Prevalence and risk factors for overweight horses at premises in Sweden assessed using official animal welfare control data

摘要

BackgroundThere are Swedish animal welfare regulations concerning the body condition of horses and general advice on keeping horses including that horses should be fed so that they do not become over- or underweight relative to their use. Compliance is assessed by official animal welfare inspectors. The objective of this study was to determine whether the national animal welfare control database could be used to estimate the prevalence and risk factors for overweight horses in Sweden. The official animal welfare control checklist for horses contains 45 checkpoints (CP) of which CP-8 pertains to the acceptability of the horses’ body condition including whether they were under- or overweight. Prevalence of non-compliance with CP-8, with 95 % confidence intervals (CI), were calculated for the years 2010–2013. Associations between risk factors and non-compliance for overweight body condition were estimated using logistic regression and expressed as odds ratios (OR) with 95 % CIs.