Battling Boredom: Study Proves Food-Related Items Most Successful

The researchers observed that whether alone or in groups, the enrichment items horses liked best involved food
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The old saying goes, "Idle hands are the devil’s tools," but horse owners know an idle horse’s lips can cause just as much mischief. For many owners it can be a daily challenge to keep curious horses occupied when not being ridden or handled. In her recent study, Grete Helen Meisfjord Jørgensen, PhD, of the Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research, observed horses’ reactions to several types of "enrichment items" and determined that food-related items helped battle boredom best.

Jørgensen and her team observed the reactions of eight horses rotated through eight individual paddocks that each contained a different enrichment item (a cone, a ball, a pole, peat, straw, branches, a ball filled with concentrate, and an empty paddock used as a control). Among the most popular items were the straw, the concentrate-filled ball, the branches, and the scratching pole.

The researchers then observed six groups of horses (three to six horses in a group) that were offered the four items that appeared to be most popular to the individual horses. The researchers observed that whether alone or in groups, the enrichment items horses liked best involved food.

"Our data show that edible items were most popular," Jørgensen explained. "Other toys were seldom investigated, and no horses spent a lot of time playing with the objects that did not have any relationship to food

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