En jämförelse av beteende mellan vävande hästar och två icke vävande hästar under liknande förhållanden
Today we keep our horses in a way that is easy for us humans but may not always be the most optimal way for the horse. Often the housing of the horse prevents the horse from performing behaviours that they have natural needs to perform. It is not unusual that animals that can not adapt to their environment develop abnormal behaviours. Many of our stabled horses therefore develop some kind of stereotypic behaviour. This study was made in purpose of comparing the behaviour of a weaving horse to two non-weaving horses under similar conditions, where one of the horses was stabled next to the weaving horse and the other horse was stabled further away in the same stable.
Seven weaving horses were included in the study. A close neighbour to the weaving horse (control 1) and a horse further away in the stable (control 2) were also included in the study. The horses were studied for four periods during the day; morning, before noon, after noon and evening, each period lasted for about two hours. The four periods were distributed among the hours between the feeding time in the morning and the feeding time in the evening. The study was a "1-Zero sampling" trial and the behaviours that were recorded were; foraging, resting, weaving, moving, nose to nose contact, contact between nose and other part of the body, grooming and other behavioural problems. The statistic analysis was made with a Two Way Analysis of Variance with a General Linear Model.
In the study the horses spent more time weaving during the evenings and the weaving was always performed inside the stable, never outside. There was a difference between the points of time when the behaviours foraging, resting and contact between noses to other part of the body were performed. There was also an indication in the study that showed that the behaviour nose to nose differed in the point of time the behaviour was performed. Control 1 showed more of grooming behaviour, which can indicate differences between horses.
The study showed that weaving horses have behaviours that are more or less similar to the behaviours of non weaving horses. The weaving horses take their time that they spend weaving from all of the other behaviours. The study also showed that horses forage more in the morning than before noon and in the evening. It also seems as if horses have more intimate contact in the morning and before noon and that they rest more before noon than in the morning. There were no indications in the result of the study that showed that horses would imitate a stereotypic behaviour.