Temperament decision of thoroughbred yearling colt and filly by novelty object test and questionnaire survey to raising managers

Temperament decision of Thoroughbred yearling colt and filly will be available for selection of their raising and training formulae and for accident prevention in men and horses. It will be also effective for elevation of animal welfare. For equine temperament decision, two methods are used. One isabehaviour/physiology observation and another is a questionnaire survey. However, the relations between these methods are not clear. In this study, 15 yearling colts and fillies were used in a novelty object test and a questionnaire survey to raising managers. The relation between the novelty object test and the questionnaire survey was also analyzed. In the novelty object test, reactions of the animals were observed when they saw a red basket ball on a poly-bucket of 20L. In the novelty object test, 5 continuous behaviors and 6 frequency behaviors were recorded. In the questionnaire survey , 9 characters and 26 daily behaviors were asked. In the novelty object test, horses spent 158.3 sec (26.6% of the ten minutes observation period) in "alerting" In addition "vocalization" that was thought to relate the alert was observed frequently. In the principal component analysis of the questionnaire survey, three components of "friendly pursuit", "susceptibility" and "obedience" were extracted. These components occupied 81.1% of the all factors. In the questionnaire survey, "curiosity", "familiarity", "excitability" and "attachability" reflected on the daily behavior of animals. A significant minus correlation (r=-0.67, P0.05) was calculated between "touch the novelty" in the novelty test and " " in the nervous questionnaire survey. The tendency was observed that a yearling estimated "attachable" and "understanding" in the survey showed more "non- pursuit movements" and "kick the earth floor" in the novelty object test. Some certain relations between behaviors in the novelty object test and characters in the questionnaire survey were indicated. Temperaments of Thoroughbred yearling colt and filly were possible to estimate partly by the novelty object test used here.