‘All My Animals Are Equal, but None Can Survive without the Horse’. The Contribution of Working Equids to the Livelihoods of Women across Six Communities in the Chimaltenango Region of Guatemala

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Animals Review 1187186

I felt that this manuscript was well-written and needs only some minor editing to improve the sentence structure and writing. Those notes are in the attached document.

What are the main claims of the paper and how significant are they?

This project aimed to provide more information on the importance of equid use in lower and middle income countries, particularly with respect to women as caretakers and users of the animals. It also intended to provide information on how those animals are used and, to a limited extent, how they were cared for. Finally, it presented information on how and where women learned about equid care and management. The information is important in that it provides more evidence that can be used to support needed social change that can foster improved status for women and improved health care for equids.

How does the paper stand out from others in its field?

This provides evidence that is in line with other articles that report on similar situations in other countries. Again, it adds to the body of information that can be used to improve the lives of women and equids.

Are the claims novel? If not, which published papers compromise novelty?

Not directly, as can be documented by several of the articles cited in the manuscript. However, it is some of the first information for this particular area of the world, which makes it valuable.

Are the claims convincing? If not, what further evidence is needed?

Yes, the claims are convincing. This despite the small number of interviews relative to the populations being studied.

Are there other experiments or work that would strengthen the paper further?

Almost all research could be strengthened by further work, but this manuscript/project did a solid job for its stated objectives. About the only improvement would be to have included more interviews, but this limitation was addressed in the manuscript.

How much would further work improve it, and how difficult would this be?

Further work would would simply add to the body of knowledge. It would require that the study be repeated with a greater number of interviews, which would essentially require an entirely new study.

Are the claims appropriately discussed in the context of previous literature?

Yes, they are.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you very much for the detailed and constructive feedback on this manuscript. I hope that the following changes fully address your comments.

Many thanks!

Point 1: Change ‘32’ to ‘Thirty-two’ in line 22
Response 1: ‘32’ changed to ‘Thirty two’ – line 24

Point 2: Change 32 to thirty-two in line 37
Response 2: 32 changed to Thirty-two – line 37

Point 3: Change ‘these’ to ‘which’ in line 47
Response 3: ‘these’ changed to ‘which’ – line 51

Point 4: Add a comma after ‘however’ in line 54
Response 4: Comma added after ‘however’ –line 62

Point 5 – Change ‘vary’ to ‘varies’ in line 55
Response 5 – ‘vary’ changed to ‘varies’ – line 63

Point 6 – Add a comma after ‘however’ in line 78
Response 6 – Comma added after ‘however’ – line 121

Point 7 – Add a comma after each of the aims in lines 85-89
Response 7 – Comma added after each of the aims – lines 129 to 131

Point 8 – Change ‘old’ to ‘of age’ in line 113
Response 8 – ‘old’ changed to ‘of age’ – line 111

Point 9 – Ensure that a comma is added after each ‘however’ throughout the document
Response 9 – a comma is added after each ‘however’ throughout the document.

Point 10 – Change the semicolon to a comma in line 123
Response 10 – Semicolon changed to a comma – line 159

Point 11 – Add a comma before and after ‘due to logistical constraints’ in line 129
Response 11 – Comma added before and after ‘due to logistical constraints’ – line 166

Point 12 – Change comma to a full stop after ‘intern’ in line 146
Response 12 – Comma changed to a full stop after ‘intern’ – line 183

Point 13 – Change semicolon to comma in line 153
Response 13 – Semicolon changed to comma – line 223

Point 14 – Change comma to full stop after ‘days’ in line 157
Response 14 – Comma changed to full stop after ‘days’ – line 226

Point 15 – Combine sentences in line 161-162
Response 15 – Sentences combined – line 241

Point 16 – Remove the B typing mistake in line 181
Response 16 – ‘B’ removed – line 259

Point 17 – Change comma to full stop after ‘(range 18-76)’ in line 200
Response 17 – Comma changed to full stop after ‘(range-18-76)’ – line 280

Point 18 – Change semicolon to full stop after ‘income’ in line 203
Response 18 – semicolon changed to full stop after ‘income’ – line 284

Point 19 – Add comma after ‘said’ in line 229
Response 19 – comma added after ‘said’ – line 305

Point 20 – For consistency change comma to colon before quotation in line 248
Response 20 – All commas changed to colons before quotations – line 322

Point 21 – Combine paragraphs as too short in line 250
Response 21 – As the results section has been restructured these short paragraphs are no longer present.

Point 22 - Combine paragraphs as too short in line 264
Response 22 – As the results section has been restructured these short paragraphs are no longer present.

Point 23 – Change comma to colon before quotation in line 267
Response 23 – comma changed to colon before quotations -  line 353

Point 24 – Change to ‘n=17/30’ in line 284
Response 24 – As the results section has been restructured, this sentence is no longer present – lines 439-442.

Point 25 – Change comma to colon before quotation in line 285
Response 25 – comma changed to colon before quotations -  line 434

Point 26 – Change full stop to comma before ‘whereas’ in line 286
Response 26 – As the results section has been restructured, this sentence is no longer present.

Point 27 – Add full stop after ‘one’. Change comma to colon before quotation in line 290
Response 27 – Full stop added and comma changed to colon – line 444

Point 28 – Change comma to full stop after ‘functions’ in line 294
Response 28 – This sentence has been restructured – line 434

Point 29 – Combine paragraphs in line 307
Response 29 – As the results section has been restructured these short paragraphs are no longer present.

Point 30 – Change to ‘properly (Table 2)’ in line 314
Response 30 – Changed to ‘properly (Table 3)’ – line 454

Point 31 – Not sure what is behind figure 2
Response 31 – The figure legend has been edited to describe this better.

Point 32 – Change to comma after ‘and’ in line 406
Response 32 – This sentence has been restructured – line 758

Point 33 – Remove ‘whilst’ in line 433
Response 33 – ‘whilst’ removed – line 787

Point 34 – Add comma after ‘communities’ in line 434
Response 34 – Comma added after ‘communities’ – line 789

Point 35 – Add full stop after ‘interviewed’ in line 435
Response 35 – Full stop added after ‘interviewed’ – line 789

Point 36 – Add full stop after ‘translations’ in line 443
Response – Full stop added after ‘translations’ – line 799

Reviewer 2 Report

Abstracts

Line 16-17: Is understanding their contributions to livelihoods central to improving their welfare? I would argue that this is not the case for other animals (other livestock species for example) – why would it be different for working equids?

Introduction

The introduction largely sets the scene for the study. However, it would be helpful to include additional information about the role of women in Guatemalan societies and how the “feminisation of agriculture” applies in that context: how is it different or similar to the Indian example given? Additionally, it would be useful to discuss any evidence available about working equids in this area? (e.g. from a very quick google search: Chang, Carlos Rodríguez, Mario Sapón, and Danilo Rodríguez. "Economic valuation of the impact of the working equine in the Peten and Chimaltenango communities in Guatemala." The 6th International Colloquium on Working Equids: learning from others. Proceedings of an International Colloquium, New Delhi, India, 29 November-2 December 2010. The Brooke, 2010.). In this way, the authors would identify clearly why this study area was chosen as the research site; i.e. the specific gap that this research seeks to address.

Small changes and questions

Line 53: It would be helpful to identify for whom it is a common belief that women are not involved in caring for working equids. For example, I don’t think that most people working in the working equid sector in the UK would think this.

Line 73-76: this argument could be enhanced with a discussion about time-use e.g. Stevano, Sara, et al. "Time-use analytics: an improved way of understanding gendered agriculture-nutrition pathways." Feminist Economics 25.3 (2019): 1-22.

Methods

Within the methods section it would be useful to have like additional information about how the interviewers were introduced to the female participants. E.g. were they introduced as WHW / SABE employees / associates or as independent researchers? I assume that these interviews were conducted as part of the promotional days (some information about what these involve would be useful). The authors can reflect how this could influence results, especially given the real time translation. How were the difficulties with informed consent navigated given that these interviews were performed alongside routine NGO activities, and so presumably the donation of services and advice?

What was the gender balance of the interviewing team?

Lines 132-136 It would be useful to understand why the interviews were not recorded as this would have not involved significant extra resources but would have helped subsequent analysis and clarification. What was the advantage of translating during the interview rather than training a native speaker (e.g. the intern) to conduct the interviews and translating and transcribing them later on?

I have discussed this point in full in the results section, however the description of quantitative data analysis in line 188-90 does not seem appropriate for the methods of data collection described.

Small changes and questions

Line 104: Are the CBEAs WHW employees?

Lines 111 to 120 read more like part of the introduction (see comment above). It wold be great to have a formal reference for the information given about women, as this is an area where it is very important to avoid assumptions. Is this area ethnically homogenous? What is the role of remittance?

Line 132: was any pretesting performed? Were the interview questions reverse translated?

Line 162 – is the second half of this sentence missing?

Line 181 – type – change Bapproach to approach

Results

Although the methods describe an iterative grounded theory approach to data analysis, the results section relies heavily on numerical data, which, given the sampling strategy, cannot be generalised to others in the population. The section is structured as answers to specific questions, and the codes and themes that are discussed in the methods do not appear. Structuring the results in line with the themes identified during the thematic analysis, and concentrating on the qualitative data collected, would help the reader to identify how those themes had been developed. It would also be helpful to reproduce the coding framework in the paper.

Additionally, normal convention would be to identify, using the unique KI number, each quote. In this study it would be helpful if this included some location information as the different communities had received different levels of intervention (I realise that it could not be community specific as only one woman was interviewed from two communities)

Small changes and questions

Line 200: Age is not Normally distributed

Line 210 – 212: clarify if the women or the household owned these animals

Line 228: Relating back to my question about the interviewers in the methods – could this be the answer because people from WHW were involved in the study.

Line 246 – 250: This is very interesting and could have an impact on welfare. The quote seems to contradict the same respondent’s subsequent reflection. How did other respondents frame this dichotomy?

Line 235 – 253: did you receive any answers about what role the women felt that their equids played in resilience i,e, the number of different roles that were fulfilled by these animals?

Line 303 – 307: the constraints of gender norms and fear are presented as equal barriers for these women in using their equids. Do you think that they are related?

Line 317: did you explore how / what knowledge had changed?

Lines 326- 330: 31 women said that they wanted training but 20 did not have time to attend – there must be overlap in these groups. This section is difficult to interpret – it relies heavily on numbers (e.g. figure 2) and appears to pre-assume that “training” is the only method to support these women’s interactions with their equids. This point is revisited below

Discussion

The discussion is well written. However, I would expect it to be restructured in line with restructuring of the results as discussed above. Following on from the last point made above about the results, I would like to question the assumption within the second paragraph discussion that “training sessions” are the only option available in an intervention for these women. There are multiple other community engagement modalities that move away from didactic knowledge transfer towards knowledge sharing and co-production. These may be more suitable in a population that is described as time poor and that requires male permission to “attend training sessions. How and when do these women meet and socialise? Are there alternative routes to their engagement? Additionally, following on from the discussion in the introduction about the feminisation of agriculture, what would be the opportunity cost for women being involved in any intervention? (also relevant for line 410-412)

Line 401: is this a suggestion that the authors are making? Citing one study from over fifteen years that describes provision of free services (not solely of knowledge transfer) ago ignores discussion that have been had across animal health and welfare sectors that recognise that knowledge is a small component of a range of complex and interlinked reasons for poor animal health and welfare. For example see human behaviour change literature. Additionally the socioeconomic and political systems that these animals (and their owners) live and work in play a large role also in their health and welfare. It would be useful to include these points into the discussion instead of characterising these populations as ignorant.

Line 405 -412: Many productive equids are, unfortunately in poor welfare; this is not a direct correlation. From your results it is not clear how equids support these women’s human or natural capital (unless in that all forms of capital are interlinked and therefore impacted when one is). This argument would benefit from having examples included and referring back to the context of the results from this study. For example in this study these equids are not described by the women as their assets (line 408), but their male family members’.

Line 405: Change hadn’t  to had not

Line 433: referring to my earlier comment , this limitation could be put in context by describing how socially homogenous the communities were

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to provide such incredibly detailed and constructive feedback. Your comments have been hugely helpful and I hope that they are appropriately addressed in this revised manuscript.

Many thanks!

Point 1: - Line 16-17: Is understanding their contributions to livelihoods central to improving their welfare? I would argue that this is not the case for other animals (other livestock species for example) – why would it be different for working equids?
Response 1: Because equids, unlike livestock, indirectly support food production, policy makers fail to recognise their contribution to livelihoods and as a result they are omitted from initiatives and policies designed to improve livestock health and welfare. Therefore gaining an insight into their contributions to livelihoods generates evidence which can help support the case for their inclusion in livestock welfare programmes. We have made this clearer in the simple summary (line 17-18) and the introduction (line 53-55).

Point 2: However, it would be helpful to include additional information about the role of women in Guatemalan societies and how the “feminisation of agriculture” applies in that context: how is it different or similar to the Indian example given?
Response 2: Information on the role of women in Guatemalan societies has been included in the introduction (line 79-101), linking to the concept of the ‘feminisation of agriculture’.

Point 3: Additionally, it would be useful to discuss any evidence available about working equids in this area? (e.g. from a very quick google search: Chang, Carlos Rodríguez, Mario Sapón, and Danilo Rodríguez. "Economic valuation of the impact of the working equine in the Peten and Chimaltenango communities in Guatemala." The 6th International Colloquium on Working Equids: learning from others. Proceedings of an International Colloquium, New Delhi, India, 29 November-2 December 2010. The Brooke, 2010.). In this way, the authors would identify clearly why this study area was chosen as the research site; i.e. the specific gap that this research seeks to address.
Response 3: We have included evidence in the introduction about the roles of working equids in the Chimaltenango area (line 112-119). The fact that the only data available in the study area is on the economic importance of working equids, without considering gender related influences or the other contributions that equids have to livelihoods, explains the gap that this research seeks to address.

Point 4: Line 53: It would be helpful to identify for whom it is a common belief that women are not involved in caring for working equids. For example, I don’t think that most people working in the working equid sector in the UK would think this.
Response 4: It tends to be policy makers that fail to address that women are involved in caring for working equids. Formal references have been provided in lines 59-61..

Point 5: Line 73-76: this argument could be enhanced with a discussion about time-use e.g. Stevano, Sara, et al. "Time-use analytics: an improved way of understanding gendered agriculture-nutrition pathways." Feminist Economics 25.3 (2019): 1-22.
Response 5: Time-use has been discussed and referenced within the introduction to strengthen our argument about the impacts of an increased workload for women (line 79-86).

Point 6: Within the methods section it would be useful to have like additional information about how the interviewers were introduced to the female participants. E.g. were they introduced as WHW / SABE employees / associates or as independent researchers?
Response 6: At the beginning of each interview, the translator introduced herself as a SABE employee and MV as an independent researcher carrying out a research study with World Horse Welfare. The CBEA was also introduced and their links with SABE were stated. This information can be found on lines 186-190.

Point 7: I assume that these interviews were conducted as part of the promotional days (some information about what these involve would be useful). The authors can reflect how this could influence results, especially given the real time translation. How were the difficulties with informed consent navigated given that these interviews were performed alongside routine NGO activities, and so presumably the donation of services and advice?
Response 7: The promotional days involved members of the community bringing their equids to a communal area for free veterinary and farriery advice (line 225-227). The possible bias that this creates has been reflected on and referenced (lines 229-231). To mitigate the possible bias and any logistical issues of carrying out interviews on promotional days, all interviews were carried out in women’s homes or farms rather than the area where the SABE team were working (lines 231-234).

Point 8: What was the gender balance of the interviewing team?
Response 8 – MV and the translator are both female, the CBEAs were all male. The equine vet who was the translator for five interviews was also female – lines 178-183.

Point 9: Lines 132-136 It would be useful to understand why the interviews were not recorded as this would have not involved significant extra resources but would have helped subsequent analysis and clarification. What was the advantage of translating during the interview rather than training a native speaker (e.g. the intern) to conduct the interviews and translating and transcribing them later on?
Response 9: The interviews were not recorded as there were concerns that women would feel uncomfortable and less willing to participate if their responses were recorded rather than transcribing in real time. There were also time and resource constraints that meant finding a bilingual interpreter to translate and transcribe the interviews at a later date was not possible (lines 200-203).

Point 10: I have discussed this point in full in the results section, however the description of quantitative data analysis in line 188-90 does not seem appropriate for the methods of data collection described
Response 10: The results section has been altered to clearly state the themes and subthemes that emerged during data analyses. The description of quantitative data analysis has been removed.

Point 11: - Line 104: Are the CBEAs WHW employees?
Response 11: The CBEAs are supported by SABE and World Horse Welfare through training and a revolving fund but are not permanent employees. If their assistance is needed with a community visit then they can be hired out by SABE (lines 149-152).

Point 12: Lines 111 to 120 read more like part of the introduction (see comment above). It wold be great to have a formal reference for the information given about women, as this is an area where it is very important to avoid assumptions. Is this area ethnically homogenous?
Response 12: This section has been moved up into the introduction (lines 105-112). A formal reference has been provided considering rural Guatemala in general, but as there are no official references on the Chimaltenango region, the original information is there to provide a more local context. Traditionally the communities were indigenous Mayan. However, as participants were not asked about their ethnic backgrounds, this information cannot be generalised to the study sample.

Point 13: Line 132: was any pretesting performed? Were the interview questions reverse translated?
Response 13: The interview questions were translated into Spanish by World Horse Welfare, and then the translation was checked by the translator for the study (lines 170-172). With regards to pretesting, one mock interview was carried out prior to the study commencing, however as the questionnaire had been successfully used in the Invisible Helpers study, no further pretesting was performed (lines 172-178).

Point 14: Line 162 – is the second half of this sentence missing?
Response 14: This has been corrected in lines 238-241.

Point 15: Line 181 – type – change Bapproach to approach
Response 15: This has been corrected in lines 258.

Point 16: Although the methods describe an iterative grounded theory approach to data analysis, the results section relies heavily on numerical data, which, given the sampling strategy, cannot be generalised to others in the population. The section is structured as answers to specific questions, and the codes and themes that are discussed in the methods do not appear. Structuring the results in line with the themes identified during the thematic analysis, and concentrating on the qualitative data collected, would help the reader to identify how those themes had been developed.
Response 16: The themes and subthemes that emerged during data analyses have been outlined in Table 1 (line 301), and the results have been structured to fit these themes. Quantitative data has been included alongside the qualitative results.

Point 17: Additionally, normal convention would be to identify, using the unique KI number, each quote. In this study it would be helpful if this included some location information as the different communities had received different levels of intervention (I realise that it could not be community specific as only one woman was interviewed from two communities)
Response 17: The unique KI number has been included for each quotation, along with information on whether the community had an established Equine Welfare Network. This provides information on the level of intervention. As there are now more in-depth qualitative data, the information provided on participants in the Supplementary Materials section has been reduced to ensure that participants cannot be identified. Community numbers have been removed and replaced with information on whether they had established EWNs or not, and education level has been removed.

Point 18: Line 200: Age is not Normally distributed
Response 18: The mean has been changed to median (line 279).

Point 19: Line 210 – 212: clarify if the women or the household owned these.
Response 19: We have clarified that the household owned these working equids (lines 289).

Point 20: Line 228: Relating back to my question about the interviewers in the methods – could this be the answer because people from WHW were involved in the study.
Response 20: A reflection on the potential impact of this has been included in the Materials and Methods (lines 190-196).

Point 21: Line 246 – 250: This is very interesting and could have an impact on welfare. The quote seems to contradict the same respondent’s subsequent reflection. How did other respondents frame this dichotomy?
Response 21: There is more information from this respondent’s interview in lines 320-333 with information from other respondents.

Point 22: Line 235 – 253: did you receive any answers about what role the women felt that their equids played in resilience i,e, the number of different roles that were fulfilled by these animals?
Response 22: Having gone back through the transcripts, there aren’t any answers from participants about the roles of their equids in resilience.

Point 23: Line 303 – 307: the constraints of gender norms and fear are presented as equal barriers for these women in using their equids. Do you think that they are related?
Response 23: Women in the study stated that fear and gender roles were barriers that prevented them from wanting to, or being able to use their equids. The societal perception that working equids are dangerous and best handled by men could link women’s fear to gender roles, this is reflected on in the discussion (lines 662-667).

Point 24: Line 317: did you explore how / what knowledge had changed?
Response 24: The only data on how knowledge had changed with the implementation of Equid Welfare Networks and training events offered by SABE and CBEAs were regarding hoof health. This information has been included in lines 456-458.

Point 25: Lines 326- 330: 31 women said that they wanted training but 20 did not have time to attend – there must be overlap in these groups. This section is difficult to interpret – it relies heavily on numbers (e.g. figure 2) and appears to pre-assume that “training” is the only method to support these women’s interactions with their equids. This point is revisited below
Response 25: This section has been restructured to reduce the reliance on numbers and provide more qualitative insight into respondents views. The discussion now includes a reflection on the fact that training opportunities are only a part of interventions to generate behaviour change (lines 738-756). However, as training is the only type of capacity building that was asked about in the questionnaire, it is all that has been included in this section of the results.

Point 26: Discussion - The discussion is well written. However, I would expect it to be restructured in line with restructuring of the results as discussed above. Following on from the last point made above about the results, I would like to question the assumption within the second paragraph discussion that “training sessions” are the only option available in an intervention for these women. There are multiple other community engagement modalities that move away from didactic knowledge transfer towards knowledge sharing and co-production. These may be more suitable in a population that is described as time poor and that requires male permission to “attend training sessions. How and when do these women meet and socialise? Are there alternative routes to their engagement? Additionally, following on from the discussion in the introduction about the feminisation of agriculture, what would be the opportunity cost for women being involved in any intervention? (also relevant for line 410-412)
Response 26: The discussion has been restructured to reflect the changes to the results. There is also a section that discusses how knowledge transfer in the form of training sessions is a necessary component but is not sufficient to generate long term changes in behaviour. The importance of including a framework such as COM-B to address the socioeconomic and political barriers that women face to behaviour change is also discussed (lines 750-765). The potential additional time pressures created by the migration of men away from rural areas may further reduce women’s access to any equid welfare programmes (lines 669-672).

Point 27: Line 401: is this a suggestion that the authors are making? Citing one study from over fifteen years that describes provision of free services (not solely of knowledge transfer) ago ignores discussion that have been had across animal health and welfare sectors that recognise that knowledge is a small component of a range of complex and interlinked reasons for poor animal health and welfare. For example see human behaviour change literature. Additionally the socioeconomic and political systems that these animals (and their owners) live and work in play a large role also in their health and welfare. It would be useful to include these points into the discussion instead of characterising these populations as ignorant.
Response 26: Similar to response 26, a discussion about the limitations of providing free services or training to bring about a change in attitude have been discussed, along with the benefits of using a framework such as COM-B in planning equid welfare programmes that generate behaviour change (lines 750-766).

Point 28: Discussion -  Line 405 -412: Many productive equids are, unfortunately in poor welfare; this is not a direct correlation. From your results it is not clear how equids support these women’s human or natural capital (unless in that all forms of capital are interlinked and therefore impacted when one is). This argument would benefit from having examples included and referring back to the context of the results from this study. For example in this study these equids are not described by the women as their assets (line 408), but their male family members’.
Response 28: This section has been edited to remove the reference to capital, as this has not previously been discussed in the manuscript. We have referred back to the results from this study by included the contributions that working equids provide to women (lines 768-777).

Point 29: Line 405: Change hadn’t  to had not.
Response 29: ‘Hadn’t’ has been changed to ‘had not’ in line 737.

Point 30: Line 433: referring to my earlier comment , this limitation could be put in context by describing how socially homogenous the communities were.
Response 30: More information has been provided in the introduction to provide a local context to the region (lines 105-112) and this limitation has been put into context by referencing how socially homogenous the communities were (lines 791-79).

Reviewer 3 Report

Better explain why the questionnaire questions are "flexibile". It seems not to be really structured, but a general tool to have contact and information by the women.

I think it is necessary better precise the bias connected with the language problems and translation

better to insert also the quaestionnaire form

Author Response

Thank you very much for the detailed and constructive feedback on this manuscript. I hope that the following changes fully address your comments.

Many thanks!

Point 1 - Better explain why the questionnaire questions are "flexibile". It seems not to be really structured, but a general tool to have contact and information by the women.
Response 1 – We felt that because the interviews were structured rather than semi-structured because the results lack the depth of interpretation that would normally be gained from a semi-structured interview. The format of the questionnaire was followed for each interview but there were opportunities for the translator to ask further questions if there were areas that the participant wanted to discuss in more detail. We have rephrased the description of the interview structure on line 203-211 to make it clearer.

Point 2- I think it is necessary better precise the bias connected with the language problems and translation.
Response 2 – I have included further information on the translation in lines 196-203. We have discussed that transcribing in real time was necessary because of time and resource constraints, as well as concerns that participants may have been reluctant to participate if they were being recorded. For five interviews, we had another member of the team acting as our translator; this limitation has been stated in the discussion (lines 798-800).

Point 3 – Better to insert also the quaestionnaire form.
Response 3 – The questionnaire can be found in the Supplementary Materials.

Reviewer 4 Report

This is an interesting work that presents and describes a reality in Guatemala that is similar in other low income countries. Therefore, results are valuable aiming in improvement in social programs related to equids.

In my opinion the document is well written with clarity in the methodology, also results are well detailed. 

It would be interesting to add some discussion regarding the fact that training opportunities are not known by women in those locations. So, an impression on the reason why they do not have access to that information, and how local charities or other helping groups can improved access and training opportunities for women would be very valuable.

Author Response

Thank you very much for the detailed and constructive feedback on this manuscript. I hope that the following changes fully address your comments.

Many thanks!

Point 1 - It would be interesting to add some discussion regarding the fact that training opportunities are not known by women in those locations. So, an impression on the reason why they do not have access to that information, and how local charities or other helping groups can improved access and training opportunities for women would be very valuable.
Response 1 – With regards to why women are not able to access current training opportunities, the reasons discussed by participants was mostly because they did not have time, they were not aware of training events, and they felt that events were primarily intended for men as equid ‘owners’ (lines 666-667, 672-676, 704-710 ). To further explore how equid welfare organisations can offer interventions that acknowledge the barriers that women face within their communities, we have included a section that on behaviour change (line 737-751).  This expands on the fact that whilst knowledge transfer is a necessary component of capacity building, it is not sufficient to facilitate behaviour change. We have discussed how equid welfare organisations could implement the COM-B framework into the planning of sustainable interventions that work towards improved equid welfare and gender equity.