Segunda parte de um artigo desenvolvido exclusivamente para este Blog pela Dra. Chiara Scopa e pelo Dr. Paolo Baragli, cientistas internacionais do departamento de Ciências Veterinárias da Universidade de Pisa na Itália que são especialistas em comportamento e bem-estar de cavalos.

 

2. When wel(l)-fare becomes bad-fare

Animal welfare may be influenced by many different factors including the place in which the animal lives (for example the stable of our horse), the caretaking activities (which are the caregivers and how much time in a day they visit our animal), body health and social interactions with both conspecifics and humans. Another element that intrinsically contributes to the ‘doing well’ condition as a whole is the subject’s capability to manage and respond to the difficult and, at the same time, challenging situations coming from the environment. It has been suggested that the promptness by which one reacts upon environmental stimuli is an integral part of evaluating its welfare (Wemelsfelder and Birke, 1997).

The opposite situation, commonly called bad-fare (‘doing bad’) realizes when, for example, the animal meets with an impoverished physical environment (scarce food, little space, lacking in stimuli) or when he/she runs into serious diseases coming from neglected care. As an example, separating offsprings from mothers may induce a certain level of stress in both younglings and adults, which may manifest their disagree with frequent vocalizations, loss of weight or a re-organization of social roles within the group (Haley et al., 2000). When it comes to talk about a psychological disease, it becomes difficult to unveil and evaluate it. This kind of illness is not apparently a consequence of any stressful event, but it is more like a reflection of the animal’s affective and mental state. We are accustomed to read the body language of our relatives or friends (we know that one uses to touch his/her hair or bite his/her nails when he/she gets anxious), but what do we know about horses? 

Many ethologists have been wondering how many and which emotional states horses can feel; as far as they do not use our same language to communicate, some preferences tests and body language analyses eventually gave scientists some hints about what animals are experiencing.

 

REFERENCES:

Haley, D. B., Rushen, J. and Passillè, A. D. 2000 Behavioural indicators of cow comfort: activity and resting behaviour of dairy cows in two types of housing. Canadian Journal of Animal Science 80, 257-263.

Wemelsfelder, F. and Birke, L.I.A. 1997 Environmental challenge. In: Appleby, M.C. and Hughes, B.O. (eds) Animal Welfare. CAB International, Wallingford, UK.