|
Goossens, A., Schwartz, C., Barret, B., Jacquot, M., Van-Erck-Westergren, E., & Tomberg, C. (2015). Characterisation of the splenius muscle’s activity (Splenius cervicis) during a walk phase at the warm up onset of ridden horses (Equus caballus). In , & K. Krueger (Ed.), Proceedings of the 3. International Equine Science Meeting. Wald: Xenophon Publishing.
|
|
van Dierendonck, M. (2015). “Out of the box” – innovations and new developments in social housing for horses. In K. Krueger (Ed.), Proceedings of the 3. International Equine Science Meeting. Proc. 3. Int. Equine. Sci. Mtg. Wald: xenophon Publishing.
|
|
Vidament. M. (2015). Laterality and emotions : behavioural response to an approach of a novel object by young ridden horses. In , & K. Krueger (Ed.), Proceedings of the 3. International Equine Science Meeting. Proc. 3. Int. Equine. Sci. Mtg. Wald: Xenophon Publishing.
|
Viksten, S., Blokhuis, H., Visser, K., & Nyman, S. (2015). Equine welfare assessment and feedback to owners. In , & K. Krueger (Ed.), Proceedings of the 3. International Equine Science Meeting. Wald: Xenophon Publishing.
Abstract: To assess horse welfare and develop a system for feedback to horse owners is the aim of the present study. A protocol developed in line with the Welfare Quality® project was used to assess 26 stables and 497 horses. Questionnaires were used to investigate what kind of feedback horse owners wanted and where they currently got their questions about horse welfare answered. The questionnaire was sent to participating stables and made available to the public via websites and social media.
Questionnaires revealed that 38% retrieved information from popular science articles, 77% from discussions with peers while 8% generally perceived their peers to lack knowledge on horse welfare. Factors affecting decision making were horse health (85%) and economy (38%). 85% wanted exhaustive information and advice on improvements, 69% preferred to get feedback as a digital document and 92% were interested in benchmarking.
Answers from participating stables lead to the development of a feedback consisting of results, scientific background of used measures, copies of assessment protocols for each horse, supportive telephone calls regarding decision making and benchmarking from all participating stables.
Questionnaires to the public had 688 respondents of which 54% were amateur riders/drivers. Main questions respondents had regarding horse welfare were within feeding regimes (62%), housing (57%) and field size (54%). Main motivational factors in decision making was horse health (83%) and behavioural problems (71%). 81% got information about horse welfare and support for changes from discussions with peers and 63% based decisions on their own personal opinion. 91% were interested in benchmarking scores to compare themselves with other stables.
The results highlight the need for independent assessment and feedback with a scientific base to horse owners. This will enable horse owners to make informed decisions with a scientific background that will result in increased horse welfare.
Lay persons message
A developed protocol was used to assess horse welfare and horse owners were questioned regarding how they wanted the results presented. This resulted in the development of a feedback system that will aid horse owners to make informed decisions about horse welfare.
|
Wolter, R., & Krueger, K. (2015). The analysis of social bonds in feral horses. In Proceedings of the 3. International Equine Science Meeting.
Abstract: In many social mammals, individuals preferentially affiliate with a small subset of available partners instead of distributing their social behaviors equally among all group members. The resulting social bonds have been investigated in several mammalian taxa, especially in primate societies, but also in other taxa such as birds, dolphins, rodents and ungulates. In feral horses, a great number of studies on social bonds can be found, but with a huge variety between methods for the analysis. There seems to be a lack of a clear and common definition of social bonds in horses and of comparable analyses. For example, there are irregularities between the studies regarding the research designs, the selection of recording methods and the interpretation of the measurements. Mutual grooming is used most often for the analysis of social relationships in many species. As mutual grooming is rare in horses, especially measurements of spatial proximity are commonly used for the analysis of social bonds in addition to other behavioral patterns. However, the combination of mutual grooming and nearest neighborhood analyses for the analysis of social bond is debatable, as in contrast to mutual grooming, which must occur deliberately by both grooming partners, the spatial distribution can be influenced by one partner alone, which may even force the other horse to keep a certain distance or to stay in close proximity.
In this study, we investigated the comparability of mutual grooming and nearest neighborhood data for social bond analyses in feral horses. Therefore, we observed five groups of semi-wild living Przewalski’s horses and six groups of feral horses.
We analysed the horses’ social ranks by applying an Average Dominance Index, we recorded the distances between the animals and observed the number of mutual grooming events as well as friendly approaches.
Our results show that there was only a weak correlation between the frequency of staying in nearest neighborhood and mutual grooming in all observed horse groups. In contrast to this, the correlation between the number of friendly approaches and mutual grooming events was higher in most groups.
Hierarchies did not affect social bonds, as mutual grooming was similarly induced by higher and lower ranking animals and the social rank did not affect the choice of the grooming partner. Similarly, likelihoods of staying in the neighborhood of particular animals were not affected by the animals’ social rank.
The grooming frequencies differed between the different horse groups and between the individual horses living in the particular groups. They seem to be effected by individual predisposition.
Altogether we suggest that the ratio of mutual grooming seems to be a better indicator for social bonds in feral horses than the frequency of staying in the nearest neighborhood. Mutual grooming occurs deliberately and is bidirectional, whereas nearest neighborhoods could be enforced and unidirectional. For the calculation of social bonds in horses, we consider it to be more reliable to combine the frequency of mutual grooming with the frequency of friendly approaches.
|
Wyss, C. (2015). Does housing in a „social box“ change faecal cortisol metabolites concentration in stallions? In Proceedings of the 3. International Equine Science Meeting.
Abstract: In order to improve the housing conditions of stallions in individual boxes by offering a possibility to have more social contact, the Swiss national stud farm tested a new box system for horses, allowing increased physical contact with the neighbouring stallion. The aim of this part of the study was to investigate whether this type of housing system (named “social box”) potentially induces a change in stress reactions in stallions compared to conventional boxes. Therefore faecal cortisol metabolite (FCM) concentration was measured as a non-invasive parameter to assess endocrine responses related to this new environment.
Four groups each consisting of eight adult Freiberger breeding stallions were included in the test design. Every stallion spent three weeks in a conventional box and in a social box respectively (cross-over design). The conventional box consisted of a separation wall with a lower opaque part and an upper part with vertical barriers (5 cm between barriers), allowing visual and olfactory contact but strongly limiting tactile contact. The separating wall of the social box consisted of two lateral sections, one part being opaque to the ceiling and the second part consisting of vertical barriers (30 cm between barriers), allowing the horse to have physical contact with its neighbour or to avoid it.
In horses, FCM concentration reflects an average level of circulating cortisol over a period of approximatively 24h. Faecal samples were collected the day following integration in social / conventional boxes, reflecting the potential stress induced by increased social interactions during the integration. In order to asses potential chronical stress, faeces samples were also collected in week one, two and three after the integration into the social / conventional box (in total: 4 samples per horse and housing system). The samples were immediately stored at -20°C until they were analysed. The samples were not analysed in the laboratory until the end of the experiment, therefore the duration of conservation in the freezer varied from 40 to 429 days.
A considerable percentage of data from groups 1 and 2 was below the detection limit (<0.8 ng/g) (Tab. 1). Thus the statistical analysis was conducted with the FCM concentration from groups 3 and 4 (n horses = 16) which contained no values below the detection limit.
Tab. 1: Details about FCM values and storage time for the 4 groups of stallions
Group Storage duration [d] Proportion of data below the detection limit (<0.8 ng/g) Mean [ng/g] Median [ng/g]
Group 1 384-429 55.6 % 2.2 0
Group 2 315-360 25.5 % 5.8 6.3
Group 3 41-79 0.0 % 8.7 8.0
Group 4 40-85 0.0 % 5.8 5.4
Despite the impressive social interactions observed between the stallions directly after being introduced into the social boxes, we did not find any differences in FCM concentration between the stallions being introduced into the conventional box and the social box on the day of integration (social box: n samples = 16, mean±SD: 6.9±4.7 ng/g; conventional box: n samples = 16, mean±SD: 9.0±11.2 ng/g; Wilcoxon signed rank test V = 70, p = 0.94).
Overall the samples taken during integration and in week one, two and three did not show evidence of changes in FCM concentration in either housing system over a longer period of time (social box: n samples = 64, mean±SD: 7.9±6.2 ng/g; conventional box: n samples = 64, mean±SD: 6.6±3.4 ng/g; Linear mixed model (LMM), p = 0.56).
Our results suggest that the possibility of having physical contact with a conspecific does not induce changes in FCM concentration in breeding stallions. The considerable percentage of values below the detection limit in groups 1 and 2 seemed to correlate with the increasing duration of storage before analysis. During the IESM Network Meeting 2015, we would like to discuss possible methodological issues and the possibilities to correctly integrate these low values in the statistical analysis.
|
