The Influence of Friends, Forage and Freedom on Behaviour of Horses

I often hear the same worries from owners and yard managers when the subject of turnout, ad-lib hay, or letting horses socialise -  "Won't they get fat?" "Isn't there a greater risk of injury?" These are understandable concerns, but they are only part of the picture.

What tends to get left out of the conversation is just as important, and that’s the horse's need for social contact, access to forage to keep the gut healthy and minimise the risk of equine gastric ulcer syndrome (EGUS), and for the freedom to move. It's worth remembering that feral horses may roam as much as 20 km a day. In stark contrast compare that with the life of a horse confined to a 12x12 stable for the majority of its day.

Until recently, we've also had surprisingly limited knowledge about how elite competition horses are actually managed day to day. In this instalment of Sue’s Science Snippets, I’m delighted to share with you a new French study that looked closely at exactly this question, and I think the findings are genuinely useful for anyone caring for horses, whether you're running a professional yard or keeping one horse at home.

What the researchers did

The study followed 56 horses competing internationally in dressage or show jumping: 12 mares, 30 geldings and 14 stallions [1]. All horses were worked five to seven days a week for up to an hour at a time, and competing regularly.

Each horse was observed every two minutes throughout a full working day, from 09.20 to 17.00 and their behaviours recorded. The researchers were watching for specific behavioural signs such ears back while eating, aggression towards people or other horses, hypervigilance, withdrawn behaviour, and stereotypies such as gnawing on stable bars, kicking doors, head shaking, licking non-food objects and tongue lolling. All of these are behaviours we associate with stress or a negative emotional state.

How were the horses managed?

Also recorded was how the horses were kept.

Forage: 57% of the horses had unrestricted access to forage, while 43% had their hay or haylage restricted.

Turnout: 39% of horses had less than one hour of turnout a week. A further 39% spent more time stabled than turned out each day, and only 21% spent more time turned out than stabled.

Social contact: Just 14% of the horses were able to have tactile contact with another horse - touching noses, mutual grooming, that sort of thing. 59% could sniff another horse without full contact, and 27% had visual contact only, with no ability to touch or sniff another horse at all.

The Impact this has on Behaviour

The behavioural differences between the groups were clear and, in several cases, statistically significant (see graph below).

Horses with free access to forage were far more likely to have their ears forward and showed noticeably fewer abnormal behaviours than horses on restricted forage .

Horses that were turned out regularly showed fewer abnormal behaviours than horses that were almost always stabled. The stabled horses were also more likely to pin their ears back while eating.

Horses that only had visual access to other horses showed more abnormal behaviours than those which could touch other horses.

The graph above shows the abnormal behaviour ratio (number of abnormal behaviours/ total observations) expressed as a percentage comparing unlimited or limited access to forage, turn out time exceeding time spent stabled, limited turnout or confinement to a stable and ability to touch, smell or see other horses. The boxes indicate the results for the middle 50% of horses, the horizontal black lines are the medians, and the vertical grey lines indicate the upper 25% of results.  Green indicates good, red is bad and amber could be improved on. , * and *** indicate statistically significant differences among groups.

The worries over obesity and injury

This is the part I think every yard owner and rider needs to hear: 98% of the horses in this study were judged to have an optimal body condition score. There was no evidence that free access to forage or turnout led to obesity. There was also no evidence that turning horses out increased their risk of injury.

There was no evidence in this research that turning horses out increased the risk of injury

In other words, the two most common reasons given for restricting forage and turnout - weight gain and injury - simply weren't backed up by what the researchers found in this group of horses.

From a practical point, it’s important to understand that social interactions are not reliant on horses being turned out together.

Stable design can be adapted to allow horses in adjacent stables to touch each other, for example.

Why this matters for equine performance

Ears back is a well-recognised sign of a negative emotional state in the horse. There is good evidence that horses in a positive emotional state learn more quickly and perform better than horses in a negative one. So, this isn't purely a welfare issue sitting separately from competition success - the two are connected. A horse that has consistent access to forage, some freedom to move, and the chance to interact with others is, based on the evidence here, likely to be a happier horse. A happier horse is also likely to be a more rewarding one to train and compete.

What We Can Learn from this Research

This study shows that some international competition horses genuinely do have friends, forage and freedom. Those horses had better welfare, based on the behaviours observed, than horses without these things. It also shows that plenty of top horses still don't have these opportunities, often because of assumptions about weight and injury risk that this research doesn't support.

With a bit of creative thinking there are ways horses can enjoy the 3 Fs - Friends, Forage and Freedom

We can change horses' lives for the better. It may take a little "thinking outside the box" when it comes to yard layout, routines, and turnout arrangements - but it can be done, even at the highest level. Riders like Ros Canter, Carl Hester and William Whitaker are already leading by example, showing that friends, forage and freedom and top-level competition success go together.

Reference

1        Phelipon R, Hennes N, Ruet A, Bret-Morel A, Górecka-Bruzda A and Lansade L (2024) Forage, freedom of movement, and social interactions remain essential fundamentals for the welfare of high-level sport horses. Front. Vet. Sci. 11:1504116. doi:10.3389/fvets.2024.1504116