Stallion Housing Affects Welfare

Satisfying the horsespecific needs of stallions is imperative for their mental and physical health. However it can be challenging to provide living arrangements where stallions arent just surviving but thriving.
Kelly Brook Allen is one stallion owner who is adamant about her horses welfare. He gets to live a normal life she says. Allen owns Canoa Farms in Merritt British Columbia with her husband Ron Stolp. 
Allens stallion The Huntsman Hunter is her regular riding horse and hes turned out with her husbands gelding and some unstarted geldings.

Right now theyre on about 10 acres she says. They wander around and they interact and they facewrestle and they play. And the funny thing is none of my horses have any bite marks on them. They play but theyre not mean to each other. Theres never any real attitude.
Theyre not in a small area and I think that makes a difference with a stallion Allen continues. Theres enough room that they can get away from each other. I wouldnt put them together if they had a small area because in that situation theyre more likely to hurt each other.
Allen didnt plan for Hunter to live with other horses but when she and Stolp moved to their farm there werent any pens.
The place was not set up for horses Allen says. We didnt have any mares we just had the boys. So we put them in a big hotwire fence on about 10 acres until we got all the fencing done. They all got along so well we just continued to keep Hunter with other horses. Its never been a problem since and its been nine years now.
Allen isnt the only horse owner keeping her stallion in a herd. Researchers around the world are assessing how to safely keep stallions in groups plus determine whether herd living increases their mental and physical wellbeing.
A May 2021 article titled Keeping Stallions in Groups SpeciesAppropriate or Relevant to Animal Welfare? published in the peerreviewed online journal Animals found that housing stallions together is a growing trend.
The researchers analyzed 50 different studies and observed a Swiss National Stud experiment whereby individuallykept active breeding stallions were successfully integrated into group living outside the breeding season. They wrote 6 percent of stallions in 2003 more than 11 percent in 2012 and nearly 23 percent of the stallions in 2015 were kept in groups.
Its important to have a really wellbehaved horse