‘Seeing horses for what they are’ and giving them choices – to give them a better life

Giving horses choices and listening to what they really need could be key to improving welfare.

These were the topics covered by two speakers at the World Horse Welfare 2024 conference on 7 November, the theme of which was the question, “What is a good life for a horse?”

Lisa Dickel, a researcher in ecology and animal welfare at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, spoke on “enhancing horse welfare through choice”, after which Hazel Heaton, of reward-based training and livery yard Nine Acres in Norfolk, presented on the “full circle”.

Dr Dickel said that through wildlife biology, she learnt that animals make “fundamental choices” every day, including about their movement, habitats and resources, which have “fundamental consequences for their evolution and their welfare”.

“The dynamic concept of animal welfare describes welfare as the ability of an animal to respond flexibly to internal and environmental cues,” she said. “So, for example, to respond to whether they are hungry or whether there are any social cues they need to react to. This will help maintain their health and survival, but it will also affect their mental state and let them know how they are doing.”

So, she said, welfare is an “evolved feedback mechanism”. But animals in captivity are denied choices and opportunities to the same extent.

“We can wonder whether there are any welfare consequences of these limited opportunities,” she said, adding that she spent a summer observing wild cattle, who had rich social lives and made choices to keep themselves safe and well.

“This really broke, for me, this dichotomy between opportunities and choices for wild and domesticated animals, and we do know that welfare improves across a lot of species with increased opportunities to make choices,” she said.

Dr Dickel is now leading a group aiming to give farm animals more choices, as part of a project to improve welfare. They have to think about whether something is meaningful for the species, then the individual, then whether an animal might have preferences that humans may not make.

She gave an example, on video, of a pony choosing to break ice to drink over warmed water nearby.

“Generally, choice and control over both positive and negative stimuli will lead the horse to experience a sense of agency, which will help them to feel safe in their life and have a positive welfare experience,” she said.

“So how can we achieve a better life for horses through meaningful opportunities?

“We always need to keep learning about species-specific ecology. We need to ask animals what they want and need, so we need to keep improving our ability to understand their body language and be able to respond appropriately. I invite all of us to remain curious about what the animals experience with which we share our lives.”

Change of attitude

Ms Heaton spoke of her previous experiences coaching and showjumping professionally, adding that her attitude changed when a talented horse was injured. And she “felt slightly selfish” about the fact her priority had been competing.

She was also frustrated by the “problem” horses she was being sent, most who had challenging behaviour owing to poor handling or experiences.

She set up a riding school aiming to teach people more about horse behaviour, then took a break after the death of her mother and spent time at Jersey Wildlife Park, which inspired her to take her business in a new direction.

“I realised that the way we manage horses makes it much harder work for us than it needs to be,” she said. “I became aware that the attention paid to species-specific needs in other animals is much greater than in horses; we tend to pay lip service to the idea of horses displaying natural behaviours, but don’t give it the priority it requires to give a horse a good life.”

Ms Heaton redesigned her yard to allow group housing in loose yards, with ad-lib hay.

“The change in those horses was immediate,” she said. “Friends, forage and freedom really did underpin everything I went on to change. Small things like horses banging the doors at feed time disappeared overnight. The horses weren’t just surviving in my new system, but were having a better life.”

Ms Heaton said much of what she had learnt was replaced by a “real joy of watching horses be horses”.

“I had time to spend around them and it elicited in me the love that you feel for their ponies when you’re a child,” she said. “I realised that in the mainstream horse world, we lose that, become hardened. It felt like for the first time since I’d become a professional, I started to see horses for what they really were and felt inspired to start to create a centre that catered more for them than it did for us.”

Ms Heaton says listening to and acting on what horses need allows her to give them a better life, with socialising and enrichment, which can be just a new area to be in.

“I think much can be done to improve the life of many horses, if we simply observe and listen to them rather than believing the way we’ve always done things is the way we should continue,” she said.

“Much of what we perceive as a good life for horses is misguided and is far more convenient to us than it is about offering a good life to them. [My journey] hasn’t always been easy, but it’s a journey I am so grateful to have travelled on, because it has taken me back to a place of loving horses for what they truly are.”

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