Effects of a temporary period on pasture on the welfare state of horses housed in individual boxes

Ruet, Alice; Arnould, Cécile; Levray, Justine; Lemarchand, Julie; Mach, Núria; Moisan, Marie-Pierre; Foury, Aline; Briant, Christine; Lansade, Léa

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2020.105027

Cited by 13 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Fig. 5a-c), as reported elsewhere 19 . Furthermore, the pasture horses tended to express more alert postures than the control group up to 3 months after the return to the individual boxes (T5; W(1) = 160.5, p = 0.07; Fig.…”

Section: Effects Of a Temporary Period At Pasture On The Fecal Microbsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…The present study included a total of 45 elite sport horses that had lived in individual boxes since they were three years old and cared for under similar conditions. The animal cohort and criteria of inclusion have been previously described by Mach et al 8 and Ruet et al 19 . Horses were recruited from a cohort of 376 individuals housed at the French National Riding School, in Saumur (France).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Horses were recruited from a cohort of 376 individuals housed at the French National Riding School, in Saumur (France). Out of 376 individuals, 185 were included in the study by Mach et al 8 and 60 were used for the study by Ruet et al 19 . The 45 individuals enrolled in the present study were shared by both, Mach et al 8 and Ruet et al 19 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, data related to the resilience and dynamics of the fecal microbiota as a proxy for the gastrointestinal microbiome in chronically-stressed horses are scant. While formal proof is missing in horses, a prevailing hypothesis is that the impact of the long-term physical and emotional stress in elite athletes individually housed could be alleviated by allowing individuals to benefit from a temporary period in a more natural environment, such as out to pasture with conspecifics 19 . In turn, this sudden and single short-term exposition to a more natural environment could be beneficial for the gut microbiota (e.g., increasing diversity, reducing abundance of proinflammatory taxa and rare pathobionts and increasing abundance of putatively beneficial taxa).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Gut microbiota resilience in horse athletes following holidays out to pasture

Mach

Lansade

Bars-Cortina

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Elite horse athletes that live in individual boxes and train and compete for hours experience long-term physical and mental stress that compromises animal welfare and alters the gut microbiota. We therefore assessed if a temporary period out to pasture with conspecifics could improve animal welfare and in turn, favorably affect intestinal microbiota composition. A total of 27 athletes were monitored before and after a period of 1.5 months out to pasture, and their fecal microbiota and behavior profiles were compared to those of 18 horses kept in individual boxes. The overall diversity and microbiota composition of pasture and control individuals were temporally similar, suggesting resilience to environmental challenges. However, pasture exposure induced an increase in Ruminococcus and Coprococcus that lasted 1-month after the return to individual boxes, which may have promoted beneficial effects on health and welfare. Associations between the gut microbiota composition and behavior indicating poor welfare were established. Furthermore, withdrawn behavior was associated with the relative abundances of Lachnospiraceae AC2044 group and Clostridiales family XIII. Both accommodate a large part of butyrate-producing bacterial genera. While we cannot infer causality within this study, arguably, these findings suggest that management practices maintained over a longer period of time may moderate the behavior link to the gut ecosystem beyond its resilience potential.

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Section: Effects Of a Temporary Period At Pasture On The Fecal Microbsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gut microbiota resilience in horse athletes following holidays out to pasture

Mach

Lansade

Bars-Cortina

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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“…Pasture may only improve emotional wellbeing whilst cows are at pasture, without persisting after they go inside. Ruet et al 91 found that, when confined indoors again, horses given pasture access rapidly returned to previous poor welfare states. Conversely, Anderson and Adolphs 92 identified persistence as a defining feature of emotions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimism and pasture access in dairy cows

Crump

Jenkins

Bethell

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Allowing dairy cattle to access pasture can promote natural behaviour and improve their health. However, the psychological benefits are poorly understood. We compared a cognitive indicator of emotion in cattle either with or without pasture access. In a crossover experiment, 29 Holstein–Friesian dairy cows had 18 days of overnight pasture access and 18 days of full-time indoor housing. To assess emotional wellbeing, we tested cows on a spatial judgement bias task. Subjects learnt to approach a rewarded bucket location, but not approach another, unrewarded bucket location. We then presented cows with three “probe” buckets intermediate between the trained locations. Approaching the probes reflected an expectation of reward under ambiguity—an “optimistic” judgement bias, suggesting positive emotional states. We analysed the data using linear mixed-effects models. There were no treatment differences in latency to approach the probe buckets, but cows approached the known rewarded bucket slower when they had pasture access than when they were indoors full-time. Our results indicate that, compared to cattle housed indoors, cattle with pasture access display less anticipatory behaviour towards a known reward. This reduced reward anticipation suggests that pasture is a more rewarding environment, which may induce more positive emotional states than full-time housing.

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What drives horse success at following human-given cues? An investigation of handler familiarity and living conditions

et al. 2023

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Cues such as the human pointing gesture, gaze or proximity to an object are widely used in behavioural studies to evaluate animals’ abilities to follow human-given cues. Many domestic mammals, such as horses, can follow human cues; however, factors influencing their responses are still unclear. We assessed the performance of 57 horses at a two-way choice task testing their ability to follow cues of either a familiar (N = 28) or an unfamiliar informant (N = 29). We investigated the effects of the length of the relationship between the horse and a familiar person (main caregiver), their social environment (living alone, in dyads, or in groups) and their physical environment (living in stalls/paddocks, alternating between paddocks and pastures, or living full time in pastures). We also controlled for the effects of horses’ age and sex. Our results showed that horses’ success rate at the task was not affected by the familiarity of the informant and did not improve with the relationship length with the familiar informant but did increase with the age of the horses. Horses living in groups had better success than the ones kept either in dyads or alone. Finally, horses housed in small paddocks had lower success than those living on pasture. These results indicate that with age, horses get better at following human-given indications regardless of who the human informant is and that an appropriate living and social environment could contribute to the development of socio-cognitive skills towards humans. Therefore, such aspects should be considered in studies evaluating animal behaviour.

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Effects of a temporary period on pasture on the welfare state of horses housed in individual boxes

Cited by 13 publications

References 48 publications

Gut microbiota resilience in horse athletes following holidays out to pasture

Gut microbiota resilience in horse athletes following holidays out to pasture

Optimism and pasture access in dairy cows

What drives horse success at following human-given cues? An investigation of handler familiarity and living conditions

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