98 Environmental impacts and daily voluntary movement of horses housed in pasture tracks as compared to conventional pasture housing

Abstract

Pasture tracks are a recent trend in equine management. Tracks are a way to increase movement by theoretically mimicking patterns of wild horses, though this has not been proven. To test movement patterns of horses housed in pasture tracks as compared with conventional pastures, a track (3.5m in width) was created around the perimeter of a rectangular 2.0 ha pasture with feeding troughs placed roughly equidistant around the track. Eight horses were paired and rotated between 3 treatment locations: the track (T), the small 2 ha pasture housed within the track (SP), and a larger 12 ha pasture on the same farm (LP). Movement was tracked using a GPS watch (Amazfit Bip U by Zepp Health) attached to the crown of a halter. Testing occurred over a 10-week period in which horses were randomly rotated in pairs to each location with testing in each location occurring simultaneously. Horses were acclimated to each location for 3 d and then tested over a 4-d period during which one horse in each pair would wear the GPS monitor for 2 d followed by the second horse. At the conclusion of the 10-week study, 4 horses on 2 additional farms with existing track systems were monitored for a one-week period to compare their movement patterns to those collected in the test location as controls. Environmental impact of the pasture tracksystem was evaluated by comparing erosion measurements of the track to the small pasture. Erosion was evaluated via quantification of vegetative cover (as measured by standing biomass) and sediment relocation (as measured using an adapted mesh-bag technique). Data was collected on days −7, 14, 33, 67, and 86 of horses being placed on the track. GPS data was analyzed using Minitab v.21 (State College, PA, USA) with housing as a treatment effect. Erosion measurements were run as a repeated-measures over time with location as the treatment effect. Results indicate no differences in daily distance traveled between T and SP (5.7 vs 5.4 km, P = 0.60) or between T and LP (5.7 vs 6.2 km, P = 0.36). Though not comparable, horses on the private farm tracks walked a similar daily distance of 6.1 ± 0.2 km/d avg. There was a decrease in vegetative cover on the track (P < 0.001) from beginning to end of the study, which resulted in sediment relocation (P = 0.013). Collectively, this data does not support the use of pasture tracks as a beneficial management practice to increase movement, and potential environmental impacts of the use of tracks should be considered.