Demographic Factors Associated with Prince Edward Island Horse Farm Owner Awareness of the Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Equines

ABSTRACT

The objectives of this study were to determine the proportion of owners of horse farms in Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada that were aware of the Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Equines (CODE) and determine demographic factors associated with awareness. A questionnaire was completed by owners at fifty horse farms. In total, 38% of the farm owners were unaware of the CODE, 48% were aware, but were not familiar with its content and only 14% used the CODE when making decisions on caring for their horses. Owners of private stables were more aware of the CODE than owners of boarding stables. The CODE awareness varied between the three PEI counties and was weakly associated with the number of horses owned by the farm owner. These results will be used to direct educational efforts and further research into CODE awareness and compliance for horses in PEI.

KEYWORDS:

• Code of practice
• equine welfare
• awareness
• demographic factors
• questionnaire

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Jennifer MacLean for her help developing the survey and Dr. Colleen Hughes and Alex Stavert for the collection of data. We would like to thank Growing Forward 2 for funding the research.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Growing Forward 2; A federal-provincial-territorial initiative.