IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0211852.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Could posture reflect welfare state? A study using geometric morphometrics in riding school horses

Author

Listed:
  • Emilie Sénèque
  • Clémence Lesimple
  • Stéphane Morisset
  • Martine Hausberger

Abstract

Despite the fact that animal posture is known to reflect emotional state, the presence of chronic postures associated with poor welfare has not been investigated with an objective tool for measuring, quantifying and comparing postures. The use of morphometric geometrics (GM) to describe horse posture (profile of the dorsum) has shown to be an effective method of distinguishing populations that are known to differ in terms of welfare states. Here we investigated photographs of 85 riding school horses differing in terms of welfare state, in order to determine if a specific posture (modelled by GM) is associated with altered welfare. The welfare state was estimated with the prevalence of stereotypic or abnormal repetitive behaviours, depressed-like posture and the ear positions. ANOVA results show that horses with stereotypic or abnormal behaviour, and to a lesser degree horses with depressed-like postures, tend to have a flatter, or even hollow, dorsal profile, especially at the neck and croup levels. These altered profiles could represent an additional indicator of poor welfare, easy to use in the field or by owners.

Suggested Citation

  • Emilie Sénèque & Clémence Lesimple & Stéphane Morisset & Martine Hausberger, 2019. "Could posture reflect welfare state? A study using geometric morphometrics in riding school horses," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(2), pages 1-20, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0211852
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0211852
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0211852
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0211852&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0211852?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carole Fureix & Hervé Menguy & Martine Hausberger, 2010. "Partners with Bad Temper: Reject or Cure? A Study of Chronic Pain and Aggression in Horses," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(8), pages 1-6, August.
    2. Clémence Lesimple & Carole Fureix & Hervé Menguy & Martine Hausberger, 2010. "Human Direct Actions May Alter Animal Welfare, a Study on Horses (Equus caballus)," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(4), pages 1-8, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Monika Balcer & Aleksandra Śnieg & Urszula Sikorska & Małgorzata Maśko & Małgorzata Domino, 2023. "The Initial Horse’s Postural Response to the First Session of the Dorsal, Ventral, and Dorso–Ventral Massage Techniques," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-17, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Emilie Sénèque & Stéphane Morisset & Clémence Lesimple & Martine Hausberger, 2018. "Testing optimal methods to compare horse postures using geometric morphometrics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-19, October.
    2. Izabela Dąbrowska & Jowita Grzędzicka & Katarzyna Malin & Bartosz Pawliński & Julia Mickiewicz & Olga Witkowska-Piłaszewicz, 2022. "Intense Leisure Exploitation Influences on Horses Hormonal Reaction—Preliminary Study," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-9, October.
    3. Susan V Horseman & Henry Buller & Siobhan Mullan & Helen R Whay, 2016. "Current Welfare Problems Facing Horses in Great Britain as Identified by Equine Stakeholders," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-19, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0211852. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.