Grooming of horses in autumn and winter period

Abstract

The utilization of the grooming in animal husbandry is conditioned by economic or technological requiurements or by means of breed and exterior peculiarites. The main aspects and peculiarities of the utilization of the horses grooming of Ukrainian equestrian breed in the autumn and winter period are elucidated. For the research, three groups of the young horses of 6 in each, analogues by age (5–6 years) and sex (3 geldings and 3 stallions in the group) were formed. For the horses of the group I has been used the grooming type «Postoronkovy», for the group II – «Gunter», and animals of the group III were uncut. The research were conducted from October to December 2019, inclusive, when the young horses were subjected to individual training daily in two phases: Phase 1 – 2 km route with 10 obstacles; Phase 2 – 1 km route with 5 obstacles. The effectiveness of the research was determined by the results of the training of the horses (the speed of the route and the number of penalty marks obtained), their physiological indices of health (body temperature, pulse, number of respiratory movements per minute) and the rate of drying of the hair growth after loading. It was established, that after average loading, the hair growth of the animals of the groups I and II by 25.4 and 99.6 % dried faster compared to the group III with uncut hair growth. After intensive loading, the difference in these indices was 24.7 % and 65.6 % in favor of the animals of the group I and the group II. The animals of the grooming type «Gunter» for hair growth drying after medium loading needed 50.4 minutes and after intensive loading 90.9 minutes, which was less by 59.1 % and 32.8 % than the corresponding loading of animals of the group I with grooming type «Postoronkovy». Individual training showed, that the animals of the group III had lower endurance and speed compared to the horses born in the same year of the group I and the group II. The experimental sheared horses of the group I and II were by 12.1 % and by 4.5 % faster traversed I phase of the route and by 7.0 and by 9.7 % 2 phase of the route, respectively, than the animals of the group III. In addition, the animals in the group I and the group II had fewer penalty marks during the passing of competitions than the animals born in the same year of the group III. During training immediately after medium loading, the body temperature of the animals of the group I and II was 39.3 0C and 39.0 0C, respectively, which is by 0.1 0C and 0.4 0C less than the horses born in the same year of the group III. After intense loading, the difference in this index was 0.4 0C and 0.5 0C, respectively, in favor of sheared animals of the group I and the group II. After medium loading in an hour at experimental animals of the groups I and II body temperature decreased to 38.4 and 37.9 0С, and an hour after intensive loading – to 38.3 and 38.0 0С respectively, whereas in nonsheared horses in these periods the body temperature was 38.7 0C and 38.9 0C, respectively. The sheared animals recovered their pulse rate and respiratory rate faster after one hour of loading than nonsheared animals. Therefore, for the horses during training in the autumn and winter period should be used the grooming type «Gunter», which promotes restoration of hair growth, prevents overcooling of animals and is a method of prophylaxis of the respiratory diseases.

Keywords

• horses
• training
• grooming
• «postoronkovy»
• «gunter»
• prophylaxis of diseases of horses