Horses with Limited Social Skills
By: Mila Bon, July 22, 2012.
Guidelines for Socialization
Introduction
Most foals are weaned at 4-6 months and sometimes even sooner, while feral foals are not weaned before they reach the age of 8-9 months and sometimes even later. Even though there is sufficient scientific evidence showing that weaning practices and horse husbandry where foals are raised in mixed groups with adults do not result in more injury, but results in better trainable horses, breeders still prefer to keep foals either in individual stalls or in groups based on age and sex. Foals that are kept individually will not be able to develop the necessary social skills required for group housing as they would not have any exposure to, and close contact with other horses except for the little time they had with their dam. Foals kept in groups based on age and sex will develop limited social skills and display overall more aggression (Fureix et al., 2012). These management practices of weaning at a young age and failure to provide a more diverse group composition, which would expose foals to a variety of social interactions, are limiting foals in their social experience and are making it difficult for them to adapt to group life. The fact that most horses are stabled and are in close proximity for prolonged periods of time with conspecifics that might or might not be a good match and the fact that they cannot remove themselves from their presence as they might have in group settings is often cause of additional stress and increased frustration that may lead to aggression. Even though agonistic interaction in a stable herd is usually very mild and consists mostly of threats, domestic horses are often not turned out in groups for fear of injury and a guideline for socialization of horses with limited social skills would provide the necessary tools to safely introduce horses into a stable group.
Ethological needs and innate behaviour
Although non-voluntary domestic groups have a different composition and structure than feral groups and therefore have more agonistic interactions that could result in injury, keeping horses in groups for most of the day is preferable from a horse welfare point of view. Even though adaptation abilities of domestic horses might have slightly changed (for instance paedomorphosis occurs in domestication through artificial selection and results in juvenile behavioural tendencies in adult horses (McGreevy & McClean, 2010)), overall the natural behaviours have not. Allogrooming, and to a lesser extend, play, are ethological needs that have to be fulfilled. They are self rewarding by the production of endogenous opioids and susceptible to develop into stereotypies when denied (VanDierendonck et al. 2012).
Optimizing Management Practices
In order to create an optimum integration scenario the basic necessities of the herd have to be met before introduction of any new member.
1. Space has to be adequate for the number of horses, including the newcomer. It has to provide open areas for locomotion and resting places with shade and shelter;
2. Grazing lowers the overall social interaction including aggression (Fureix et al., 2012). This may be an advantage at first in terms of less instances of agonistic interaction, but also means that the development of refined social skills in the newcomer might be delayed. This has to be taken into account when horses are turned out into paddocks when the weather changes;
3. If pasture grass is not sufficient, or in case of turn out in a paddock, forage and water has to be readily available, placed where all horses can eat and drink without fear or chance of being cornered, preferably in multiple locations with enough ‘flight distance’;
4. Shelter against the elements should be adequate for the group size and available for the more dominant as well as the more subordinate horses without the chance of crowding, which could result in aggressive interactions;
5. Feeding of concentrates in the turn out area or pasture would have to be done with the utmost care, as this highly palatable feed would most likely create aggressive interactions over this limited resource, so care has to be taken that the newcomer will be able to satisfy its nutritional demands;
6. When feeding concentrates in the turn out area / pasture, the space between individual feeding stations has to be adequate and can not be obstructed from view between group members, so that each horse will be able to determine if any threats from conspecifics are evident;
7. Regrouping should be avoided as it creates unstable groups and increases agonistic interaction (Christensen et al., 2011).
Determining Herd Stability
1. The group should not be too large, between 1 and 6 in number as most feral bands consist of 2 to 7 individual horses;
2. Group stability should be kept at optimum levels by keeping the group as a whole as much as possible as regularly separating pair bonded group members will be a cause of stress for the whole group;
3. Herd stability results in low agonistic interactions. The longer horses have been together and the fewer changes in group members have been made, the better chance that the herd is and stays stable. In order to define herd stability, management should be asked the following questions:
a) Have you regrouped in the past month?
b) Have there been any changes in group composition in the past month?
c) When horses are taken out of the group for exercise or other, are there any vocalizations coming from any other group members for longer than 10 min?
d) Did any of the herd members show any bite or kick marks in the past 3 months?
e) Were there ever any injuries from agonistic behaviour resulting in lameness?
f) Is there ever any agonistic behaviour between group members outside the group?
Interpretation of Findings
6 no’s A stable group
5 no’s Fairly stable group
4 no’s Somewhat unstable group
3 no’s Fairly unstable group
2 no’s Very unstable group
1 no Group setting unsafe
Selection Criteria for Composed Temporal Preferred Relationships
Horses with poor social skills would benefit from pre-exposure to reduce contact aggression and biting and bite threats shown while in stalls or paddocks that are side by side may help to predict contact aggression when horses are later turned out together (Hartmann et al., 2009). It will also allow social skills to be somewhat refined before introduction into the herd. When selecting a horse for composed pair bonding, comparable age would be more appropriate than selection based on sex, as adult horses form dyadic social bonds. However, if a mare is available this would be preferred for the fact that mares are highly motivated for social contact (Søndergaard et al., 2011). Affiliation with a horse of higher rank will elevate the rank of the affiliate that it maintains a close relationship with (McGreevy, 2004), but these relationships are often vigorously defended by the subordinate horse. Therefore, a horse high in rank would not be the most appropriate selection for composed pair bonding for a horse with limited social skills. Also, most agonistic interaction takes place between middle ranked horses (McGreevy, 2004). It is possible that social triangles, which form mostly in the middle of the hierarchy (McGreevy, 2004) are at the root of this phenomenon. If a young mare of lower social rank is available it would probably be the most suitable horse to start with, as long as the newcomer is not overly aggressive. Horses are capable of social cognition by observing interaction of others (Kruger, 2008). It is therefore probable that adding a third horse to the mix after the initial composed pair bonding, will allow the newcomer to learn by observation and gather information on its own social status.
Introduction to the Support Horse
Horses selected for pair bonding should be pre-exposed to each other and stalled side by side in order to get acquainted (Hartman et al., 2009). This may be repeated with a second group member that can be added either simultaneously or after pair bonding has taken place as long as this horse has not pair bonded with the horse initially selected for pair bonding with the newcomer, in order to avoid intervention aggression which could result in injury, as horses use intervention in affiliative interaction to safeguard their social network (VanDierendonck et al., 2009). Subsequently when horses are not showing tension or aggression towards each other, muzzle contact can be allowed. After muzzle contact without aggression, or after initial aggression has subsided, both horses can be turned out in a paddock divided by a rope so that more extensive olfactory investigation may occur in a safe and controlled manner. It is important to observe if the newcomer responds to any offensive threads by immediately lowering its head or looking away as this shows that it will respond appropriately to higher ranked members of the group.
Introduction to Herd
Horses show an early morning peak in their plasma beta-endorphin concentrations and are at that time likely to be least sensitive to noxious stimuli (McGreevy & McLean, 2010), which would make this time of day possibly preferential to any other time to introduce the newcomer to the herd, provided that the weather conditions and pasture / paddock conditions are in favour to do so. One can imagine that strong winds, heavy rain and muddy or icy conditions are not favourable and will increase the chance of injury. If at all possible it will reduce the stress in the newcomer if the new pasture / paddock could be introduced first without any horses present by hand walking on the inside perimeter. This will also allow the newcomer some olfactory investigation of manure and urine from future group members and to deposit its own. If possible, the newcomer and the group members can be observed before introduction takes place by walking the newcomer on the outside perimeter and watch for overly aggressive reactions from both group members and the newcomer at greetings over the fence line.
Intervention: When is it required?
Intervention when the newcomer is turned out with the group should be avoided as it is too dangerous for humans to attempt. At the unlikely event that with all the preparations the newcomer is driven into a corner and possible injury is evident, the group members might be persuaded to leave it alone for a bucket of carrots away from the newcomer, from where one can decide to remove the newcomer from the pasture / paddock. However, most aggressive interactions are based on limited resources or limited space (Jørgensen et al. 2009) and this should be addressed before any attempt should be made. It is considered normal to welcome a newcomer with several threads of bites or kicks in order to establish the newcomers social status within the group as each horse’s position is held by a blend of aggression and appeasement behaviour (McGreevy, 2004). Even actual biting, kicking and chasing is considered normal, but only at introduction, this should be replaced by simple threads as soon as the newcomer shows the proper responses of submission, like removing itself to a safe distance, lowering head, chewing, licking and looking away.
Conclusion
These guidelines are a result of personal experience combined with the findings in several scientific research papers and are guidelines only. Although we always have to keep in the back of our mind that involuntary mixed groups are different from feral groups in the following ways:
- There are no stallions, but geldings
- Geldings have no reproductive motivations
- Mares do have reproductive motivations
- There might be different breeds
- They can’t leave voluntarily
- They have no influence on who joins
- The home range is usually many times smaller than with feral horses
Great care has to be taken when introducing horses into an established group, even more so when horses are known to have limited social skills, but this should not deter horse owners from providing their horse with necessary social interaction. As long as space and resources are not limited, horses that are turned out together will teach each other the necessary social skills and will work out a stable social hierarchy in order to spend their energy on what’s most important: group survival.
References:
Christensen, J.W., Søndergaard, E., Thodberg, K., Halekoh, U., 2011. “Effects of repeated regrouping on horse behaviour and injuries.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 133 (2011) 199-206.
Fureix, C., Bourjade, M., Henry, S., Sankey, C., Hausberger, M., 2012. “Exploring aggression regulation in managed groups of horses Equus Caballus.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 138 (2012) 216-228.
Hartman, E., Winther Christensen, J., Keeling, L.J., 2009. “Social interactions of unfamiliar horses during paired encounters: Effect of pre-exposure on aggression level and so risk of injury.”, Applied Animal Behaviour Science 121 (2009) 214-221.
Jørgensen, G.H.M., Borsheim, L., Mejdell, C.M., Søndergaard, E., Bøe, K.E., 2009. “Grouping horses according to gender – Effects on aggression, spacing and injuries. Applied Animal Behaviour Science (August 2009), 120 (1-2), pg. 94-99.
Kreuger, K., Heinze, J., 2008. “Horse sense: social status of horses (Equus caballus) affects their likelihood of copying other horses’ behaviour”. Anim Cogn (2008) 11:431-439.
McGreevy, P.D., 2004. “Equine Behavior: A Guide for Veterinarians and Equine Scientists”, Philadelphia: Elsevier Limited. ISBN 0 7020 2634 4.
McGreevy P.D., McLean A., 2010. “Equitation Science”, Wiley Blackwell, UK, ISBN 2009048321.
McGreevy, P.D., 2007. “The advent of equitation science”, The Veterinary Journal 174 (2007) 492-500.
Søndergaard, E., Bak Jensen, M., Nicol, C.J. (2011), “Motivation for social contact in horses measured by operant conditioning” Applied Animal Behaviour Science (July 2011), 132 (3-4), pg. 131-137.
VanDierendonck, M. C., Spruijt, B.M. (2012), “Coping in groups of domestic horses – Review from a social and neurobiological perspective”.Applied Animal Behaviour Science 138 (2012) 194– 202.
VanDierendonck, M. C., The Vries, H., Schilder, M.B.H., Colenbrander, B., Guorun Porhallsdottir, A, Sigurjonsdottir,H., (2009), “Interventions in social behaviour in a herd of mares and geldings”.Applied Animal Behaviour Science 116 (2009) 67-73.
Guidelines for Socialization
Introduction
Most foals are weaned at 4-6 months and sometimes even sooner, while feral foals are not weaned before they reach the age of 8-9 months and sometimes even later. Even though there is sufficient scientific evidence showing that weaning practices and horse husbandry where foals are raised in mixed groups with adults do not result in more injury, but results in better trainable horses, breeders still prefer to keep foals either in individual stalls or in groups based on age and sex. Foals that are kept individually will not be able to develop the necessary social skills required for group housing as they would not have any exposure to, and close contact with other horses except for the little time they had with their dam. Foals kept in groups based on age and sex will develop limited social skills and display overall more aggression (Fureix et al., 2012). These management practices of weaning at a young age and failure to provide a more diverse group composition, which would expose foals to a variety of social interactions, are limiting foals in their social experience and are making it difficult for them to adapt to group life. The fact that most horses are stabled and are in close proximity for prolonged periods of time with conspecifics that might or might not be a good match and the fact that they cannot remove themselves from their presence as they might have in group settings is often cause of additional stress and increased frustration that may lead to aggression. Even though agonistic interaction in a stable herd is usually very mild and consists mostly of threats, domestic horses are often not turned out in groups for fear of injury and a guideline for socialization of horses with limited social skills would provide the necessary tools to safely introduce horses into a stable group.
Ethological needs and innate behaviour
Although non-voluntary domestic groups have a different composition and structure than feral groups and therefore have more agonistic interactions that could result in injury, keeping horses in groups for most of the day is preferable from a horse welfare point of view. Even though adaptation abilities of domestic horses might have slightly changed (for instance paedomorphosis occurs in domestication through artificial selection and results in juvenile behavioural tendencies in adult horses (McGreevy & McClean, 2010)), overall the natural behaviours have not. Allogrooming, and to a lesser extend, play, are ethological needs that have to be fulfilled. They are self rewarding by the production of endogenous opioids and susceptible to develop into stereotypies when denied (VanDierendonck et al. 2012).
Optimizing Management Practices
In order to create an optimum integration scenario the basic necessities of the herd have to be met before introduction of any new member.
1. Space has to be adequate for the number of horses, including the newcomer. It has to provide open areas for locomotion and resting places with shade and shelter;
2. Grazing lowers the overall social interaction including aggression (Fureix et al., 2012). This may be an advantage at first in terms of less instances of agonistic interaction, but also means that the development of refined social skills in the newcomer might be delayed. This has to be taken into account when horses are turned out into paddocks when the weather changes;
3. If pasture grass is not sufficient, or in case of turn out in a paddock, forage and water has to be readily available, placed where all horses can eat and drink without fear or chance of being cornered, preferably in multiple locations with enough ‘flight distance’;
4. Shelter against the elements should be adequate for the group size and available for the more dominant as well as the more subordinate horses without the chance of crowding, which could result in aggressive interactions;
5. Feeding of concentrates in the turn out area or pasture would have to be done with the utmost care, as this highly palatable feed would most likely create aggressive interactions over this limited resource, so care has to be taken that the newcomer will be able to satisfy its nutritional demands;
6. When feeding concentrates in the turn out area / pasture, the space between individual feeding stations has to be adequate and can not be obstructed from view between group members, so that each horse will be able to determine if any threats from conspecifics are evident;
7. Regrouping should be avoided as it creates unstable groups and increases agonistic interaction (Christensen et al., 2011).
Determining Herd Stability
1. The group should not be too large, between 1 and 6 in number as most feral bands consist of 2 to 7 individual horses;
2. Group stability should be kept at optimum levels by keeping the group as a whole as much as possible as regularly separating pair bonded group members will be a cause of stress for the whole group;
3. Herd stability results in low agonistic interactions. The longer horses have been together and the fewer changes in group members have been made, the better chance that the herd is and stays stable. In order to define herd stability, management should be asked the following questions:
a) Have you regrouped in the past month?
b) Have there been any changes in group composition in the past month?
c) When horses are taken out of the group for exercise or other, are there any vocalizations coming from any other group members for longer than 10 min?
d) Did any of the herd members show any bite or kick marks in the past 3 months?
e) Were there ever any injuries from agonistic behaviour resulting in lameness?
f) Is there ever any agonistic behaviour between group members outside the group?
Interpretation of Findings
6 no’s A stable group
5 no’s Fairly stable group
4 no’s Somewhat unstable group
3 no’s Fairly unstable group
2 no’s Very unstable group
1 no Group setting unsafe
Selection Criteria for Composed Temporal Preferred Relationships
Horses with poor social skills would benefit from pre-exposure to reduce contact aggression and biting and bite threats shown while in stalls or paddocks that are side by side may help to predict contact aggression when horses are later turned out together (Hartmann et al., 2009). It will also allow social skills to be somewhat refined before introduction into the herd. When selecting a horse for composed pair bonding, comparable age would be more appropriate than selection based on sex, as adult horses form dyadic social bonds. However, if a mare is available this would be preferred for the fact that mares are highly motivated for social contact (Søndergaard et al., 2011). Affiliation with a horse of higher rank will elevate the rank of the affiliate that it maintains a close relationship with (McGreevy, 2004), but these relationships are often vigorously defended by the subordinate horse. Therefore, a horse high in rank would not be the most appropriate selection for composed pair bonding for a horse with limited social skills. Also, most agonistic interaction takes place between middle ranked horses (McGreevy, 2004). It is possible that social triangles, which form mostly in the middle of the hierarchy (McGreevy, 2004) are at the root of this phenomenon. If a young mare of lower social rank is available it would probably be the most suitable horse to start with, as long as the newcomer is not overly aggressive. Horses are capable of social cognition by observing interaction of others (Kruger, 2008). It is therefore probable that adding a third horse to the mix after the initial composed pair bonding, will allow the newcomer to learn by observation and gather information on its own social status.
Introduction to the Support Horse
Horses selected for pair bonding should be pre-exposed to each other and stalled side by side in order to get acquainted (Hartman et al., 2009). This may be repeated with a second group member that can be added either simultaneously or after pair bonding has taken place as long as this horse has not pair bonded with the horse initially selected for pair bonding with the newcomer, in order to avoid intervention aggression which could result in injury, as horses use intervention in affiliative interaction to safeguard their social network (VanDierendonck et al., 2009). Subsequently when horses are not showing tension or aggression towards each other, muzzle contact can be allowed. After muzzle contact without aggression, or after initial aggression has subsided, both horses can be turned out in a paddock divided by a rope so that more extensive olfactory investigation may occur in a safe and controlled manner. It is important to observe if the newcomer responds to any offensive threads by immediately lowering its head or looking away as this shows that it will respond appropriately to higher ranked members of the group.
Introduction to Herd
Horses show an early morning peak in their plasma beta-endorphin concentrations and are at that time likely to be least sensitive to noxious stimuli (McGreevy & McLean, 2010), which would make this time of day possibly preferential to any other time to introduce the newcomer to the herd, provided that the weather conditions and pasture / paddock conditions are in favour to do so. One can imagine that strong winds, heavy rain and muddy or icy conditions are not favourable and will increase the chance of injury. If at all possible it will reduce the stress in the newcomer if the new pasture / paddock could be introduced first without any horses present by hand walking on the inside perimeter. This will also allow the newcomer some olfactory investigation of manure and urine from future group members and to deposit its own. If possible, the newcomer and the group members can be observed before introduction takes place by walking the newcomer on the outside perimeter and watch for overly aggressive reactions from both group members and the newcomer at greetings over the fence line.
Intervention: When is it required?
Intervention when the newcomer is turned out with the group should be avoided as it is too dangerous for humans to attempt. At the unlikely event that with all the preparations the newcomer is driven into a corner and possible injury is evident, the group members might be persuaded to leave it alone for a bucket of carrots away from the newcomer, from where one can decide to remove the newcomer from the pasture / paddock. However, most aggressive interactions are based on limited resources or limited space (Jørgensen et al. 2009) and this should be addressed before any attempt should be made. It is considered normal to welcome a newcomer with several threads of bites or kicks in order to establish the newcomers social status within the group as each horse’s position is held by a blend of aggression and appeasement behaviour (McGreevy, 2004). Even actual biting, kicking and chasing is considered normal, but only at introduction, this should be replaced by simple threads as soon as the newcomer shows the proper responses of submission, like removing itself to a safe distance, lowering head, chewing, licking and looking away.
Conclusion
These guidelines are a result of personal experience combined with the findings in several scientific research papers and are guidelines only. Although we always have to keep in the back of our mind that involuntary mixed groups are different from feral groups in the following ways:
- There are no stallions, but geldings
- Geldings have no reproductive motivations
- Mares do have reproductive motivations
- There might be different breeds
- They can’t leave voluntarily
- They have no influence on who joins
- The home range is usually many times smaller than with feral horses
Great care has to be taken when introducing horses into an established group, even more so when horses are known to have limited social skills, but this should not deter horse owners from providing their horse with necessary social interaction. As long as space and resources are not limited, horses that are turned out together will teach each other the necessary social skills and will work out a stable social hierarchy in order to spend their energy on what’s most important: group survival.
References:
Christensen, J.W., Søndergaard, E., Thodberg, K., Halekoh, U., 2011. “Effects of repeated regrouping on horse behaviour and injuries.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 133 (2011) 199-206.
Fureix, C., Bourjade, M., Henry, S., Sankey, C., Hausberger, M., 2012. “Exploring aggression regulation in managed groups of horses Equus Caballus.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 138 (2012) 216-228.
Hartman, E., Winther Christensen, J., Keeling, L.J., 2009. “Social interactions of unfamiliar horses during paired encounters: Effect of pre-exposure on aggression level and so risk of injury.”, Applied Animal Behaviour Science 121 (2009) 214-221.
Jørgensen, G.H.M., Borsheim, L., Mejdell, C.M., Søndergaard, E., Bøe, K.E., 2009. “Grouping horses according to gender – Effects on aggression, spacing and injuries. Applied Animal Behaviour Science (August 2009), 120 (1-2), pg. 94-99.
Kreuger, K., Heinze, J., 2008. “Horse sense: social status of horses (Equus caballus) affects their likelihood of copying other horses’ behaviour”. Anim Cogn (2008) 11:431-439.
McGreevy, P.D., 2004. “Equine Behavior: A Guide for Veterinarians and Equine Scientists”, Philadelphia: Elsevier Limited. ISBN 0 7020 2634 4.
McGreevy P.D., McLean A., 2010. “Equitation Science”, Wiley Blackwell, UK, ISBN 2009048321.
McGreevy, P.D., 2007. “The advent of equitation science”, The Veterinary Journal 174 (2007) 492-500.
Søndergaard, E., Bak Jensen, M., Nicol, C.J. (2011), “Motivation for social contact in horses measured by operant conditioning” Applied Animal Behaviour Science (July 2011), 132 (3-4), pg. 131-137.
VanDierendonck, M. C., Spruijt, B.M. (2012), “Coping in groups of domestic horses – Review from a social and neurobiological perspective”.Applied Animal Behaviour Science 138 (2012) 194– 202.
VanDierendonck, M. C., The Vries, H., Schilder, M.B.H., Colenbrander, B., Guorun Porhallsdottir, A, Sigurjonsdottir,H., (2009), “Interventions in social behaviour in a herd of mares and geldings”.Applied Animal Behaviour Science 116 (2009) 67-73.