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Abstract
There are an estimated 112 million horses, donkeys and mules (i.e. working equids) in developing regions of the world. Though their roles are often fundamental to the well-being of the families they work for, their welfare is often severely compromised due to the limited resources and/or limited knowledge base of owners. The main objectives of the current study were; To build up a multifactorial welfare-assessment system for accurate, comprehensive and reliable welfare-assessment of working equids, which NGOs, practitioners, veterinarians and researchers can use to evaluate the welfare status of working equids. Moreover, there were no available reports regarding the prevalence of helminthes in working equids in Egypt. Thus, another objective of the current study was to investigate the prevalence of parasitic infestation in working equids in Egypt. A total of 5248 working equids (n=2198 horses, 2640 donkeys, 410 mules) were assessed between February 2012 {u2013} January 2014. Equids were divided into categories based on the three species involved, as well as the four work types involved (transporting goods or people by cart, ridden <e.g. in tourist locations>, or working in brick kilns). The results suggested that, The welfare-assessment score has met our initial objective to be a useful tool in identifying which equids have more welfare problems (i.e., which species, type of work, age and sex)