Equine Social Behaviour: Love, War and Tolerance.
Authors: Torres Borda Laura, Auer Ulrike, Jenner Florien
Journal: Animals : an open access journal from MDPI
Summary
# Editorial Summary: Equine Social Behaviour – Love, War and Tolerance Torres Borda and colleagues conducted a systematic review of 27 peer-reviewed papers documenting social interactions in 851 horses (ranging from feral to domesticated populations) to examine how equine social behaviour is currently characterised in the scientific literature. Whilst the ethograms across these studies identified 40 distinct social behaviours—comprising 60% agonistic (conflict-based), 30% affiliative (bonding), 7.5% investigative and 2.5% neutral interactions—the published research overwhelmingly emphasised agonistic behaviours, dedicating 67.7% of documented observations to conflict despite this representing a small fraction of real-world social interactions in stable groups. This methodological bias creates a distorted picture of equine sociality, particularly given mounting evidence that affiliative bonds and social tolerance are fundamental to welfare outcomes and stable group dynamics. The authors argue for substantial refinement of social ethograms to better capture the nuanced, complex nature of equine relationships—including ambivalent exchanges and tolerance thresholds—rather than predominantly recording aggressive or dominance-related interactions. For practitioners managing groups, this research suggests that investment in understanding positive social dynamics and individual tolerance hierarchies may prove more valuable for welfare assessment and troubleshooting group stability than focusing solely on conflict frequency.
Read the full abstract on PubMed
Practical Takeaways
- •Horses have genuine social and affiliative needs that persist despite domestication; management systems must facilitate stable group bonds and not focus solely on preventing aggression
- •Current welfare assessments may underestimate equine social welfare because research ethograms over-emphasize conflict; practitioners should observe positive affiliative interactions as indicators of good social management
- •Grooming, proximity-seeking, and other affiliative behaviours deserve equal attention to dominance hierarchies when evaluating herd health and welfare in your yard
Key Findings
- •851 horses across 27 studies showed social interactions documented in ethograms with 40 total behaviours identified (60% agonistic, 30% affiliative)
- •Current equine ethology literature contains 67.7% agonistic behaviours in methodology but only rare agonistic behaviours occur in stable horse groups
- •Affiliative interactions are well-established as important for equine welfare yet receive only 26% focus in published ethograms versus 67.7% for agonistic behaviours
- •Equine ethograms require refinement to better capture affiliative, ambivalent, indifferent interactions and social tolerance in equine social networks