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Housing conditions for horses impose various levels of confinement, which may compromise welfare. Lying behaviour and activity can be used as welfare indicators for domestic animals and rebound behaviour suggests a build-up of motivation resulting from deprivation. The objective of this study was to determine if activity and lying behaviour of horses are affected by housing conditions and to investigate the occurrence of rebound behaviour after release from confinement. Eight horses were subjected, in pairs, to each of four experimental treatments; paddock (P), fully stabled (FS), partly stabled (PS) and yard (Y). Each horse received 6 days acclimatisation prior to the 24 h recording period. Time spent in lying and activity were electronically recorded using a tilt switch and motion sensor connected to a data logger worn on the horse's left foreleg. Time spent active during the first 5 min of release from stable to paddock in the PS treatment (days 1 and 5) and at the same time of day in the P treatment was used as a measure of rebound behaviour. Effect of housing conditions on total time spent active was highly significant (FS 5 123 s, PS 5 158 s, Y 5 377 s, P 5 779 s, P , 0.001). Housing conditions did not significantly affect total time spent lying (P 5 0.646). Horses were significantly more active, compared with baseline paddock behaviour, on release from stabling on both days 1 (P 5 0.006) and 5 (P 5 0.025) of PS treatment. These results suggest that activity patterns of horses, but not lying behaviour, are affected by the housing conditions tested and that rebound activity occurs in horses after a period of confinement.

Problems with getting up can affect welfare, therefore a simple method for use in assessing rising behaviour was evaluated. Sixty-one Danish Friesian cows housed in two identical tie-stall barns were used. The cows were in their first (no. = 30), second (no. = 16) or third lactation (no. = 15). There were 19 cows in early lactation (<100 days in milk), 18 late lactation cows (>200 days in milk) and 24 dry cows, divided between the age groups. Rising was scored at three times of day for five consecutive days. Two observers scored the cows at 11:30 h and one of these observers scored them at 15:00 and 17:30 h. Cows were encouraged to rise using increasing levels of encouragement but the minimum possible force and were scored for rising (between 1 - normal rising sequence, smooth movement and 5 - rising front first) and the level of encouragement required. The behaviour of each cow was recorded on video for 21·5 h. Total lying time; lying frequency; maximum lying bout length; time to lie down; time for preparatory phase of lying; time to rise, and time for final phase of rising were recorded from the videos and video records of rising were scored. The rising score was repeatable and was unaffected by the different scoring conditions tested (presence of observer, day of scoring, time of day, level of encouragement). Stage of lactation affected total lying time, number of lying bouts, maximum bout length and rising behaviour, while lactation number only had a minor effect on lying behaviour. The proposed score for rising reliably reflected whether the cows in tie-stalls had difficulty rising when at least three observations were included. The proportion of cows in different stages of lactation and of different parities should be included in any assessment of rising behaviour, since stage of lactation and parity significantly affected rising behaviour.

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