Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

During late autumn/winter in the years of 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 a questionnaire study was made in Västra Götaland county in the south west of Sweden. Inspectors responsible of animal welfare answered the questionnaires during their routine visits to different horse stables in the county. The questionnaires contained questions about the number of horses at the farm, hoof condition, body condition, how often the horses were fed outside and the pasture condition. The purpose of this study was to investigate if a connection could be seen between environmental factors and health factors within the horses in this material. The connections that were analysed were between; hoof health and pasture condition, how many times the horses were fed outside and the body condition and between the number of horses in the pasture and pasture condition. A total of 432 questionnaires were analysed and put into descriptive diagrams to visualize the results. A Chi-square analysis for each hypothesis was also made to conclude if there were any connections between these categories. The results showed that there was a connection between hoof condition and pasture condition. The same result was shown between the body condition and how many times the horses were fed outside. No connection could be seen between the number of horses in the pastures and pasture condition. Chi-square analysis was also made between hoof condition and body condition and between how many times the horses were fed outside and hoof condition. Furthermore, I found a connection could be seen between hoof condition and body condition, but not between how many times the horses were fed outside and hoof condition.