HOUSING SYSTEMS WITH REGARD TO ANIMAL-WELFARE IN HORSES

Recreational activities with horses are enjoying growing popularity. For this reason, the extent of horse husbandry is limited less by the demand for horses, than by the problems emerging from attachment to traditional keeping methods that do not take the basic change in our use for horses into consideration. Lack of exercise, unhealthy stall climates, overfeeding and a lack of social contact, lead in large measure to sickness, losses and accidents. At the same time, these conventional husbandry methods often demand too high a time investment from leisure-time riders. As a solution to these problems, different types of free-run stalls are being developed. These Stalls include group-keeping pens with separate functional areas and individual concentrate and basis ration feeding.