09/08/2021
🧐 New research PROVES keeping horses confined in stables is detrimental to their welfare.
A brand new study released THIS YEAR by French researchers has found that horses stalled with enrichments, such as forage, windows and toys etc, still exhibited signs of stress and depression associated with confinement.
Putting toys, mirrors, hanging balls & bells, windows, more feed, straw bedding in their stalls, DO NOT make horses ‘happier’.
Regardless of their ‘enrichment’, the longer they are kept isolated from other horses, boxed in individual stalls, the longer they are confined, the more extreme the behavioural signs of poor welfare were exhibited.
“There’s this idea that adding toys and brushes and windows and different bedding can make stalled horses’ life dramatically better, but that’s clearly a myth,” said Léa Lansade, PhD, of the French Horse and Riding Institute and the National Institute for Agricultural Research’s behavior science department, in Tours, France.
“This kind of ‘enrichment’ can’t replace what’s essential, which is to give horses the possibility to express the basic behaviors of their species: move freely, have social contacts, and access forage throughout the day,” she explained.
👉 The researchers looked for four distinct behavioral signs of poor welfare:
- stereotypies - crib-biting, wind-sucking, and weaving, primarily
- aggression toward humans - biting and threats
- a “depressed state” bodily posture - neck and back at about the same level, with low ears and poor response to any kind of stimulus
- and stress-related behaviors - such as “acting nervous” with a high neck and excessive alertness or frequent defecation
The team found that enrichment had little effect on signs of POOR WELFARE, said Lansade. “Our results with these horses showed that these little ‘improvements’ we do in stalls just aren’t sufficient,” she said.
What the researchers did find is that over time, the horses’ welfare worsened. 🥺
“The horse, which has lived in open spaces for the last several millennia with unrestricted access to forage and especially while establishing strong and complex social relationships with other horses, just isn’t made for living alone, isolated in a box, regardless of how well-set-up it is,”.
Read the research here: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/9/621
To learn more about keeping your horse as natural as possible AND BAREFOOT read The Barefoot Horse Magazine - in PRINT & DIGITAL.
👉To read the latest issue 24 👉http://bit.ly/BHMIssue24
👉or SUBSCRIBE and never miss an issue👉http://bit.ly/ANNUALsub
******SHIPPED WORLDWIDE!******
The BHM Team ❤️