The horse’s owner is pointing at the bucket on their left side.
Newswise —
In comparison to domestic horses that are typically confined to enclosures of varying sizes, including individual stalls or small paddocks, wild horses exist within intricate social structures and are capable of traveling an average of 9-16 kilometers per day, covering expansive areas of up to 40 square kilometers during the summer season.
Horses that inhabit larger fields or pastures tend to exhibit more physical activity, as they have the freedom to move around in accordance with their needs, such as seeking out shade or shelter from the elements. Additionally, when living in a group, horses are able to satisfy their social needs by engaging in intricate interactions with a multitude of individuals, all while having adequate space to avoid any undesired interactions.
According to the study's lead author, Doctoral Researcher Océane Liehrmann from the Department of Biology at the University of Turku in Finland, previous research has shown that horses that have access to pastures with other horses exhibit better learning performance and are less prone to aggression towards humans than horses kept in individual stables. Consequently, the research team sought to investigate whether a horse's social and physical environment impacts their receptiveness to human cues.
A team of international researchers from the University of Turku and the University of Helsinki in Finland, as well as the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment INRAE in France, conducted a study wherein they observed and analyzed how horses responded to human cues in relation to their living environment. The researchers also investigated whether horses reacted differently when receiving indications from their familiar owners as opposed to strangers. For the purpose of the study, the team recruited 57 leisure horses that were privately owned and located in the Turku region of Finland, and subjected them to behavioral tests.
Horses living in groups and large paddocks followed human indications more closely
During the study, the human informant, whether it was the owner or researcher, stood between two buckets, each containing a hidden piece of carrot. An assistant led the horse to stand in front of the human informant, who would then move towards one of the buckets and gesture towards it, indicating to the horse that it should go to that particular bucket. The horse was then released and given the choice of either following the human's indication and approaching the pointed bucket or choosing the opposite one. If the horse followed the human's indication and approached the pointed bucket, the informant would open the lid and allow the horse to have the carrot. However, if the horse chose the opposite bucket, the informant would catch the horse, and it would not receive a carrot. This process was repeated ten times per horse, and the researchers analyzed how often the horses chose to follow the human's indication over the ten trials.
"It is noteworthy that horses residing in social groups comprised of at minimum three individuals opted for the pointed bucket with greater frequency compared to horses living solitarily or in pairs. Correspondingly, horses dwelling in expansive pastures or fields for a minimum of eight months annually demonstrated a higher inclination to heed the human indication in contrast to horses residing in stalls or diminutive paddocks," detailed Liehrmann.
Throughout the study, it was also observed that horses residing in expansive pastures typically inhabited larger groups, whereas the majority of horses residing in diminutive paddocks lived alone or were paired with just one other horse. Consequently, it was challenging to ascertain whether social deprivation or the absence of space and enrichment exerted a more significant influence on the findings.
"Conversely, domesticated horses dwelling in more sizable groups may reap advantages pertaining to heightened cognitive stimulation. The opportunity to interact with a diverse array of individuals facilitates intricate social scenarios, consequently enabling horses to learn and refine their socio-cognitive proficiencies. This perhaps elucidates why horses cohabiting in groups exhibited enhanced proficiency in the task necessitating communication with humans," commented Liehrmann.
Context can impact the significance of familiarity to the human
Further, the research team ascertained that the horses' achievement in the task was not influenced by the informant's familiarity. The success rate remained comparable, regardless of whether the informant was the owner or a stranger. This finding contradicts the outcomes from prior experiments utilizing the same pool of horses. In an earlier study, Liehrmann and her colleagues discovered that familiarity with the handler can indeed impact the horse's conduct in unfamiliar circumstances.
"Our conjecture is that context might play a role when exploring the impact of human familiarity on human-animal interactions. In a more anxiety-inducing environment, animals may depend more on a familiar human than on a stranger. Conversely, in a favorable context, where animals feel secure and enjoy a food incentive, the identity of the interacting human might hold lesser significance," commented Liehrmann. She further added:
"To sum up, our research demonstrates that the horses' living conditions affected their capacity to comply with human cues. The housing and social circumstances of horses remain a controversial issue in the equestrian domain. Our findings endorse the notion that providing horses with an adequate environment, including access to pasture and opportunities to interact with other horses, could enhance their social behaviour and extend to their interactions with humans," concluded Liehrmann.
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