Dissertation help!?!

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sarahgill

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I am in need of your horsey brains!

I am a second year Animal science student at Newcastle Uni and need to think of ideas to research for my dissertation, any ideas would be great, here are a few ideas to give you an understanding of approach I am meant to take...

Research into different travelling positions to reduce stress

Methods to reduce seperation anxiety in horses

Whether riders stress induces the horse to become stressed....

These are projects that have already been done and I am meant to come up with either a different approach to the area or a new idea all together

Please please help me, any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Sarah
 
Hi, I measured the cortisol levels of foals seperated from their mothers at weaning by gradual and quick methods, I'm wondering if you could use the same technique to look at stress in another situation? Maybe stress during travelling in a trailer in comparison to a horse box (always wondered this) - you just need to develop a bit like structure with a citric coated cotton swab sewn in (I can tell you more if interested!) and then you pop it in their mouth and travel them or do the stressful thing. You then cut the swab free and put it into a tube and freeze it. Once you have collected them all you go to somewhere like the animal health trust and have the swabs analysed for cortisol levels - I found a huge difference in the cortisol levels of foals taken away from their mother immediately in comparison to those who were in a group and had one mother removed at a time, hope this is of interest!

X
 
You could look at the affects of gelding on the performance of male horses. Human studies have found that castrated men (eunuchs) are weaker, suffer more illnesses and die younger than uncastrated men. But as far as I know this has never been tested in horses so would be really interesting to look at. Does gelding horses rid them of some of their athletic potential? Look at hormones, muscle mass, stamina etc. You'd have to research how well stallions do in comparison to geldings but bear in mind there are less stallions in competition (largely due to behaviour and management issues). If stallions do have the potential to do better than geldings you could argue that if we kept more male horses entire they they would do better in sport, be healthier and live longer, therefore how ethical is it to geld horses? Do we do it solely for our own (percieved) benefit?

Anyway I came up with idea sadly after I'd already done most of my dissertation but mytutor said it would be a really good thing for someone to look into so if you're interested I would give it a try. Hope this helps!
 
Great ideas! I am really interested in the idea of the swab, could you explain this a bit more and how did you gradually remove the mother, just seperate them for a hour extra each day? my email is s.d.gill@ncl.ac.uk thanks!
Also the idea of stallions is great but imagine I would meet alot of environmental variables such as rider and training? Is there a way around that? I think the same variables will apply to rider/horse fitness?
 
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