En pilotstudie av unghästars användning av ligghall i grupphållningssystem

Abstract: Today, individual indoor stalls and individual outdoor paddocks are the most common way to house horses in Sweden. The way that we manage, house and feed the horses are not optimal for the species natural basic behavioural needs. However, the awareness of this grows in the context of research and the emergence of alternative housing systems. One of the alternatives to the traditional format in individual boxes is called group housing. Group housing systems allow horses to live in herds and they can choose how they want to distribute the hours of the day between movement, resting and foraging. The purpose of this study is to examine how frequently the young horses in a group housing system use the indoor lying area. There is an economic aspect in whether an indoor lying area should be built or not. According to the Swedish Animal Welfare Act horses must have access to an indoor lying area during the cold season when there is no pasture growth. A basis for this could be the ability to regulate their thermoneutral zone. However, there is only limited information about the extent to which the horses use the indoor lying area. The research is: To what extent are young horses using the indoor lying area in a group housing system? The study's experiments involved four horses, three geldings and one mare between three and six years old. The two group housing systems on Utnäs 1:1 consists of gravel surfaces, large grass pastures, and a building that houses two indoor lying areas of the dimensions 12x12 m and 12x7 m. Experiments were conducted in two rounds for 1 ½ days each during March/April 2013. The horses were equipped with GPS devices which registered their position. The result show that the horses spent in average 19 % of the total measurement time in the indoor lying areas during the two trials. Variations can be seen both between individuals and between experimental periods. Despite some doubts concerning GPS reliability the result is considered to be sufficiently credible to answer the question of this study. In conclusion, based on the results it is reasonable to assume that an indoor lying area is necessary for horses in groups housing systems during the cold season when there is no pasture growth.