Horse carer education vital to improve understanding of fitness levels and condition scoring
Take Home Message: There is a requirement for horse carers to be educated to recognise and manage fitness and fatness levels in horses
There’s a lack of understanding of fitness levels and condition scoring among horse owners and, since this has serious health repercussions for the horse, this underlines the equine industry’s need to educate horse carers.
“It is not surprising that a large proportion of horses and ponies that are diagnosed with laminitis are reported to be fat or very fat, in fact this figure may have been expected to have been even higher,” said Hartpury College’s Lucy Dumbell, who led a study to ascertain the condition score and fitness levels of horses and ponies when diagnosed with laminitis, as reported by the horse carer and to gain insight into how these factors may influence the health and welfare of the domestic horse.
“But what was surprising was that only 28.9% of these horses were unfit and some were very fit. However of most concern was the categorising of horses as very fat and very fit.
“A horse with a condition score of 5 is at severe risk of health complications and categorising this animal as very fit shows a complete lack of understanding of ‘fitness levels’ and/or the condition scoring,” she told delegates at the British Society of Animal Science’s annual conference.
“While condition scoring has a recognised and repeatable method that a horse carer can apply, an equivalent fitness assessment is not currently available. There are serious health and welfare concerns relating to the owner’s expectation to be able to use these animals to complete high intensity activities.”
Obesity in horses and ponies is, according to many equine related charities, becoming an increasing welfare problem. Recent studies have linked equine obesity and insulin resistance with development of debilitating laminitis. Poor nutritional management and sedentary lifestyles are to blame for the growing proportion of obese horses.
“Certain management practices tend to promote the development of obesity in mature horses as they enter their teenage years. So horse owners must therefore consider management practices throughout the horse’s life, as the provision of starch-rich and fat-supplemented rations to healthy horses that are relatively inactive may promote the development of obesity and increase the risk of laminitis,” said Miss Dumbell.
Her study was based on an on-line questionnaire, which was open for completion for a one- month period and received more than 600 responses, of which 569 completed the responses concerned.
Respondents were asked to complete the survey only if they were familiar with an animal resident in the UK that had been diagnosed with laminitis during the previous 12 months.
A wide range of questions to gather equine demographic and management related data were included within the on-line survey. Condition score was assessed by the respondent using the Caroll and Huntingdon 0 to 5 method, with diagrams and written descriptions.
Respondents were asked to categorise the animals’ fitness levels and work use at the time of diagnosis using detailed given descriptions to assist them.
And the data collected revealed that, in relation to condition score, 60.3% of subjects were categorised as moderate or good, but 34.4% were fat or very fat – a significantly non-uniform distribution.
The average respondents’ horse fell into the ‘hacking fit’ fitness category – about 40.5% - while 28.9% were unfit and 13.9% were categorised as very fit.
“More importantly, fitness levels were compared against the work that the horse was undertaking at the time of diagnosis and 29% of horses did not appear to have an appropriate level of fitness for the work being undertaken,” said Miss Dumbell.
“Around 10% of horses were reported as having greater fitness levels than their work would suggest, such as a retired unridden companion categorised as very fit, and 19% of horses were undertaking work that would require a greater level of fitness than was reported. Hunting while only hacking fit is a good example,” she added.
To view proceedings of all summaries presented at the Annual Conference 2009 http://www.bsas.org.uk/Publications/Annual_Conference_Proceedings/ To view all Powerpoint presentations http://www.bsas.org.uk/Members_Area/ For further information contact: BSAS on 0131 445 4508 or bsas@sac.ac.uk
