The problem with keeping horses with to little social contact has come to attention in a new regulation that comes into effect august 1st 2009. It states that horses? need of social contact has to be accommodated. That?s why it feels important to try to survey the horse owners? awareness about the regulation and its present fulfillment.

The equine hoof is often manipulated in purpose to achieve a better stride or to reduce the weight on damaged tissue. The living tissue in the hoof can?t store energy as glycogen and is therefore depending on a continuous supply of glucose for its energy production. The purpose of the study was to determine if wedging (i.e. elevating) the heel could influence the hooves glucose and lactate consumption/production. Five Standardbred horses were trained to trot on a treadmill without getting physical or mentally tired.

Skiascopy is used to objectively determine the refractive power of the eye. Except for a Swedish study in 2007, where 93 horses of different breeds and ages were examined with respect to their refractive status, most studies on equine refraction were published about one century ago or more. The objective of this study is to examine the refractive status of healthy warm-blooded trotting horses. Skiascopy was performed in 117 horses in total, aged 3 days to approximately 22 years old. In a pilot study, it was determined whether young horses were able to accommodate or not during skiascopy. The horses in the pilot study were all younger than 14 months. In foals younger than 1,5 months we saw a significant difference in the skiascopy result in the right eyes before and after topical atropine was instilled, but not in the left eye.

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether gallop training, rather than regular drive training, is worthwhile for trotters race performance. Another aim of the study was to expand the author?s riding- and driving capacity, and get more practical experience on the impact of interval training on trotters. The sample population in the study was two trotters, one Standardbred, and one cold-blood. Given the small sample population, the results of the study is only indicative on the effects of gallop training on trotters, and not conclusive.

Proliferative enteropathy (PE) caused by Lawsonia intracellularis has been reported in horses in the USA, Canada, Australia and Great Britain. Diarrhoea caused by Brachyspira antigen-containing spirochaetes has been diagnosed in a horse in Japan. The presence of Lawsonia intracellularis or Brachyspira spp. have neither been investigated in healthy nor in sick horses in Sweden. The purpose of this study was to survey the occurrence of the two bacteria in Swedish horses. Faecal samples were gathered from 108 foals without any clinical signs of illness in the age of four to eight months.

Pain related behaviour in 1.5 year old colts was studied both prior to and following castration. The horses were filmed 24 h prior to surgery and 24 h postoperatively. Parameters, inactive and active behaviours, were recorded in terms of cumulative time observed. Both groups of horses were exercised three times and the gait quality was evaluated. Few differences were observed between the groups.

Today there is a research project undertaken by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences along with Wången (a highschool specialized in trotter training), which focuses on trotting horse training, performance and health. The project investigates how exercise intensity and feeding strategies affect the development of growing horses. The project includes two groups of horses where all 16 horses are fed in the same way. One group of eight individuals are trained 100% compared to conventional training and the other group are trained 20% less than the other group. All horses are trained twice a week and are out at pasture beyond that.

The aim of this study was to investigate if the botanical composition of haylage affects pH, dry matter content and microbial composition of the faeces in horse and pig and ileal environment in pigs. Two separate studies were conducted where pigs and horses were fed two diets containing haylages with different botanical composition. The first haylage was from a tilled land dominated by timothy and meadow fescue and the other haylage came from a meadowland with a large inclusion of dandelion, 25 % and common couch. The dry matter content (70.8 % and 73.0 % respectively) and the pH-value (5.7) were similar in both feeds. The first study was made as a three-periods switch-back study with 7 Standardbred horses. In the first and the third period, 7 and 9 days long respectively, the diet consisted of the haylage from the tilled land, oats, sugar beet pulp, soy bean oil meal, lucerne pellets and brewers yeast.

Bronchiolitis is a common performance decreasing disease in horses (Bracher et al, 1991¸Dixon et al, 1995) Its medical treatment includes inhalation therapy with corticosteroids and b2-adrenoceptorer stimulators. Use of both these medicines is prohibited for sport horses and athletes. Because the facemasks used for inhalation therapy are not airtight, there is a risk for leakage of these medicines. We wanted to see if cross exposure of nearby horses can result during normal recommended treatment of a horse, and assess if this could result in doping positive urine sample from the person treating the horse and from horses in the same airspace. We did a pilot study with four healthy horses. The experiment was divided into four parts.

This study examined constructions of horses and means staff working with horses parallel to therapy in institutional care ascribes to horses. A narrative method was used and the theoretical framework was social constructionism. A question was asked to the narratives: How can practice in institutional care be understood through these stories? The result showed different pictures of institutional care. Horses seem to provide a multi-faceted therapeutic tool.

Few scientific studies have studied the subject of longevity among horses over a longer period of time. The knowledge about the Swedish riding school horse population concerning injuries and diseases is insufficient. Generally speaking, riding school horses in Sweden have a more undiversified way to work and work more hours in the arena compared to privately owned horses that have more variety in their possible use. Statistical data from the insurance company Agria have shown that horses in riding schools and education facilities have 22 % higher risk to use their veterinary insurance and 79 % higher risk to be put down and use their life insurance, compared to horses in private care. To create an increased understanding for longevity is it important to have knowledge about the different causes of culling. The aim with this study is to increase the knowledge and enable problem solving within the subject of longevity, median length of life and causes of death.

In connection with riding and handling of horses, many accidents that can cause severe injuries to both horses and humans are existent. The cause is in most cases that the horse is frightened. The horse's fear also affects its usefulness and it has been shown to have adverse effects on the horse's welfare. To increase safety and improve the welfare of both humans and horses, it is important to find appropriate training methods to reduce the fear of horses in frightening situations. This experimental study compares handled habituation to free habituation.

Ten colic horses and seven healthy horses were included in a prospective study aiming to evaluate acid-base disturbances in colic horses. Traditional acid-base methods and measurements of lactate were used to study prognosis and changes before, during and after surgery. Strong ion gap, anion gap and base excess were compared to evaluate their ability to predict lactate. Of the ten colic horses that went through surgery, seven survived, two were euthanised and one died. Significant differences in plasma lactate levels were seen between the group of survivals and non-survivals, p=0,000025. No differences were seen in pH and base excess between the two groups.

We choose to revise the need of dental care in horses. How important is the dental care for our horse´s use and for their health? The objective of this work was to see if there is a difference between Swedish veterinaries and educated horse dentists opinion concerning horse dental care. As horse owners, we have experienced that there is a conflict between the opinions of these two occupational groups. Some veterinarians say that there is a tendency to use to much treatments or instruments in horses mouths, while some horse dentists says that there is not enough treatments done in horses´ mouths.

Knowledge about feed racks for feeding forages to horses is lacking. Racks for sheep and cows are sometimes used for horses. Feeding roughage on the ground, or feeding silage bales with the plastic and net still on, can bring on a lot of different problems. The opportunity to control the hygienic quality is small and feed losses can be high. The purpose of this experiment was to investigate how the eating behaviour and consumption of horses were influenced by feeding racks of different constructions. Feed losses and changes in chemical composition of the forage were also studied.