Trialling Locally Made, Low-Cost Bits to Improve Bit-Related Welfare Problems in Cart Horses: Findings from a Study in Senegal.
Authors: Seck Mactar, Jobling Ruth, Brown Ashleigh F
Journal: Animals : an open access journal from MDPI
Summary
# Editorial Summary: Low-Cost Bit Design Improvements for Working Cart Horses in Senegal Cart horses in Senegal commonly suffer oral injuries caused by poorly manufactured bits made from salvaged construction iron with significant design and manufacturing flaws. Researchers developed improved bit prototypes using locally available materials and tested them across 540 driver–horse pairs in five municipalities over 21 weeks, measuring eight welfare indicators: four physical measures (lesions on lip commissures, tongue, buccal mucosa and bars) and four behavioural responses (open mouth, tongue loll, head tossing and head tilting). All welfare indicators showed statistically significant improvement following introduction of the redesigned bits, with no drivers reporting control difficulties or requesting to return to their original equipment. These findings demonstrate that bit design itself substantially contributes to oral pathology in working equines, and that locally produced, cost-effective alternatives can meaningfully reduce bit-related injuries whilst remaining practical and acceptable to users. For equine professionals working with working horses in resource-limited settings, this research validates the potential of targeted equipment redesign to address welfare issues at scale without requiring imported solutions or major economic investment.
Read the full abstract on PubMed
Practical Takeaways
- •Bit design directly influences oral injury prevalence in working cart horses; upgrading from poor-quality recovered iron bits to properly designed alternatives can substantially reduce welfare problems
- •Low-cost, locally-produced bit improvements are feasible and acceptable to drivers, making welfare enhancement economically viable in resource-limited settings
- •Monitor for behavioural signs of bit discomfort (open mouth, tongue loll, head tossing, head tilting) as indicators of underlying oral injury, as these improved significantly with better bit design
Key Findings
- •All eight welfare indicators (four physical and four behavioural) showed statistically significant improvements after 21 weeks of using redesigned locally-made bits
- •Lesion-based indicators (lip commissures, tongue, buccal mucosa and bars) all demonstrated positive changes with new bit designs
- •Behavioural indicators (open mouth, tongue loll, head toss/shake, head tilt/turn) all improved significantly with alternative bits
- •100% of drivers reported no difficulty with horse control and none reverted to original bits, indicating driver acceptability