Outdoor housing of horses? best fulfils the horses? need for physical activity and it is an alternative to the more cost and energy demanding indoor housing in stables. Furthermore, if outdoor housed horses have access to shelter they can generally cope well with adverse weather conditions such as high or low ambient temperature, heavy rain or strong winds. In this study, the daytime shelter-seeking behaviour of three groups of horses housed outdoors was studied during the summer. The aim was to evaluate whether shelter use is related to weather variables (e.g., ambient temperature and wind speed) and insect harassment. The shelter-seeking behaviour was studied for three different groups of horses: Group 1) eight individually housed horses in paddocks that had access to three different shelter types (C: closed on three sides with roof, R: open on three sides with roof, W: closed on three sides without roof), Group 2) 25 group housed mares with foals on pasture with access to shelters C, and Group 3) ten mares without foals on pasture without access to shelter. Each group was studied for eight days.

This thesis considers the development of the software for an, newly developed, embedded real-time control system, based on a Periferal Interface Controller (PIC). The control system is developed to be used for several different applications. In this thesis work, software for two different applications are developed. The first task is a time controlled system, while the other task is implementation of aPI-/PID-controller. A user interface is also developed and implemented.The time controlled system is an automatic horse feeder, which is used for feeding horses at certain predefined points in time.

The Swedish Warmblood riding horse is a popular horse for sport in Sweden, and the breeding goal is to produce competitive horses in both show jumping and dressage. The breed has its origin in native Swedish cavalry horses but has been highly influenced by foreign stallions throughout the years. Breeding values are estimated based on the results from young horse field test, which are held for 3- or 4-year old horses, and competition data. The young horse field tests are highly correlated with later performances in competition. The total proportion of horses with own observations to include in the genetic evaluation are slightly under 50 %, and in most cases their pedigrees are known.

Today, many veterinary hospitals offer rehabilitation as a service. We think that this is an interesting subject and therefore we want to find out what rehabilitation methods that are available in Sweden for dogs and horses. We want to give animal nurses and other persons who have animals as an occupation an survey that shortly describes how the methods are performed, what physical effect they have in the body and to give examples in what conditions they are used. To find out what rehabilitation methods that are available we sent out two different questionnaires, one to hospitals/clinics for small animals and one to hospitals/clinics for horses and other companies that works with rehabilitation of horses. The information about the methods described in our project we have found in literature and on the Internet.

The aim of this study is to find out if the former students think that they have made use of the courses they have taken at the Natural Resource Use Programme specialised in Animal Husbandry at Lillerudsgymnasiet or if the courses should be exchanged. In the study it is assumed that a course can be useful professionally, for further studies and in private life.The main questions are: Have the former students made use of the courses they took at the Natural Resource Use Programme specialised in Animal Husbandry at Lillerudsgymnasiet? Was it the right decision to replace the course Horses?I have sent a questionnaire to all the students who graduated between 2003 and 2007. Out of 107 questionnaires I received 66 replies (62 %). All students have studied the same mandatory courses but different eligible courses.

Animal welfare in Sweden has gone through major changes during the later years. In 2004, Swedish Animal Welfare Agency took over the central responsibility for the animal welfare from the Swedish Board of Agriculture, and in 2007 the board again became the central authority for animal welfare in Sweden.Even the practical supervision has changed, from the 1 of January 2009 the supervision is to be performed by the county administrative boards, instead of by the individual municipalities. Since 2006 every horse in the European Union has to have an identification card, in Sweden called a ?horse passport? which describes the color and markings of the horse as well as any veterinary treatments.The ELOF-project, a collaborative project between the Swedish Board of Agriculture and the county administrative boards, intends to make the animal welfare supervision effective, standardised, fair and risk-based. Because of the takeover of the supervision and of the ELOF-project the Örebro County Administrative Board has began to make an inventory of the number of horses and horsefarms in the county. Another Ethology and Animal Welfare-student and I did, in collaboration with the county administrative board created a checklist that in connection with the inventory will lead to a risk-based animal welfare supervision.

The purpose of this degree project is to investigate how horse keepers reasons about horse keeping and how the horse keeping looks like today. It is interesting to compare modern horse keeping with ancien recommendations and how the horses were kept then to understand how much in the horse keeping today that is based on traditions instead of research and science. The degree project was based on data from interviews of 52 horse keepers in five different municipalities. All interviews have been based from the same questionaire about how there horses are kept today, what they think about different housing systems, how they think horses will be housed in the future and what problems they think are the biggest in horse keeping today. The results shows that single boxes indoors are the most frequently used housing system today.

Laminitis has crippled horses through times and many cures have been used to treat it. Since the mechanism of the disease is yet not fully understood, treatments are only ways to alleviate the pain and at best, slow down the pathological process enough to make time for improvement. This paper is a retrospective study of 71 horses treated by a protocol at Hästsjukhuset Strömsholm. The protocol implies three visits at zero, five and fifteen weeks. At each the horse is evaluated and treated by a veterinarian.

Equestrian sports and the interest in horses have existed for hundreds of years. It is only in the last thirty years the technological development have enabled closer studies of equine locomotion. The production of both soft- and hardware that manages to capture and analyze the fast movement of the horse has resulted in a large increase in locomotion research. Even though the interest in horses and the different disciplines they compete in is great, there is a small understanding in how the rider influences the movement of the horse in different types of training. There are several studies available where horses moving freely without the influence of a rider have been studied. What happens with locomotion and ground reaction forces when a rider and equipment are added is not well studied. The objective of this study was to investigate if there are any differences in the ground reaction forces between sitting and rising trot. The study contained seven horses. Six Grand Prix dressage horses and one dressage horse competing at intermediate level.

Itraconazole is a third generation azol, a fungicide which acts by inhibiting ergerosterol synthesis in the fungal cell membrane, and thereby disturbing fungal regeneration. It has proven to be less toxic, to have a broader spectrum of activity and to be more potent than its predecessor ketoconazole. Itraconazole is only available in therapheutics approved for human use. Pharmacokinetic studies has been performed in humans, dogs, cats and laboratory animals. Although itraconazole has been used tentatively with good effect against fungal infections in horses, no pharmacokinetic studies have yet been done.

Aortic insufficiency is a very common valve problem in horses and most often affects older individuals, but nevertheless existent within younger ones. The root cause for aortic insufficiency can be varied, for example; endocarditis, ventricular septum defect or congenital valve disease but the most common are progressive valve degeneration or elite competition. Depending on the root cause, different changes can be observed on the aorta valves, but they do all have the same effect, the valves do not seal properly and blood leaks backwards. Many horses can, even with this deficiency, perform highly without any visible impacts and there is therefore no need to treat those subjects. Most often the symptoms arise at a later stage in life and they are, more often than none, put down for other reasons. In the occurrence of the clinical symptoms showing, treatment guideline is to inhibit these symptoms since the valve degeneration is presently irreversible.

Horses are by nature herbivores, specialized on grass, and graze during the main part of the day. The horse has neither changed this basic behaviour nor the function of gastro-intestinal tract, when the horse was domesticated by man. A horse on pasture has an even production of saliva and gastric acids. The buffering effect of the saliva makes the pH in the stomach above four throughout most of the day. With abnormal long breaks of eating, the pH may decrease, causing an increased risk of gastric ulcer.

Superficial digital flexor tendon injuries are common causes of premature retirement or pre-longed convalescence periods for race horses. The curve gradient at Täby Galopp race track is very small and most races as well as high speed training are done on the left rein. It is believed that the horses left foreleg is under considerably more strain then the right foreleg when being ridden on the left rein during gallop at high speed. During gallop on the left rein the horse puts its entire weight on the left foreleg when regaining ground contact. The purpose of this study has been to find out, through analyzing the statistics concerning the horses that visited the ATG clinic at Täby during a period between January 2003 and September 2006, whether there is a higher frequency of superficial digital flexor tendon injuries on the left leg rather than the right and if so, can this support the theory that the design of the race track in combination with continuous left rein races can be a contributing cause of these injuries. The result of the study shows that 57% of the tendon injuries occurred on the left front leg and 38% on the right front leg. The difference is not large enough to support the above theory of the underlying cause of these injuries..

As the quality of internationally competing horses is increasing, a debate concerning the breeding goal of the Swedish Warmblood horse has arisen. Some people claim that the breeding goal should be divided into two separate goals in the future; one for show jumping horses and another one for dressage horses. At the same time others claim that since the largest group of people using the Swedish Warmblood horse today is amateur riders, the needs of these riders should be taken into a larger consideration in the breeding program. The largest emphasis in this matter is on the horses? temperament. The objective of the study was to investigate what the majority of the Swedish horse people think about a variety of questions concerning today?s breeding goal of the Swedish Warmblood horse.

An interview study of horsemanship has been conducted in the community of Ängelholm. The study is part of a larger project, where a further four students who are writing their thesis? have conducted interviews in Lerum, Hässleholm, Nyköping and Enköping, a total of 52 horse holders in 5 different communities. The collective results are summarised in "Hur hålls hästarna i Sverige och vilka är motiven" by Catharina Svala. The purpose of this larger report has been to examine why Swedish horsemanship is the way it is today through communication with the various horse holders.