Horses spent an average of 51 minutes per day in social contact in the social stalls, compared to only five minutes per day through the 5-centimeter spaces between the bars. | Photo: Courtesy Anja Zollinger

Not at all. Swiss researchers working with the country’s top national breeding stallions decided to give it a try—allowing stallions to have partial access to each other through their individual stalls. And the results were highly positive for equine welfare, with a surprisingly low injury rate.

“Social isolation is bad for equine welfare, even for stallions, and can lead to such problems as stereotypies and aggression toward humans,” said Anja Zollinger, BSc, of the Agroscope Swiss National Stud Farm, a research institute in Avenches, Switzerland. “It’s necessary to look into ways to improve the welfare of breeding stallions kept in confined domestic conditions, without putting them at risk of injury to themselves or others.”

We’ve already reported on how Swiss researchers have been allowing national stud stallions to spend their summers frolicking together in “bachelor herds” in large pastures. Now, in a new project, the team has allowed an experimental group of the stallions to experience extra social contact in barns via specially designed “social walls” between stalls. Zollinger presented the results of their new study during the 42nd French Equine Research Day, held March 17 in Paris