Fig 1.
Illustration of the experimental conditions in a feeding management study carried out on 18 mares, divided into four groups.
A. The experimental site: In the foreground are the time-controlled hay racks, with the sand areas to the left. A trail connects the feeding area with the resting area in the background (red building: shelters). Photograph courtesy of Marianne Cockburn. B. In the foreground the rolling area and in the background the hay racks used in the trials, with a total of 16 feeding places and a rolling door on each side (closed on the opposite sides at the time of the photograph).
Table 1.
Summarised ethogram used during the observations of four groups of horses in an experimental study assessing the effect of feeding management on the welfare of horses housed in groups. Each group was observed for 15 hours per treatment, over three different treatments. The valence and type of interactions are also presented.
Fig 2.
Schematic representation and picture of the attachment of a MSR145 data logger to the front leg to record the lying behaviour of 18 mares during an experimental study on feeding management.
Table 2.
Observation hours and number of scans used for behavioural analysis of 18 horses divided into four groups, during an experimental study on feeding management.
Table 3.
Distribution of the activities over the day (7 am to 7 pm) of 18 horses during the three feeding treatments of an experimental study on feeding management. The treatments were SF: slow-feeding, PO: portioned and TD: traditional. The results are presented in percentage (%).
Fig 3.
Utilisation of the space across the three treatments by the 18 mares involved in a study on feeding management, depending on the hay rack status (closed or open).
Fig 4.
Number of agonistic and affiliative interactions observed in four groups of horses in an experimental study assessing the effect of feeding management. Agonistic and affiliative interactions are described in Table 1. The figure presents the agonistic and affiliative interactions observed during feeding times (hay racks open). Different letters indicate significant differences (post-hoc Tukey test).
Table 4.
Estimates of the fixed effects, with their standard errors (SE) and confidence intervals (CI) for the affiliative and agonistic interactions recorded during observations with the hay racks open in an experimental study on feeding management, conducted on 18 mares divided in four groups. The variances of the random effects are also presented, together with their standard deviations (SD). “x” indicates that the modality was used as reference in the model. Different letters in subscripts indicate significant difference between treatments (post-hoc Tukey test).
Table 5.
Estimates of the fixed effects, with their standard errors (SE) and confidence intervals (CI) for the agonistic interactions (per 15 min) of 18 mares divided in four groups, during feeding times (hay rack open). The variance of the random effects is also presented, together with their standard deviations (SD). “x” indicates that the modality was used as reference in the model, whereas an empty row indicate that the variable was not selected in the best model). Letters in subscripts indicate significant difference between treatments (post-hoc Tukey test).
Fig 5.
Number of agonistic and affiliative interactions observed during time slots where the hay racks were closed in an experimental feeding management study conducted on 18 mares divided into four groups Different letters indicate significant differences (post-hoc Tukey test).
Table 6.
Estimates of the fixed effects, with their standard errors (SE) and confidence intervals (CI) for the affiliative and agonistic interactions during the observations of 18 mares divided into four groups, when the hay racks were closed. The variance of the random effects is also presented, together with their standard deviations (SD). Affiliative and Agonistic interactions are described in Table 1.
Table 7.
Estimates of the fixed effects, with their standard errors (SE) and their confidence intervals (CI) for the cumulative number of new injuries recorded over 2 periods of two days for 18 mares divided into four groups in a feeding management study. The variances of the random effects are also presented, together with their standard deviations (SD). Different letters in subscripts indicate significant difference between treatments (post-hoc Tukey test).
Fig 6.
Number of new injuries recorded at each location (head, body or legs) for 18 mares divided into four groups in an experimental feeding management study.
Numbers are for each horse per treatment.
Fig 7.
Average daily lying down time (in minutes) over the three repeats of 18 horses included in a feeding management study.
The thick horizontal bar represents the group average for the treatment. Each symbol represents the average time the horse spent lying down during the treatment. Individual horse measurements with a longer vertical bar deviate more from the group average than individual horse measurements closer to the horizontal bar. The size of the symbol indicates the number of days used to estimate the horse’s average (2 to 11 nights included).
Table 8.
Estimates of the fixed effects, with their standard errors (SE) and their confidence intervals (CI) for the average daily time of 18 mares divided into four groups in a feeding management study. The variances of the random effects are also presented, together with their standard deviations (SD). Different letters in subscripts indicate significant difference between treatments (post-hoc Tukey test). Please note that the response variable was transformed using (log(1 + Y)) and the estimates presented are the predicted estimates without back-transformation.