De-worming is an important and well-researched part of equine husbandry. However, the de-worming process has been problematic as horses often display avoidance behavior toward the oral administration of the paste. The current study was designed to investigate a force-free method to teach equines to voluntary ingest five novel target stimuli including de-wormer. This method was based on a fading procedure. Participants were initially presented with a highly preferred food stimulus. Over the course of the study, the target stimuli were blended into the highly preferred food stimulus at increasingly higher ratios. By the end of the procedure, only the target stimuli were presented. Four horses participated in the study. After treatment, three of the four horses voluntarily ingested all five target stimuli. The fourth horse voluntarily ingested two novel stimuli and the other three novel stimuli if blended with three quarters of an ounce of pellets. Overall, the procedure was successful and provides a non-aversive alternative to existing de-worming strategies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc2356183 |
| Date | 07 1900 |
| Creators | Kring, Anja |
| Contributors | Rosales-Ruiz, Jesús, Varnon, Chris, Ortu, Daniele |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | Text |
| Rights | Public, Kring, Anja, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved. |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds