Dissertation ideas are driving me crazy. What hasn't been done???

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Muddy Wellies

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I really need to be pulling info together on what I would like to do my dissertation on by now... But I still have no idea.

I had a selection of ideas I took to my dissertation tutor and came out with 3 that are most to her interest of being realistic and doable.

1) Mares that have had foals - Does it affect their behaviour when in season to mares that have not had foals

Problem with this is I feel there's far too much that could alter the mares behaviour beyond the fact she's had a foal or not. But maybe I could change the question as it needs to be more specific still.

2) Osteoarthritis - What treatment is taking place/the outcome 5 years down the line?

This still needs a better question and to be more specific... But I've noticed a lot of the treatment for bone spavins/osteoarthritis do not work as effectively as they are continued, so would be interesting to see what goes on a few years down the line?

3) Difference in horses ability for undecided discipline? - When bred by an amateur and a professional?

Amateurs techniques when breeding are often different to someone who breeds as a profession for specific qualities so was interested to see how this turns out?

Thanks in advance if anyone can help me a little on this.
 
1) if you choose the mare topic, there is also the question of...if a mare has been a broodmare until say, 8 years old, what are the chances of the mare coming into work and being a successful competition dressage / showjumping / eventing horse? Does a late start impact chances of success?

2) Medical issues - how about PSD - Proximal suspensory desmitis - compare the treatments currently available - a) shockwave therapy b) current ops available (neurectomy / plantar fasciotomy ; c) natural solutions /treatments; d) do nothing - turn horse away for 6 months; e) steroid injections; f) stem cell treatment; g) platelet-rich plasma injections
- you could compare all of these treatments and prognosis / actual outcomes - it could be a really interesting dissertation, and there is a lot of material out there around this topic, plus there would be a lot of people, even on this forum, with experience of PSD, who would probably participate in any survey on the topic. Currently there is not a lot of follow up documented research on how the animals have fared after undergoing the various treatments

3) interesting idea about home-bred vs. professionally-bred.
 
Do unshod feet grow quicker than unshod feet and if so by how much? Assuming that there is a difference (there will be, if you measure a big enough sample of horses), what implications might that have for horse welfare?

Easy to do. Just mark the foot and measure the movement of the mark over time. Better if you can do shod and unshod with the same horse, but if you have a big enough quantity it should be valid with two different groups.

You can even ask people to mark their own and photograph them for you, so that you can get a very big number from all around the country.

You will need to balance for workload, less work makes a barefoot horse grow less foot, so paddock ornaments won't do, it needs to be barefooters in shod-type work.
 
Thanks cptrayes, The foot one is great but a student at same uni as myself did a similar thing last year.

Andiamo, the broodmare idea is great and much easier to be precise with what I'm looking for compared to their behaviour. The comparison of treatments is also very practical.
 
Effectiveness of EPSM treatments & accuracy of diagnostic methods? I would **love** to see more research into this!

T x
 
catembi said:
Effectiveness of EPSM treatments & accuracy of diagnostic methods? I would **love** to see more research into this!

T x
Click to expand...

That's a good one. I didn't know there was a different type in draft horses till revising for my exam and I must admit my notes on it where limited, thanks I will look into journals for everything mentioned and sure to be asking more questions soon once I've narrowed my topic down.
 
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