Expressão comportamental de equinos em resposta a aplicação de quatro tipos de contenção física

Abstract

Research in Brazil on horse welfare and behavior is still incipient, and is relatively isolated to studies which address either welfare or behavior as independent. The cultural bias of national equideoculture makes advances in this area difficult, having a paradoxical paradigm which both seeks scientific development, yet refutes adaptation because of “historical practices”. Thus, a critical review on horse welfare and behavior was carried out with the purpose of elucidating the mechanisms of action as it pertains to twitches as a form of physical restraint in the horse. Few studies physiologically describe how human actions progressively impact animal health, or if studied, often suggest the use of restraints as beneficial from the point of view of man, taking into account the “protection” of man and not of the animal. In order to understand how the animal reacts, the behaviors of horses were evaluated in relation to the use of four types of physical restraints. Animals were randomly distributed in a Latin square format, so that everyone received the treatments once, without repetition, in the four collection periods. The restraints used included the traditional twitch (TradT), metal twitch (MT), chain twitch (CT) and twitch tape (TTape). Horses were filmed for 3 minutes using the aforementioned restraints, and behaviors were recorded based on the manifestation of 14 different behaviors using an ethogram. Additionally the relative aversity of behaviors and an activity score were also recorded, indicating levels of stress or relaxation. Restraint with the traditional twitch (TradT) showed the most characteristic manifestation of behaviors associated with stress or aversion, such as freezing for example. In the same way, the TradT had the highest evaluation of the activity score, consistent with stress or flight response. Twitch tape (TTape) showed more behaviors consistent with relaxation / acceptance and less behaviors related to stress. In the activity score evaluations, restraint using twitch tape (TTape) had the lowest indexes in relation to the other restraints, and also was associated with the manifestation of positive behaviors, such as snoring. The metal (MT) and chain twitch (CT) were intermediate between the traditional twitch (TradT) and twitch tape (TTape) in the majority of evaluations. This study elucidated some divergent points about the physical restraint of horses, and draws attention to less aggressive or less aversive restraints such as twitch tape. Such emphasizes the importance of research and the evolution of knowledge of the domestic horse, especially in regards to its behavior.