Hästars liggbeteende i aktiv grupphästhållning : komparativ studie mellan ligghallar med olika stora liggytor

Abstract: In the wild, horses live in smaller groups together in a herd. They spend most of the day feeding. One of many reasons why people choose to house their horses in different group-housing systems is because it is good for the horse’s welfare. An Active Stable® system helps horse-owners enrich the horses' environment with feeding at different locations several times a day, thus increasing the horse to be more active in the paddock for a long-term perspective. The primary aim was to study if the horses' lying behaviour differ depending on available space for the lying area. The secondary aim was to study if the horse was disturbed by other horses in relation to their lying behaviour. The questions were; How was the lying time and lying behaviour affected when the lying area varies? Were the horses disturbed by other horses when they are to or do their lying behaviour? The hypotheses were; The lying time will increase when the lying area is expanded from 8 m2 per horse to 18 m2 per horse. The horses will interfere with each other when performing their lying behaviour to a larger extent in a smaller available lying area of 8 m2 per horse compared to 18 m2 per horse. The study was located at the Swedish National Equestrian Centre Strömsholm in an Active Stable® system. In the study, two treatments were compared; a smaller area (8 m2 per horse) and a larger area (18 m2 per horse). The lying behaviours of the horses were video recorded in the lying hall. An etogram was used to document the different lying behaviours. The results showed significant difference when the horses lied down in sternal position (p<0.004), lateral position (p<0.01) and total lying time (p<0.001) in the hall with extended area compared to the hall with smaller area. There was a significant difference in behavior concerning to nose on the ground before lying down between the two treatments (p <0,007). There were no significant differences that affected different rising behaviors. Behaviors about how much they interfered or drove each other from lying position did not differ significantly. There were no significant differences in terms of age and lying time.