By Mark Andrews

Horses are often kept in individual stables, a common practice that can help minimise injuries from other horses and offer convenience for caretakers. However, this type of housing—especially when turnout or pasture access is limited—can negatively impact a horse’s overall well-being.

Research led by Alice Ruet and her team, published in August 2019, explored how different management routines influence behavioural signs of reduced welfare in stabled horses.

The longer horses live in individual boxes, the more likely they are to express behaviour that suggests an internal state similar to depression in human beings. Photo: Canstock/Rosselladegradi

The study observed 187 sport horses, all kept in single stalls across four different equestrian facilities. None of the horses had access to paddocks or pasture turnout during the research period.

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Over the course of nine months, the team monitored a variety of care-related factors:

• Individual attributes: age and sex
• Stall design: access to an outdoor window, presence of grills between stalls, bedding type
• Feeding routine: frequency of concentrate feedings per day
• Training discipline: sport type and competition level
• Ration amount
• Activity levels: number of competitive events during the study period, weekly hours under saddle, and time spent on a lunge line or horse walker

This research provides insight into how housing and management choices may influence behavioural indicators of stress and welfare in horses housed without turnout.

They assessed the presence or absence of stereotypic or aggressive behaviour, and whether the horse appeared alert or withdrawn (i.e., neck horizontal at same level as back, fixed stare, ears and head static).

They found that horses that had a window opening toward the external environment for the total duration of the study and kept in straw bedding were less aggressive compared to horses that never had this factor and were kept on non-straw bedding.

“Among the housing and management factors commonly observed in individual boxes, most of them did not significantly affect the welfare state of horses,” they report.  

“Only three factors (straw bedding, a window opening toward the external environment, and reduced quantity of concentrated feed received daily) seem to be beneficial, but with limited effects.”

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Horses that had a window opening toward the external environment for the total duration of the study and kept in straw bedding were less aggressive compared to horses that never had this factor and were kept on non-straw bedding. Horses kept on straw were more often recorded as showing alertness, compared to those kept on non-straw bedding.

A grilled window on the wall between two boxes did not have a significant effect on the behavioural indicators.

Behaviour was not significantly affected by any of the factors relating to discipline, regularity of training, or level of performance.

“Above all, the longer horses live in individual boxes, the more likely they are to express persistent unresponsiveness to the environment,” the authors add. “The recurrent expression of this posture could reflect an internal state that is likely to be similar to depression in human beings.

Related: The Horse Welfare Alliance of Canada

“The main relevant result of this study remains that most of the tested factors had no influence on the expression of the behavioural indicators, in particular on unresponsiveness to the environment and stress-related behaviours. This implies that drastic changes in the living and management conditions should be required to improve the welfare state of animals.

“To preserve the welfare of horses, it seems necessary to allow free exercise, interactions with conspecifics [members of the same species], and fibre consumption as often as possible, to ensure the satisfaction of the species’ behavioural and physiological needs.”

For more details, see: Housing Horses in Individual Boxes Is a Challenge with Regard to Welfare, Alice Ruet, Julie Lemarchand, Céline Parias, Núria Mach, Marie-Pierre Moisan, Aline Foury, Christine Briant and Léa Lansade. Animals 2019, 9(9), 621.

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Printed with permission of Mark Andrews, Equine Science Update.

Main Photo: Canstock/Welcomia