The aim of this study was a comparison of the behaviour and stress burden of horses in a tie stalls, stabling in individual boxes and keeping horses in small groups in a group box, each with daily paddock movement (approx. 7 h). The study was carried out with eight healthy warmblood horses at the...

Horses reared for meat production can be kept in intensive breeding farms where they are housed in group pens at high stocking densities. The present study aimed to evaluate whether the expressed behaviours correlated with stocking density, and to compare their time-budget with that of wild-living...

Group turnout provides important socializing opportunities for horses, particularly those that are primarily stalled. A high percentage of equine injuries occur during group turnout, which could partly be due to the physical constraints of fencing. To investigate appropriate paddock sizes for group ...

Horses require, as do all mammals, sufficient sleep in order to maintain their physical and psychological performance. The aim of the present study was to clarify whether different bedding material in free-stall housing and box stall housing show significant influences on the lying behaviour of...

The study compared the thermal comfort provided by three different types of facilities to horses reared in the Sertão region of the state of Pernambuco. A sample of 18 adult horses was randomly assigned to three types of stalls or pens. A completely randomized split-split-plot design was adopted...

Horses kept for meat production are reared in intensive breeding farms. We employed a checklist adapted from the Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN) assessment protocol. Our evaluation aims to assess whether welfare indicators are influenced by stocking densities (m²/horse) and feeding strategies...

This paper investigates the effect of different housing conditions on the welfare quality of breeding horses. Using a welfare protocol that included health and behavioral parameters, 330 stallions (kept in tie-stall housing) and 365 broodmares (kept in extensive, mostly free housing) were assessed. ...

Despite the spatial and social restrictions it causes, single stall housing still prevails in sport and riding school horses, leading to the emergence of abnormal behaviours such as stereotypic or abnormal repetitive behaviours (SB/ARB). In the present study, we investigated the impact of the type...

In this study the circumstances of horse husbandry in a region of Western Germany were gathered under aspects of animal welfare. For this reason a questionnaire based on recommendations and guidelines was created. Within the study 83 horse-keeping farms and 1580 horses were recorded. Results:...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the feeding and agonistic behavior of Quarter Horses kept in different types of stalls in the semiarid region of Minas Gerais. A completely randomized design with two treatments (two types of stalls) and seven replicates (seven days of evaluation) was...