Subscription Required

Herd Dynamics: Keeping the Peace
Allowing horses to live naturally in stable, social groups is the panacea for a litany of equine ailments. It improves fitness, all but eliminates colic, cures ulcers and reduces or eliminates cribbing, weaving, and other stereotypies associated with compromised psychological well-being. Undeniably, there is a robust literature suggesting that keeping horses in stalls benefits only one half of the horse/human dynamic, and that beneficiary is not the horse. Still, owners are often reluctant to subject their valuable horses to the potential risk of herd turnout. The typical life for today’s sport and many pleasure horses is to live in box stalls for approximately 16 hours of a 24-hour day, and the remainder (the lucky ones) are turned out in small individual paddocks with no horse-to-horse interaction. Owners and trainers could afford to take a second look at group turnout, however. The research evidence suggests that although equine aggression does happen, the…
LOGIN HERE
Subscribers: enter the email and password connected to your subscription.
First time logging in?
Click here.
Not a subscriber yet?
Click here to see our print and digital subscription offers that include full access to all Horse-Canada.com articles.
Subscribe now and enjoy full access to Horse-Canada.com
Your All-Access Digital Subscription includes unlimited access to all Horse-Canada.com articles as well as a digital subscription to each issue of Horse Sport, Horse Canada, and Canadian Thoroughbred.

Get full access to Horse-Canada.com including all articles from Horse Sport, Horse Canada, Canadian Thoroughbred, and The Canadian Horse Annual.

Read the digital editions of Horse Sport, Horse Canada, Canadian Thoroughbred, and The Canadian Horse Annual.
copyright © horse-canada.com 2014
Scroll
to top