A note on the time budget and social behaviour of densely housed horses

Benhajali, Haïfa; Richard‐Yris, Marie‐Annick; Leroux, Marine; Ezzaouïa, Mohammed; Charfi, Faouzia; Hausberger, Martine

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2007.08.007

Cited by 44 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…They found that the behavioural repertoire and the time-budget were affected: neither lying down, nor rolling were observed while locomotion was abnormally high. They also observed a very limited social life: no preferred partner, no allogrooming and only a few social interactions exclusively agonistic interactions (Benhajali et al, 2008). At that stage, both the high density and the lack of foraging opportunity could be responsible for these results.…”

Section: Resources Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Individual behaviour may vary over time and across situation as it is strongly influenced by life conditions. An altered welfare may be associated with a higher aggressiveness, as mentioned for instance in Benhajali et al (2008)'s study. Horses may well develop tendencies for generalized aggressiveness when in poor welfare conditions, as riding school horses were found to generalize negative behaviours from familiar to unfamiliar persons (Fureix et al, 2009) but also from other horses to humans, both being correlated (Fureix et al unpublished data).…”

Section: Conclusion: Towards Better Practicesmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Group density could also affect social behaviour (see Benhajali et al, 2008). Observing groups of horses in paddocks of about 100 m² per horse up to 75,000 m² per horse, Jorgensen et al (2009) reported that horses with the smallest space allowance showed the highest mean number of aggressive interactions (4.6 h -1 ) as compared to all other batches (1.3 h -1 ).…”

Section: Non Social Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The importance of foraging opportunities in regulating social interactions had been experimentally tested by Benhajali et al (Benhajali et al, 2008;Benhajali et al, 2009). In a first study, the authors drew up the behavioural repertoire and time-budget of a dense (200 mares/ha) group of 44 Arab breeding mares housed in individual boxes at night but kept 6 hours a day in a bare paddock.…”

Section: Resources Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring aggression regulation in managed groups of horses Equus caballus

Fureix

Bourjade²,

Henry

et al. 2012

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

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General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms 1 Exploring aggression regulation in managed groups of horses Equus caballusAbstract. Horses are highly social animals that have evolved to live in social groups.However, in modern husbandry systems, single housing prevails where horses experience social isolation, a challenge-to-welfare factor. One major reason for this single housing is the owners' concerns that horses may injure each other during aggressive encounters. However, in natural conditions, serious injuries due to aggressive encounters are rare. What could therefore explain the claimed risks of group living for domestic horses? Basing our questioning on the current knowledge of the social life of horses in natural conditions, we review different practices that may lead to higher levels of aggression in horses and propose practical solutions.Observations of natural and feral horses mostly indicate a predominance of low frequencies and mild forms of aggression, based on subtle communication signals and ritualized displays and made possible by group stability (i.e. stable composition), dominance hierarchy and learning of appropriate social skills by young horses. Obviously, adults play a major role here in canalizing undesirable behaviours, and social experience during development, associated with a diversity of social partners, seems to be a prerequisite for the young horse to become socially skilled.Given the natural propensity of horses to have a regulation of aggression in groups, the tendency to display more aggression in groups of domestic horses under some management practices seems clearly related to the conditions offered. We therefore review the managing practices that could trigger aggressiveness in horses. Non social practices (space, resource availability) and social practices (group size, stability of membership, composition and opportunities for social experiences during development) in groups of domestic horses are discussed here.2 Finally, we propose simple practical solutions leading to more peaceful interactions in groups of domestic horses, based on the knowledge of horses' natural social life which therefore should be enhanced (e.g. ensuring roughage availability, favouring group stability,, introducing socially experienced adults in groups of young horses;…). The state of the art indicates that many questions still need to be answered. Given the importance of the associated welfare issues and the consequences on the use of horses, further research is required, which could benefit horses… and humans.

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Section: Resources Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Conclusion: Towards Better Practicesmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Non Social Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resources Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Exploring aggression regulation in managed groups of horses Equus caballus

Fureix

Bourjade²,

Henry

et al. 2012

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

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“…In a recent paper (Benhajali et al, 2008), we drew up the -E-mail: martine.hausberger@univ-rennes1.fr behavioural repertoire and time budget of a dense group of Arab breeding mares (200 mares/ha) housed in individual boxes but allowed outside 6 h a day in a bare paddock where water and shelter were available. The study showed that in potentially inappropriate conditions of extreme social density and lack of foraging opportunities, the behavioural repertoire, the time budget and the social behaviour of the mares might be affected suggesting a state of a poor welfare.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foraging opportunity: a crucial criterion for horse welfare?

Benhajali

Richard‐Yris

Ezzaouïa³

et al. 2009

Animal

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This study aimed at determining the effect of the increase of foraging opportunities on the behaviour and welfare of breeding mares housed in individual boxes but allowed outside 6 h a day in a bare paddock. One hundred Arab breeding mares were divided into two groups of 50 according to the treatment and allowed outside in two bare paddocks at the same density (115 mare/ha) where water and shelter were provided. The treatment consisted in providing the opportunity to forage on hay. Twenty-minute animal focal samplings and scan samplings were used to determine the time budget of the mares during the period from 0900 to 1500 h and study their social behaviour. A total of 300 focal sampling (6000 min), 3300 individual scan sampling (6000 min) and 62 group observations (1240 min) corresponding to the 100 mares were recorded. Non-parametric tests were used to analyse data. Results showed that experimental mares spent more time feeding (65.12% 6 2.40% v. 29.75% 6 2.45%, P , 0.01) and less time in locomotion (11.70% 6 1.31% v. 23.56% 6 1.34%, P , 0.01), stand resting (11.76% 6 2.57% v. 27.52% 6 2.62%, P , 0.01) and alert standing (5.23% 6 1.2% v. 14.71% 6 1.23%, P , 0.01). There was more bonding among experimental mares than control ones (26 v. 14, P , 0.05). Experimental mares showed more positive social interactions (P , 0.01) and less aggression (P , 0.01). These results suggest that giving densely housed mares foraging opportunities improves their welfare.

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On the significance of adult play: what does social play tell us about adult horse welfare?

Hausberger

Fureix

Bourjade

et al. 2012

Naturwissenschaften

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Play remains a mystery and adult play even more so. More typical of young stages in healthy individuals, it occurs rarely at adult stages but then more often in captive/domestic animals, which can imply spatial, social and/or feeding deprivations or restrictions that are challenging to welfare, than in animals living in natural conditions. Here, we tested the hypothesis that adult play may reflect altered welfare states and chronic stress in horses, in which, as in several species, play rarely occurs at adult stages in natural conditions. We observed the behaviour (in particular, social play) of riding school horses during occasional outings in a paddock and measured several stress indicators when these horses were in their individual home boxes. Our results revealed that (1) the number of horses and rates of adult play appeared very high compared to field report data and (2) most stress indicators measured differed between 'players' and 'non-players', revealing that most 'playful' animals were suffering from more chronic stress than 'non-playful' horses. Frequency of play behaviour correlated with a score of chronic stress. This first discovery of a relationship between adult play and altered welfare opens new lines of research that certainly deserves comparative studies in a variety of species.

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A note on the time budget and social behaviour of densely housed horses

Cited by 44 publications

References 18 publications

Exploring aggression regulation in managed groups of horses Equus caballus

Exploring aggression regulation in managed groups of horses Equus caballus

Foraging opportunity: a crucial criterion for horse welfare?

On the significance of adult play: what does social play tell us about adult horse welfare?

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