Assessing the welfare of sport and leisure horses

Dobro počutje živali je predpogoj za kakovostno rejo. V Sloveniji še nimamo zakonsko določenih normativov za pogoje uhlevitve konj. Uhlevljeni so v različnih sistemih reje, zato ni znano, kakšno je dobro počutje živali v njih. Namen diplomskega dela je bil oceniti in primerjati dobro počutje športnih konj in konj v ljubiteljskih rejah s pomočjo prosto dostopnega AWIN protokola, ki smo ga dopolnili z določenimi kazalniki iz Welfare Monitoring protokola za konje. Ocenjevanje smo izvedli v desetih športnih rejah, pri katerih so bili konji uhlevljeni le individualno in v desetih ljubiteljskih rejah z individualno in skupinsko uhlevitvijo konj. V ocenah posameznih kazalnikov dobrega počutja med športno in ljubiteljsko rejo nismo ugotovili značilnih razlik, izjemi sta bili relativna zračna vlaga in ocena čistosti napajalnika. Relativna vlaga ni bila ustrezna v nobeni od športnih rej, v ljubiteljskih rejah pa le v 25 % boksov vseh ocenjenih konj. Čist napajalnik je v ljubiteljskih rejah imelo 99 % vseh ocenjenih konj, v športnih rejah pa 83 % konj. Rezultati naše raziskave so bili primerljivi z rezultati drugih študij.Animal welfare is a prerequisite for high quality husbandry. In Slovenia there are still no legally established standards for housing conditions of horses. They are housed in different housing systems so it is not known what the welfare of animals in these systems is. The purpose of the thesis was to asses and compare the welfare of sport and leisure horses using the freely available protocol which was supplemented with certain indicators from the Welfare Monitoring protocol for horses. The assessment was carried out in ten sports farms where horses were housed individually only and in ten leisure farms with individual and group housed horses. We did not find any significant differences in the assesment of individual indicators of welfare between sports and leisure breeding, the exceptions were relative air humidity and the assesment of the cleanliness of the water point . Relative humidity was not adequate in any of the sport breeding facilities and in leisure breeding facilities it was adequate in only 25% of the horses \u27boxes of all evaluated horses. 99% of all assessed horses on leisure farms had a clean automatic drinker and 83% of horses in sports farms. The results of our research were comparable to the results of other studies