In an effort to improve welfare standards for horses around the world, researchers are seeking to identify and evaluate common interventions humans make in the lives of horses, and the potentially harmful impact these practices have on them.
In a recent study, 16 panelists from Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States, with expertise in psychology, equitation science, veterinary science, education, welfare, equestrian coaching, advocacy and community engagement, collectively identified 116 interventions in 14 contexts. These included: weaning; diet; housing; foundation training; ill-health and veterinary intervention, both medical and surgical; elective procedures; care procedures; restraint for management procedures; road transport; and competition activity, work activity and breeding activity.
Referring to the Five Domains model, which is used to evaluate animal welfare in terms of 1) nutrition; 2) environment; 3) health; 4) behaviour; and 5) mental state, each person was asked to score each intervention on scale of 1-10 (with 10 being the highest degree of adverse effect) prior to meeting as a group. Emphasis was placed on the fifth domain – the mental impact of the interventions. Next, a four-day workshop was conducted in which the participants gathered to share and discuss their rankings. It is hoped that eventually a scoring system and set of welfare guidelines will result from these evaluations, which can be shared and adopted by the global equine industry.