Initial outcomes of a harmonized approach to collect welfare data in sport and leisure horses

Abstract

A truthful snapshot of horse welfare conditions is a prerequisite for predicting the impact of any actions intended to improve the quality of life of horses. This can be achieved when welfare information, gathered by different assessors in diverse geographical areas, is valid, comparable and collected in a harmonized way. This paper aims to present the first outcomes of the Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN) approach: the results of on-farm assessment and a reliable and harmonized data collection system. A total of 355 sport and leisure horses, stabled in 40 facilities in Italy and in Germany, were evaluated by three trained assessors using the AWIN welfare assessment protocol for horses. The AWINHorse app was used to collect, store and send data to a common server. Identified welfare issues were obesity, unsatisfactory box dimensions, long periods of confinement and lack of social interaction. The digitalized data collection was feasible in an on-farm environment, and our results suggest that this approach could prove useful in identifying the most relevant welfare issues of horses in Europe or worldwide.

Determining a Welfare Prioritization for Horses Using a Delphi Method

“…Studies in the UK, Sweden, Italy, Germany and the USA suggest that between 25% and 45% of horses and ponies are overweight or obese [13,[34][35][36][37]. These studies confirm that this is indeed a prevalent condition as identified by experts in our study.…”

“…This figure was higher for entire male horses, where nearly 40% were found to be kept alone in a Nordic study [25]. Of the stabled horses in a study of Italian and German horse welfare [13], 22% of horses had no physical or visual contact with other horses. These data suggest that a significant percentage of horses are kept in environments that may prevent social contact for at least some of the day and that a small percentage of horses may have no access to other horses for prolonged periods of time.…”

“…Various studies suggest that 83%-92% of horses are continuously managed at pasture in groups or have pasture access [25,46,50] but 4%-10% of horses may be continuously housed with little or no exercise opportunities [13,25,46]. This figure was higher for entire male horses, where nearly 40% were found to be kept alone in a Nordic study [25].…”

“…These data suggest that a significant percentage of horses are kept in environments that may prevent social contact for at least some of the day and that a small percentage of horses may have no access to other horses for prolonged periods of time. Nearly 20% of stabled horses have been shown to display stereotypic behaviours [13], suggesting that welfare is compromised in these animals.…”

On-Farm Welfare Assessment of Horses: The Risks of Putting the Cart before the Horse

“…Several recent studies have shown, by comparing owners' or caretakers' responses to questionnaires concerning direct observations or manipulations, that even visible behavioral disorders such as stereotypic behaviors can remain unseen and still more so the less specific signs of back problems, one of the most frequent and major welfare issue for riding horses [6][7][8][9]. The fact that resource-based models may seem easier to assess by untrained observers may explain that stakeholders ranked the absence of thirst (i.e., provision of water) and nutrition (i.e., provision of food) as the most important criteria to assess equine welfare, neglecting many other important aspects, in Dalla Costa et al [10]'s study. This is especially interesting as obesity appears to be a major welfare issue in all recent large-scale studies (e.g., [11,12]), reinforcing the idea that resource-based assessment is not sufficient and can easily become misleading.…”