An Indication of Reliability of the Two-Level Approach of the AWIN Welfare Assessment Protocol for Horses

Abstract

Simple SummaryAnimal welfare is a very emotional issue. It is therefore necessary to measure it objectively. As welfare includes different components such as the health status, the behaviour and the emotional state, different indicators are needed for its assessment. A two-level approach is proposed in the Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN) assessment protocol for horses; the first level providing a fast overview and the second more details. The aim of this study was to give an indication whether this two-level approach produces reliable results, i.e., whether the first level assessment does indeed provide a good overview or whether too many welfare issues remain undetected. Therefore, a trained observer performed 112 first and second level assessments directly following each other. The results were compared based on the agreement between the two levels. In this study, based on one observer, overall, the first level did provide a good overview of the welfare status. Adaption of some of the indicators of the first level assessment might be necessary. Nevertheless, this two-level approach enhances feasibility and there is indication that it is a reliable approach. Therewith, this approach might also be interesting for implementation in other welfare assessment schemes.AbstractTo enhance feasibility, the Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN) assessment protocol for horses consists of two levels: the first is a visual inspection of a sample of horses performed from a distance, the second a close-up inspection of all horses. The aim was to analyse whether information would be lost if only the first level were performed. In this study, 112 first and 112 second level assessments carried out on a subsequent day by one observer were compared by calculating the Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient (RS), Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC), Smallest Detectable Changes (SDC) and Limits of Agreements (LoA). Most indicators demonstrated sufficient reliability between the two levels. Exceptions were the Horse Grimace Scale, the Avoidance Distance Test and the Voluntary Human Approach Test (e.g., Voluntary Human Approach Test: RS: 0.38, ICC: 0.38, SDC: 0.21, LoA: −0.25–0.17), which could, however, be also interpreted as a lack of test-retest reliability. Further disagreement was found for the indicator consistency of manure (RS: 0.31, ICC: 0.38, SDC: 0.36, LoA: −0.38–0.36). For these indicators, an adaptation of the first level would be beneficial. Overall, in this study, the division into two levels was reliable and might therewith have the potential to enhance feasibility in other welfare assessment schemes.

Indicators of Horse Welfare: State-of-the-Art

“…Evaluation of the presence and prevalence of SB/ARB was consistent over time [89]; therefore, reliably indicating impaired welfare of horses [35,42,90]. However, although some ARB are well known (e.g., weaving, cribbing) and their recordings present good inter-observer agreement [62], other ARB are more subtle and are more difficult to identify [91]. Many studies of horses focus on "traditionally" recognized stereotypic behaviours (i.e., cribbing, windsucking, weaving, pacing, pawing, head tossing/nodding), but it is crucial to take into account other more subtle ARB (e.g., compulsive licking/biting/kicking, other head movements, tongue movements, complex sequences, see also [35,42,91]) to ensure a reliable evaluation.…”

“…First of all, the presence of work-related body lesions or marks of former lesions (naked or white hair areas) located at places of friction with working equipment (e.g., harness, bit, bridle, saddle), which reflects chronic use of poor-fitting equipment or work overload (e.g., [28]), is related to poor body condition scores, apathy and systemic health abnormalities including diarrhoea and dehydration [28][29][30], revealing welfare impairment. Using a classical 3-point scale (superficial: hair loss, broken skin, deep/swelling wounds, e.g., [28,30,[62][63][64]), Burn et al [65] found moderate to excellent agreement between six observers concerning the presence and severity of work-related body lesions on 80 horses. Therefore, the presence of work-related body lesions indicates an impaired welfare.…”

“…Attempts have been made to characterize horses' facial expressions when in acute pain either induced [102], following veterinarian interventions [63] or at work [108]. In addition, tests have been made to use horses' facial expressions to evaluate their welfare [62]. Although the accuracy of facial expressions to assess horses' pain is not clear (see [20]), its relevance in case of chronic states (welfare) has never yet been tested: the different patterns used in the horse facial expression scale were never scientifically related to actual welfare impairment signals and further studies are clearly needed.…”

A Ten-Stage Protocol for Assessing the Welfare of Individual Non-Captive Wild Animals: Free-Roaming Horses (Equus Ferus Caballus) as an Example

“…Literature searches should be performed to develop a list of potential indices that may have already been described for use in welfare assessments of the species of interest, either in a free-roaming context or in a domesticated/captive context, and to evaluate their suitability. For example, various horse welfare assessments have been described and some of the indices used may be practical to apply to wild free-roaming horses [16,19,20,22,23,92,93]. Published information may also exist with regard to methods for measuring or observing some of these indices.…”

“…Methods for assessing welfare have been well developed for a range of captive animals [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23], including for wild species [24][25][26][27][28]. Although a need to develop methodologies for assessing the welfare of free-roaming wildlife has been highlighted [1], to date, such assessments have been largely restricted to impacts of non-lethal or lethal control of unwanted species, such as rodents, possums, rabbits, kangaroos, camels, badgers, and horses [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47].…”