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behaviour
nutrition
riding science
2023
Expert Opinion

Authors: Górecka-Bruzda Aleksandra, Jaworska Joanna, Stanley Christina R

Journal: Animals : an open access journal from MDPI

Summary

Stallions maintained in isolation—standard practice in captive settings—experience conditions fundamentally divorced from their evolutionary heritage, where wild stallions occupy complex social hierarchies with multiple roles beyond reproduction. Góreck-Bruzda and colleagues synthesise literature on free-living stallion behaviour to illustrate how natural selection has shaped their social competence, competitive ability, kin recognition, and harem management strategies over millennia, contrasting this with the sensory and social deprivation typical of stabled intact males. The authors argue that understanding these ancestral pressures and adaptive mechanisms—which persist neurologically despite domestication—is essential for designing captive environments that better meet stallions' innate social needs. The practical implications are substantial: isolation-related stereotypies and behavioural problems in housed stallions may reflect unmet welfare requirements rather than inherent intractability, suggesting that enriched social housing or compatible group configurations could meaningfully reduce these issues. For practitioners managing stallions, this work reinforces that welfare improvements need not compromise safety or management protocols, but rather require thoughtful application of equine behavioural science to bridge the gap between ancestral needs and modern constraints.

Read the full abstract on PubMed

Practical Takeaways

  • Review housing and management practices for captive stallions to incorporate greater social complexity and environmental enrichment informed by natural stallion behaviour patterns
  • Consider that isolated captive stallions lack opportunities to express natural roles (harem defence, group cohesion maintenance) that are driven by thousands of years of evolutionary pressure, potentially compromising welfare
  • Implement management strategies that provide appropriate social structure and environmental challenges to reduce stereotypic behaviours and improve stallion wellbeing in captivity

Key Findings

  • Captive intact male horses are typically socially isolated, contrasting sharply with free-roaming stallions that maintain complex social roles and harem structures
  • Wild stallions possess ancestral adaptations to natural selection pressures including predation and competition, retained over thousands of years
  • Successful wild stallions require specific characteristics and abilities for harem formation, tenure, rival protection, social cohesion maintenance, and kin recognition mechanisms
  • Understanding wild stallion social needs and environmental pressures is essential for improving captive stallion welfare and reducing stereotypical behaviours

Conditions Studied

stereotypical behaviour in captive stallionssocial isolation stresswelfare concerns in captive intact males