Utfodringsrutiner hos privatägda hästar : en enkätstudie

Abstract: In Sweden, there are a large number of horses owned by private people who are not part of business activities, calculated from the Swedish Board of Agriculture's figures of approximately 266,000 horses. In order to take into account the horse's natural needs as a grazing large intestine fermenter, Swedish horse owners need knowledge about feeding and the role of forage in the horse's well-being. The aim of this study was to analyze the feeding routines of privately owned horses in Sweden. This study was conducted as a survey study. Through Google Docs, an online survey was created that included 18 questions and the survey was sent out to respondents on Facebook and Hippson.se. The survey was aimed at private horse owners with a maximum of four horses and the questions were answered anonymously. The collection of survey responses lasted 14 days during February 2019. A total of 3274 responses were collected, comprising approximately 6800 horses. Majority (55%) of the horse owners used haylage as forage. Remaining lined with hay or a combination of hay and haylage. A small proportion lined with silage (see Figure 1). Haylage was the most widely used forage if the respondents had their horse/horses stabled in rural, rural areas close to urban and urban areas (p=0.04) (see Figure 2). Hay was mostly used in rural areas compared to rural areas in close proximity to urban and urban areas (p=0.04). Silage was used to the lowest extent regardless of where the stable was located and only in rural and rural areas close to urban areas. The average of dry matter was 78%. Most of the respondents had a forage with dry matter value between 71-80%, the rest had a dry matter value between 81-90% and between 61-70%. A small part had value between 91-100% dry matter and the smallest proportion had value between 50-60% dry matter (see Figure 3). The study's questions and conclusions: How does the forage affect the health and behavior of the horse? Horses that were fed roughage more than six times per day had a larger absence of colic. What factors influence the horse owner's choice of forage? The most important factors among the respondents were the hygienic quality, the nutritional content of the forage and accessibility. At the same time, a proportion of horse owners were not able to choose which forage they would feed. What does an average daily forage giveaway look like? The results of the study showed that the majority of the horse owners who participated in the survey fed more forage than SLU's recommended minimum level (1 kg dry matter/100 kg body weight) and the remaining horse owners fed their horses 1 kg dry matter/100 kg body weight. None of the respondents fed their horses with a lower proportion of roughage than SLU's recommended minimum level.