An individual horse’s welfare depends on more than just
having food, water and appropriate shelter. Their emotional well-being, or “quality
of life”, is an important piece of the welfare puzzle.
However, it is unclear what measurements are sufficiently accurate
and reliable to help objectively assess this area of a horse’s welfare. A group
of researchers from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia have teamed
up to address this.
The researchers completed two systematic reviews of studies
in horses. One review focused on identifying equine behaviours that could
reflect the horse’s mood and general well-being, - in other words, how they
feel. The other review focused on physical measures of equine emotion, such as
heart rate. The initial results of these reviews were presented on August 19,
2019 at the 15th annual International Society for Equitation Science (ISES)
conference held at the University of Guelph.
Natalie Waran, from the Eastern Institute of Technology, New
Zealand, presented on the findings related to equine behaviour. This review
included 75 publications. Some of the behaviours they looked at included:
feeding behaviour, types of interactions with humans and other horses (e.g.
were they friendly or agonistic), and interest in the environment. They found
that these types of everyday behaviours, and responses to training, were the
clearest indicators of a horse’s emotional state.
Waran adds “Examples of behaviours that indicated a positive
emotional state were increased feeding behaviour, friendly social interactions
(between horses and with humans) and interest in the environment. Examples of
behaviours that indicated a negative emotional state were decreased feeding
behaviour, negative social interactions, reduced interest in the environment
and increased repetitive non-functional movement patterns”.
She concludes that “these behaviours should help form the
basis of assessment criteria so that horse owners and carers can assess and
improve the quality of life of the animals under their care”.
Hayley Randle, from Charles Sturt University, Australia,
presented on the results from the physical measures related to a horse’s
emotion.
Randle explains “Heart rate (HR), heart rate variability
(HRV) and cortisol are the most commonly measured physiological indicators of
equine emotion. Other suggested indicators include eye temperature, respiratory
rate and salivary alpha amylase but many of these lack validation in relation
to association with emotional state. There were methodological problems with
all of the measures we looked at, such as the lack of standardisation of
reporting and interpretation.”
She concludes “The physical measures of equine emotion
looked at in this review revealed that these may have limited use when
assessing horse welfare. A comprehensive
set of measures that takes into account the horses experiences at any one time
is needed to assess equine welfare and his/her overall quality of life.”
Kate Fenner, ISES council member, expanded on the importance
of this presentation. “This research is an important step forward in equine
welfare assessment”, she says, “We need studies like this that can help us
identify consistent indicators of quality of life in order to build reliable
welfare assessment tools that evaluate every domain of equine welfare.”
For more details, see:
Indicators on the outside: Behaviour and equine Quality of Life
C. Hall, R. Kay, H. Randle, L. Preshaw, G. Pearson, N. Waran
Proceedings 15th Equitation Science Conference (2019) p54
Indicators on the inside: Physiology and equine Quality of Life
H. Randle, C. Henshall, C. Hall, G. Pearson, L. Preshaw, N. Waran
Proceedings 15th Equitation Science Conference (2019) p55
The Proceedings are available:
1 comment:
Making something easy into something hard. Horse friendly barns might be a good start for the researchers. Recommend they look at a horse. It's unnecessart to test the saliva when u know what to look for.
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