03/10/2026
🌿 EVCBMAW presentation - How do we assess welfare in groups of horses?
A new welfare-assessment protocol, trialled with more than 300 horses in Italy, combines information from carers, observation of the group and assessment of individual horses.
The protocol looked at several aspects of welfare, including the horses’ living conditions, access to resources, social relationships, behaviour, physical condition and signs of health or discomfort. Importantly, it was not focused only on identifying problems. It also considered positive welfare: whether horses had opportunities to experience comfort, safety, social contact, exploration, foraging, movement and choice.
This matters because group living can offer important opportunities for movement, foraging, social contact, exploration and choice. However, not every horse necessarily experiences those opportunities equally. Age, health, temperament, previous experience and social relationships within the group can all influence how well an individual is able to thrive.
Group-level assessment can help identify patterns in the environment, management and social stability. For example, it may highlight whether there is enough space, whether resources are generally sufficient and distributed appropriately, whether horses within the group have positive social relationships and whether the group appears happy and settled or frequently disrupted.
But should we measure the same things at group and individual level, or do we need a different approach for each? Does a subsection of a group really represent the overall group or would it be better to look at indicators that the group as a whole is thriving rather than making assumptions based on a proportion of assessments of individuals within the group?
Some measures may be relevant to both. For example, access to space, food, water, shelter, resting areas and opportunities for social contact matter to the group as a whole and to each horse within it. However, a group level measure can sometimes hide important individual differences and individual assessment alone may fail to identify how the group is performing as a whole. A resource may be sufficient overall, while a particular horse is consistently prevented from accessing it. A group may appear settled, while one horse is isolated, anxious or experiencing subtle social pressure.
We also need to think carefully about how positive and negative findings are weighted. A group may show many positive features, such as opportunities for movement, social contact and foraging, but these positives do not necessarily cancel out serious negative experiences. For example, good access to space and social interaction does not compensate for one horse being unable to rest safely or consistently prevented from accessing food or water. Equally, the absence of obvious problems does not automatically demonstrate that horses are experiencing positive welfare. Positive and negative indicators should therefore be considered separately, with particular attention to the severity, duration and distribution of negative experiences.
This is why group assessment must complement individual assessment, not replace it in my opinion. We may need to ask different questions at each level: Is the group environment supporting positive welfare overall? And, separately, is each horse actually able to thrive in it?
The most useful approach is therefore layered: assess the group environment and social dynamics while also assessing each individual horse’s welfare. This means looking not only for the absence of suffering, but also for evidence that all horses can and do engage in rewarding behaviours and experience positive states.
It is also important to remember that welfare assessment is not a one off. Conditions can change with weather, feeding routines, changes in group membership, illness or competition for resources, so regular, repeated observation and assessment is required.
This is an encouraging first step, although further validation is needed to understand how reliably the protocol identifies welfare problems and positive welfare opportunities across different types of groups and management systems.
What do you think? Should group welfare be assessed using the same measures as individual welfare, or does it require a different framework? If you manage horses in groups, what signs would tell you that the group is thriving and what might reveal that one individual is struggling?
Benedetti B, Bicout DJ, Ventura E, Padalino B. Development and application of a tailored welfare assessment protocol for horses kept in groups at pasture. In: Proceedings of the 2nd European Veterinary Congress on Behavioural Medicine and Animal Welfare (EVCBMAW); 2026 Sep 24–26; Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Picture of something that definitely improved my welfare state this week 😊
