The effect of blankets on horse behaviour and preference for shelter in Nordic Winter conditions
Horses use human-made shelters actively during inclement weather, but the costs of building shelters may be high and owners use blankets or rugs on horses instead. The aim of the study was to investigate how wearing a blanket might affect the shelter seeking behaviour of horses under coastal arctic...
Published in: | Applied Animal Behaviour Science |
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Language: | English |
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2629073 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2019.06.003 |
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ftunivmob:oai:nmbu.brage.unit.no:11250/2629073 2023-05-15T15:09:42+02:00 The effect of blankets on horse behaviour and preference for shelter in Nordic Winter conditions Jørgensen, Grete Helen Meisfjord Mejdell, Cecilie Marie Bøe, Knut Egil 2019-08-06T16:48:04Z application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2629073 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2019.06.003 eng eng Norges forskningsråd: 218961 Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 2019, 218 . urn:issn:0168-1591 http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2629073 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2019.06.003 cristin:1714422 6 218 Applied Animal Behaviour Science Journal article Peer reviewed 2019 ftunivmob https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2019.06.003 2021-09-23T20:14:59Z Horses use human-made shelters actively during inclement weather, but the costs of building shelters may be high and owners use blankets or rugs on horses instead. The aim of the study was to investigate how wearing a blanket might affect the shelter seeking behaviour of horses under coastal arctic winter conditions. Could blankets make shelters redundant? During different winter weather conditions, seventeen horses had a full-neck blanket of their size put on and were released in a test paddock. There, horses were given free choice between staying outdoors, going into a heated shelter compartment or into a non-heated shelter compartment. An observer scored horse’s location and behaviour using instantaneous sampling every minute for 1 h. Each horse was tested 2–12 days but only once per day. Detailed weather data (precipitation, wind and temperature) were continuously recorded by a weather station at the site. In general, horses with blankets still used the shelter and were observed inside in (mean per horse) 20.6% of total observations. Horses spent more time inside shelters on days with rain and wind (39.7% of tot obs) compared to on days with wind only (11.8% of tot obs, P = 0.05). Small coldblood horses were more active, spending more time in movement than large coldblood and large warmblood horses (P = 0.01). In conclusion, wearing blankets reduced the impact of inclement weather, but did not make the shelter redundant for horses, under Nordic winter conditions. acceptedVersion Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Open archive Norwegian University of Life Sciences: Brage NMBU Arctic Applied Animal Behaviour Science 218 104822 |
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Open archive Norwegian University of Life Sciences: Brage NMBU |
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ftunivmob |
language |
English |
description |
Horses use human-made shelters actively during inclement weather, but the costs of building shelters may be high and owners use blankets or rugs on horses instead. The aim of the study was to investigate how wearing a blanket might affect the shelter seeking behaviour of horses under coastal arctic winter conditions. Could blankets make shelters redundant? During different winter weather conditions, seventeen horses had a full-neck blanket of their size put on and were released in a test paddock. There, horses were given free choice between staying outdoors, going into a heated shelter compartment or into a non-heated shelter compartment. An observer scored horse’s location and behaviour using instantaneous sampling every minute for 1 h. Each horse was tested 2–12 days but only once per day. Detailed weather data (precipitation, wind and temperature) were continuously recorded by a weather station at the site. In general, horses with blankets still used the shelter and were observed inside in (mean per horse) 20.6% of total observations. Horses spent more time inside shelters on days with rain and wind (39.7% of tot obs) compared to on days with wind only (11.8% of tot obs, P = 0.05). Small coldblood horses were more active, spending more time in movement than large coldblood and large warmblood horses (P = 0.01). In conclusion, wearing blankets reduced the impact of inclement weather, but did not make the shelter redundant for horses, under Nordic winter conditions. acceptedVersion |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jørgensen, Grete Helen Meisfjord Mejdell, Cecilie Marie Bøe, Knut Egil |
spellingShingle |
Jørgensen, Grete Helen Meisfjord Mejdell, Cecilie Marie Bøe, Knut Egil The effect of blankets on horse behaviour and preference for shelter in Nordic Winter conditions |
author_facet |
Jørgensen, Grete Helen Meisfjord Mejdell, Cecilie Marie Bøe, Knut Egil |
author_sort |
Jørgensen, Grete Helen Meisfjord |
title |
The effect of blankets on horse behaviour and preference for shelter in Nordic Winter conditions |
title_short |
The effect of blankets on horse behaviour and preference for shelter in Nordic Winter conditions |
title_full |
The effect of blankets on horse behaviour and preference for shelter in Nordic Winter conditions |
title_fullStr |
The effect of blankets on horse behaviour and preference for shelter in Nordic Winter conditions |
title_full_unstemmed |
The effect of blankets on horse behaviour and preference for shelter in Nordic Winter conditions |
title_sort |
effect of blankets on horse behaviour and preference for shelter in nordic winter conditions |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2629073 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2019.06.003 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
6 218 Applied Animal Behaviour Science |
op_relation |
Norges forskningsråd: 218961 Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 2019, 218 . urn:issn:0168-1591 http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2629073 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2019.06.003 cristin:1714422 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2019.06.003 |
container_title |
Applied Animal Behaviour Science |
container_volume |
218 |
container_start_page |
104822 |
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1766340840983101440 |