Welfare
The term welfare is often associated with negative connotations, at least in part, this may be due to historical teaching of the subject revolving around the five freedoms (Brambell, 1965). The five freedoms focused on the absence of negative’s to ensure animals have a life worth living. As welfare science has evolved, we now strive to provide animals not just with a life worth living but with a good life (Mellor, 2016) and we now recognise that welfare represents how that individual animal feels, i.e. their mental state, which is dependent on the balance of negative to positive experiences. This balance can be measured using the five domains model, which has evolved over nearly 30 years and now specifically includes intra-species interactions in addition to inter-species ones (Mellor et al., 2020).
When considering the welfare of a horse on box rest we should therefore consider the experience from that individual horses perspective. To do this we use the horse’s behaviour as a proxy for their mental state, and some behavioural indicators of stress were suggested by the authors. However, previous work has shown poor agreement on the perceived level of stress a horse is experiencing amongst equine veterinarians (Pearson et al., 2021). Evaluating stress is challenging as individuals across all species employ different coping mechanisms (Koolhaas et al., 1999; Budzyńska, 2012; Vindas et al., 2017). It is easy to recognise the horse that employs a pro-active coping mechanism, it may be doing the wall of death round the box or frequently vocalising. But we should not forget that horses may also utilise a reactive coping mechanism (Budzyńska 2012). Reactive coping often results in the horse appearing content in the situation, despite mounting a similar physiological stress response to those clearly not coping (Yarnell et al., 2013). Mice kept in a cage environment that meets minimum legal standards spend more time inactive but awake compared to those in an enriched environment, yet visibly they appear content. However, either moving them to enriched cages or providing anti-depressants significantly reduces time spent inactive but awake (Fureix et al., 2022). When you consider the depth and breadth of research demonstrating the negative welfare implications of keeping horses stabled, as reviewed by Krueger et al. (2021), we should always remain mindful that this is inevitably stressful, even in horses that appear outwardly to be coping. As demonstrated by Fureix et al. (2022) providing an enriched environment improves welfare. The term environmental enrichment is appealing and suggests we are creating a positive experience for the animal. But perhaps it would be better described as reduced impoverishment - as at best we are returning them to a life worth living, not a good life (Langford, 2023).