Impact of feeding strategies on the welfare and behaviour of horses in groups: An experimental study.

Abstract

Finding feeding strategies that meet horses' needs without compromising health is essential for optimising welfare, particularly in group housing, where limited hay availability increases aggression and injury risks. Recently, two strategies have emerged: portioning daily intake into smaller, frequent meals using time-controlled hay racks, or slowing intake with "slow-feeders." However, the effects of such management practices on horse behaviour remain underexplored. We conducted a cross-over study with 18 mares divided into four groups to compare three feeding strategies: "traditional" (3 of 2-hours meals during daylight, TD), "portioned" (6 of 1-hour meals spread over 24h, PO) and "slow-feeding" (ad libitum hay covered by a net, SF). Each treatment included 3 weeks of habituation and 2 weeks of data collection. We continuously recorded social interactions for 15 hours and noted the position and activity of all horses every 15 minutes. We also recorded injuries periodically and measured the lying behaviour using accelerometers. We analysed the effects of treatment on agonistic and affiliative behaviour within groups using generalised mixed model and selected the best model using AIC. We used the same procedure for the injuries and lying behaviour at the individual level. Horses in SF exhibited activity time budgets resembling natural conditions, while TD and PO resulted in time budgets similar to box-stall systems, despite the loose-housing system. Surprisingly, our results suggest that PO may be more frustrating for the horses than TD. Indeed, there was no significant reduction of agonistic behaviours during feeding times in PO compared to TD and lying behaviour tended to be impaired in PO (-11.3 min/day, 95% CI [-25.8; 3.1]) compared to SF and TD (37.5 min/day on average). In our study, portioning into smaller, more frequent meals did not reduce the stress in horses. This highlights the need for further research on portioning strategies to find optimal feeding management. In addition, slow-feeding was a more suitable feeding strategy for horses than portioning. However, more research is required to substantiate the initial findings on the efficacy of ad libitum slow-feeding on the horse's health and behaviour.