Social Needs

As written on other pages sound healthy hooves are the result of the horse living a life that encourages and sustains health.
Other than the fact that horses are social herd animals, having company encourages movement which is vital to stimulate their hooves aswell as their minds.

But on the note of them being social animals.................

Horses are meant to live with their own kind.
In the wild they live either in a family band or as batchelors in a group of young males.
They tend to gravitate towards horses of their own type (as with feral /introduced herds) or breed types (as in native / once wild herds).

When I was in America I got to meet a family of mustangs who had chosen to live with eachother. This sounds simple enough but I had never met a herd of horses who had actually chosen each other before.
I had only ever known horses put together by chance through human selection. A hotch potch of breeds and types thrown in a field together and expected to get on.

I was struck by how simular the mustang family were. Even though they were different colours they were brothers and sisters with a stamp unique to them as a family, much the same as we can be recognised as coming from our families.
They needed eachother.

This simple meeting was a revelation.
These horses knew both their parents. They knew where they are from and who they are with. This gave them tremendous social stability, and it showed.

It really is little wonder why so many domestic horses suffer from seperation anxiety.

Although we cannot return them to the family that never existed, we can offer them freedom to run with their own kind.
Personally I think this is the least we can do.