Horse Transport Stress
As we continue to prioritise safety, quality, and durability, the reduction of transport stress has been one of our long-term goals.
It is well documented that transport stress can cause serious illness in horses, and longer journeys create higher levels of stress.
Our research findings
If you are taking a horse on a journey, it adds a degree of transport stress and the longer the journey the worse the effects become. Our findings showed that stress of any kind lowers a horse’s resistance to disease and the consequences can make them vulnerable to colic, diarrhoea, laminitis, pneumonia, or gastric ulcers. Transport stress can also lead to behavioural issues.
From our research it is clear we cannot eliminate all contributors of stress. As examples, the duration of the journey, breaks, watering, feeding and driving styles are all outside of our control.
As a manufacturer we have designed for contributors of stress that are directly associated with ride comfort, loading and the actual physical horse area.
Designing the horse area in our horseboxes
In this blog series, we’ve covered many aspects of horsebox design that directly address transport stress. We’ve examined every part of the build within our scope, including the horse area’s physical layout, travel direction, stall comfort, grip, ventilation, heat management, and sound and vibration control. By understanding the key causes of transport stress and designing our horseboxes to mitigate them, we ensure our customers arrive at their destination with healthy and happy horses!
Food For Thought…
As always, safety – especially horse safety – is at the forefront of everything we do. We conduct thorough research and design our horseboxes accordingly. Thank you for being part of our journey! We greatly appreciate your thoughts on this blog post. We recognize that transport stress is a vast topic with many contributing factors, so if there’s anything we might have overlooked or if you have additional insights to share, we would love to hear from you. Please feel free to send your feedback to kevin@kphltd.co.uk.
Thank you for helping us improve!