effusively with them. On the other hand they feel that the animal takes too much advantage of the relationship.