Stall architecture influences horses’ behaviour and the prevalence and type of stereotypies

Lesimple, Clémence; Gautier, Emmanuel; Benhajali, Haïfa; Rochais, Céline; Lunel, Christophe; Bensaïd, Samia; Khalloufi, Adala; Henry, Séverine; Hausberger, Martine

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2019.104833

Cited by 28 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Behavioural repertoire Stereotypic/Abnormal Repetitive Behaviours (SB/ARB) [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51] x x…”

Section: Behaviouralmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…SB/ARB can appear as soon as 3 weeks after stabling [44]. Inappropriate management of adult horses has also been shown to facilitate SB/ARB emergence (social isolation [44,45]; spatial restriction [43], visual horizon [46,47], feeding [48,49], working conditions [50,51]); whereas efforts to provide conditions closer to natural conditions [47,79] or to decrease potential frustration [47,48] decreased their prevalence. Expression of SB/ARB is related to physiological and health disorders [46,54,80,81].…”

Section: Modifications Of Horses' Behavioural Repertoirementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many studies of horses focus on "traditionally" recognized stereotypic behaviours (i.e., cribbing, windsucking, weaving, pacing, pawing, head tossing/nodding), but it is crucial to take into account other more subtle ARB (e.g., compulsive licking/biting/kicking, other head movements, tongue movements, complex sequences, see also [35,42,91]) to ensure a reliable evaluation. The expression of SB/ARB by stereotypic horses seems to be strongly context-dependent (in individual stalls rather than in pasture, with a large outside visual horizon rather than in indoor stalls, mostly before meals [42,46,47]), highlighting the importance of choosing the right time to assess their prevalence.…”

Section: Modifications Of Horses' Behavioural Repertoirementioning

confidence: 99%

“…When horses are placed under inappropriate living conditions, this time budget may be modified. Thus, horses living under inappropriate environmental conditions were observed to decrease time resting (including sleep) [47,55,81], increase their aggressiveness towards conspecifics [53,55,92] and increase their active locomotion patterns (including active walk, trot, canter, [53,55,56]). Lack of rest/sleep in situations favouring the expression of stereotypic behaviours [47] was related to an increase of pathological behaviours [59], whereas horses with deprived social competencies increased their aggressiveness and their reproduction abilities decreased [57,93].…”

Section: Modification Of the Horses' Time Budgetmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Indicators of Horse Welfare: State-of-the-Art

Lesimple

2020

Animals

Self Cite

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Animal welfare is defined as a chronic state reflecting an individual’s subjective perception of its situation. Because it is possible to be in a good welfare state and nevertheless experience acute fear or pain, and conversely, short-term positive emotions can be experienced during impaired welfare states, welfare as a chronic state has to be clearly distinguished from temporary states related to emotions, pain or stress. The evaluation of non-verbal individuals’ welfare state, particularly in interspecific situations, is a real challenge that necessarily implies animal-based measures and requires multidisciplinary scientifically validated measures. In the last decade, studies investigating horses’ welfare flourished together with new measures that were not always scientifically tested before being used. At a time were legal decisions are made on animal welfare, it is crucial to rely on reliable welfare indicators in order to prevent false evaluation. The aim of this review is to identify the scientifically tested and reliable indicators of horses’ welfare (e.g., body lesions, apathy, aggressiveness, stereotypic behaviours) from signals of temporary states related to acute pain emotions or stress and from popular beliefs, in order to give the scientific community and the horse industry accurate evaluation tools.

show abstract

“…Behavioural repertoire Stereotypic/Abnormal Repetitive Behaviours (SB/ARB) [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51] x x…”

Section: Behaviouralmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Modifications Of Horses' Behavioural Repertoirementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Modifications Of Horses' Behavioural Repertoirementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Modification Of the Horses' Time Budgetmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Indicators of Horse Welfare: State-of-the-Art

Lesimple

2020

Animals

Self Cite

109

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Resource-based indicators, absent from SEBWAT, may be a problem in other protocols. Although there is one publication on stall size and lying behavior [77], there is no clear knowledge of what an "optimal" stall size should be, especially as it is an inappropriate housing from the start (e.g., [70,78]). Should not future protocols indicate that being permanently in a single stall is per se a welfare alteration?…”

Section: Welfare Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On-Farm Welfare Assessment of Horses: The Risks of Putting the Cart before the Horse

Hausberger

Lerch

Guilbaud

et al. 2020

Animals

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although the question of animal welfare has been an important source of concern in the scientific community for several decades, many aspects are still under debate. On-farm assessments have to be rapid, acceptable to farmers and safe for both the assessors and animals. They are thus very demanding, with multiple decisions to make, such as the choice of appropriate indicators, sampling methods and scoring. Research has moved from resource-based to animal-based criteria, which reflects the subjective welfare state of an animal rather than relying upon external indices. In the present review, we describe two major (i.e., the most frequently/recently tested or disseminated) protocols: one in low-/middle-income countries, and the other in high-income countries, for on-farm assessments of horses, using animal-based resources; we evaluate their strengths and limitations, and then we compare their results with those obtained by various other studies. We propose lines of improvement, particularly in view of public dissemination, and offer suggestions for further refinement or new protocols. We emphasize the high risks of putting the cart before the horse, i.e., proposing protocols that rely upon indicators and sampling methods that need to be refined, as this could lead to under-evaluation (or less likely over-evaluation) of current welfare problems. Because welfare is a subjective experience, the true representation of an individual’s actual welfare status has to be evaluated by using objective assessment tools (that are validated and have a scientific basis) used by well-trained observers.

show abstract

Free movement: A key for welfare improvement in sport horses?

Lesimple

Reverchon-Billot

Galloux³

et al. 2020

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Horses, and in particular sport horses, remain housed predominantly in single stalls. One of the main reported reasons is the fear that they will become agitated and injure themselves and thereby impair their performance if released in paddocks. The hour spent daily at work is also assumed to be sufficient to satisfy the horses' needs for locomotion. Growing scientific evidence shows that single stall housing has negative consequences on horses' welfare and that time for free movement is necessary. Our aim was to assess the feasibility of allowing sport horses used to staying permanently in their stall (except for 1hour riding/day) daily free time in a paddock and to evaluate its potential impact on their welfare using two behavioural reliable indicators (stereotypic behaviours and ear position), as well as selected blood parameters (blood cell count, oxytocin and serotonin concentrations). Two experiments were conducted on the same site. The first experiment evaluated sport horses' habituation to the novel situation of daily sessions in a paddock, and recorded welfare indicators in their stall before and during the experiment, comparing horses that were taken outdoors (experimental) and those that stayed in their stall (control). The second experiment evaluated the impact of this daily free time in a paddock on horses' welfare and its durability, focusing on positive indicators.. Behavioural observations in paddocks showed that even horses that had never experienced free movement outside their stall habituated rapidly to this situation. The presence of hay in the paddock, may have speeded up habituation. Their restricted living conditions were associated with abnormalities in blood cell count that were not overcome during the time of daily paddock sessions but behavioural indicators showed that their welfare improved. In the second study, the experimental horses' welfare improved during the paddock release period, in particular their stereotypic behaviours decreased and oxytocin levels increased. No effects on serotonin concentrations could be evidenced. These effects were directly associated with being in paddock, as the indicators returned rapidly to their previous levels indicating compromised welfare when the paddock release sessions stopped. In conclusion, it can be recommended to release sport horses for free movement in paddocks as welfare is improved and subjective assessment by caretakers indicated minimal risks.

show abstract

Stall architecture influences horses’ behaviour and the prevalence and type of stereotypies

Cited by 28 publications

References 51 publications

Indicators of Horse Welfare: State-of-the-Art

Indicators of Horse Welfare: State-of-the-Art

On-Farm Welfare Assessment of Horses: The Risks of Putting the Cart before the Horse

Free movement: A key for welfare improvement in sport horses?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About