Horse behavior
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Horse behavior is best understood from the view that horses are prey animals with a well-developed fight-or-flight response. Their first reaction to a threat is often to flee, although sometimes they stand their ground and defend themselves or their offspring in cases where flight is untenable, such as when a foal would be threatened.[1]
Nonetheless, because of their
Horses' instincts can be used to human advantage to create a bond between human and horse. These techniques vary, but are part of the art of horse training.
The "fight-or-flight" response
Horses evolved from small mammals whose survival depended on their ability to flee from predators (for example:
The
Once the horse has removed itself from immediate danger, the body is returned to more "normal" conditions via the parasympathetic nervous system.[10] This is triggered by the release of endorphins into the brain,[10] and it effectively reverses the effects of noradrenaline – metabolic rate, blood pressure and heart rate all decrease[11] and the increased oxygen and glucose being supplied to the muscles and brain are returned to normal.[10] This is also known as the "rest and digest" state.[10]
As herd animals
Horses are highly social
An older theory of hierarchy in herd of horses is the "linear dominance hierarchy".[12][13][14] [15][16][17] Newer research shows that there is no "pecking order" in horse herds. Free ranging, wild horses are mostly communicating via positive reinforcement and less via punishment.[18]
Horses are able to form companionship attachments not only to their own species, but with other animals as well, most notably humans. In fact, many
When anxiety over separation occurs while a horse is being handled by a human, the horse is described as "herd-bound". However, through proper training, horses learn to be comfortable away from other horses, often because they learn to trust a human handler. Horses are able to trust a human handler. Since it is not possible to form interspecies herds, humans cannot be part of a horse herd hierarchy and therefore can never take the place of "lead-mares" or "lead-stallions".
Social organization in the wild
Feral and wild horse "herds" are usually made up of several separate, small "bands" which share a territory. Size may range from two to 25 individuals, mostly mares and their offspring, with one to five stallions.[17]
Bands are defined as a
In bands, there is usually a single "herd" or "lead"
In modern reintroduced populations of Przewalski's horse, the only remaining truly wild horse, family groups are formed by one adult stallion, one to three mares, and their common offspring that stay in the family group until they are no longer dependent, usually at two or three years old.
Hierarchical structure
Horses have evolved to live in herds. As with many animals that live in large groups, establishment of a stable hierarchical system or "pecking order" is important to reduce aggression and increase group cohesion. This is often, but not always, a linear system. In non-linear hierarchies horse A may be dominant over horse B, who is dominant over horse C, yet horse C may be dominant over horse A. Dominance can depend on a variety of factors, including an individual's need for a particular resource at a given time. It can therefore be variable throughout the lifetime of the herd or individual animal. Some horses may be dominant over all resources and others may be submissive for all resources. This is not part of natural horse behavior. It is forced by humans forcing horses to live together in limited space with limited resources. So called "dominant horses" are often horses with dysfunctional social abilities - caused by human intervention in their early lives (weaning, stable isolation, etc.).[citation needed]
Once a dominance hierarchy is established, horses more often than not will travel in rank order.[17]
Most young horses in the wild are allowed to stay with the herd until they reach sexual maturity, usually in their first or second year. Studies of wild herds have shown that the herd stallion will usually drive out both colts and fillies; this may be an instinct that prevents inbreeding. The fillies usually join another band soon afterward, and the colts driven out from several herds usually join in small "bachelor" groups until those who are able to establish dominance over an older stallion in another herd.[23]
Role of the lead mare
Contrary to popular belief, the herd stallion is not the "ruler" of a
A recent supplemental theory posits that there is "distributed leadership", and no single individual is a universal herd leader. A 2014 study of horses in Italy, described as "feral" by the researcher, observed that some herd movements may be initiated by any individual, although higher-ranked members are followed more often by other herd members.[17]
Role of the stallion
Stallions tend to stay on the periphery of the herd where they fight off both predators and other males. When the herd travels, the stallion is usually at the rear and apparently drives straggling herd members forward, keeping the herd together. Mares and lower-ranked males do not usually engage in this herding behavior.
Ratio of stallions and mares
Domesticated stallions, with human management, often mate with ("cover") more mares in a year than is possible in the wild. Traditionally, thoroughbred stud farms limited stallions to breeding with between 40 and 60 mares a year. By breeding mares only at the peak of their estrous cycle, a few thoroughbred stallions have mated with over 200 mares per year. With use of artificial insemination, one stallion could potentially sire thousands of offspring annually, though in practice, economic considerations usually limit the number of foals produced.[27]
Domesticated stallion behavior
Some breeders keep horses in semi-natural conditions, with a single stallion amongst a group of mares. This is referred to as "pasture breeding." Young immature stallions are kept in a separate "bachelor herd." While this has advantages of less intensive labor for human caretakers, and full-time turnout (living in pasture) may be psychologically healthy for the horses, pasture breeding presents a risk of injury to valuable breeding stock, both stallions and mares, particularly when unfamiliar animals are added to the herd. It also raises questions of when or if a mare is bred, and may also raise questions as to parentage of foals. Therefore, keeping stallions in a natural herd is not common, especially on breeding farms mating multiple stallions to mares from other herds. Natural herds are more often kept on farms with closed herds, i.e. only one or a few stallions with a stable mare herd and few, if any, mares from other herds.
Mature, domesticated stallions are commonly kept by themselves in a stable or small paddock. When stallions are stabled in a manner that allows visual and tactile communication, they will often challenge each another and sometimes attempt to fight. Therefore, stallions are often kept isolated from each other to reduce the risk of injury and disruption to the rest of the stable. If stallions are provided with access to paddocks, there is often a corridor between the paddocks so the stallions cannot touch each other. In some cases, stallions are released for exercise at different times of the day to ensure they do not see or hear each another.
To avoid
Stallions and mares often compete together at horse shows and in horse races, however, stallions generally must be kept away from close contact with mares, both to avoid unintentional or unplanned matings, and away from other stallions to minimize fighting for dominance. When horses are lined up for award presentations at shows, handlers keep stallions at least one horse length from any other animal. Stallions can be taught to ignore mares or other stallions that are in close proximity while they are working.
Stallions live peacefully in bachelor herds in the wild and in natural management settings. For example, the stallions in the New Forest (U.K.) live in bachelor herds on their winter grazing pastures. When managed as domesticated animals, some farms assert that carefully managed social contact benefits stallions. Well-tempered stallions intended to be kept together for a long period may be stabled in closer proximity, though this method of stabling is generally used only by experienced stable managers. An example of this is the stallions of the Spanish Riding School, which travel, train and are stabled in close proximity. In these settings, more dominant animals are kept apart by stabling a young or less dominant stallion in the stall between them.
Dominance in domesticated herds
Because domestication of the horse usually requires stallions to be isolated from other horses, either mares or geldings may become dominant in a domestic herd. Usually dominance in these cases is a matter of age and, to some extent, temperament. It is common for older animals to be dominant, though old and weak animals may lose their rank in the herd. There are also studies suggesting that a foal will "inherit" or perhaps imprint dominance behavior from its dam, and at maturity seek to obtain the same rank in a later herd that its mother held when the horse was young.
Studies of
Communication
Horses communicate in various ways, including vocalizations such as nickering, squealing or whinnying; touch, through mutual grooming or nuzzling; smell; and body language. Horses use a combination of ear position, neck and head height, movement, and foot stomping or tail swishing to communicate.[30] Discipline is maintained in a horse herd first through body language and gestures, then, if needed, through physical contact such as biting, kicking, nudging, or other means of forcing a misbehaving herd member to move. In most cases, the animal that successfully causes another to move is dominant, whether it uses only body language or adds physical reinforcement.
Horses can interpret the body language of other creatures, including humans, whom they view as
Horses are not particularly vocal, but do have four basic vocalizations: the
Ear position is often one of the most obvious behaviors that humans notice when interpreting horse body language. In general, a horse will direct the
Due to the nature of a horse's
Ear position, head height, and body language may change to reflect emotional status as well. For example, the clearest signal a horse sends is when both ears are flattened tightly back against the head, sometimes with eyes rolled so that the white of the eye shows, often indicative of pain or anger, frequently foreshadowing aggressive behavior that will soon follow. Sometimes ears laid back, especially when accompanied by a strongly swishing tail or stomping or pawing with the feet are signals used by the horse to express discomfort, irritation, impatience, or anxiety. However, horses with ears slightly turned back but in a loose position, may be drowsing, bored, fatigued, or simply relaxed. When a horse raises its head and neck, the animal is alert and often tense. A lowered head and neck may be a sign of relaxation, but depending on other behaviors may also indicate fatigue or illness.
Tail motion may also be a form of communication. Slight tail swishing is often a tool to dislodge biting insects or other skin irritants. However, aggressive tail-swishing may indicate either irritation, pain or anger. The tail tucked tightly against the body may indicate discomfort due to cold or, in some cases, pain. The horse may demonstrate tension or excitement by raising its tail, but also by flaring its nostrils, snorting, and intently focusing its eyes and ears on the source of concern.
The horse does not use its mouth to communicate to the degree that it uses its ears and tail, but a few mouth gestures have meaning beyond that of eating, grooming, or biting at an irritation. Bared teeth, as noted above, are an expression of anger and an imminent attempt to bite. Horses, particularly foals, sometimes indicate appeasement of a more aggressive herd member by extending their necks and clacking their teeth. Horses making a chewing motion with no food in the mouth do so as a soothing mechanism, possibly linked to a release of tension, though some horse trainers view it as an expression of submission. Horses will sometimes extend their upper lip when scratched in a particularly good spot, and if their mouth touches something at the time, their lip and teeth may move in a mutual grooming gesture. A very relaxed or sleeping horse may have a loose lower lip and chin that may extend further out than the upper lip. The curled lip flehmen response, noted above, most often is seen in stallions, but is usually a response to the smell of another horse's urine, and may be exhibited by horses of any sex. Horses also have assorted mouth motions that are a response to a bit or the rider's hands, some indicating relaxation and acceptance, others indicating tension or resistance.
Sleep patterns
Horses can sleep both standing up and lying down. They can sleep while standing, an adaptation from life as a
Horses obtain needed sleep by many short periods of rest. This is to be expected of a
Horses must lie down to reach REM sleep. They only have to lie down for an hour or two every few days to meet their minimum REM sleep requirements.[36] However, if a horse is never allowed to lie down, after several days it will become sleep-deprived, and in rare cases may suddenly collapse as it involuntarily slips into REM sleep while still standing.[39] This condition differs from narcolepsy, which horses may suffer from.[37]
Horses sleep better when in groups because some animals will sleep while others stand guard to watch for predators. A horse kept entirely alone may not sleep well because its instincts are to keep a constant eye out for danger.[36]
Eating patterns
Horses have a strong grazing instinct, preferring to spend most hours of the day eating forage. Horses and other equids evolved as grazing animals, adapted to eating small amounts of the same kind of food all day long. In the wild, the horse adapted to eating prairie grasses in semi-arid regions and traveling significant distances each day in order to obtain adequate nutrition.[40] Thus, they are "trickle eaters," meaning they have to have an almost constant supply of food to keep their digestive system working properly. Horses can become anxious or stressed if there are long periods of time between meals. When stabled, they do best when they are fed on a regular schedule; they are creatures of habit and easily upset by changes in routine.[41] When horses are in a herd, their behavior is hierarchical;[42] the higher-ranked animals in the herd eat and drink first. Low-status animals, that eat last, may not get enough food, and if there is little available feed, higher-ranking horses may keep lower-ranking ones from eating at all.
Psychological disorders
When confined with insufficient companionship, exercise or stimulation, horses may develop stable vices, an assortment of compulsive stereotypies considered bad habits, mostly psychological in origin, that include wood chewing, stall walking (walking in circles stressfully in the stall), wall kicking, "weaving" (rocking back and forth) and other problems. These have been linked to a number of possible causal factors, including a lack of environmental stimulation and early weaning practices. Research is ongoing to investigate the neurobiological changes involved in the performance of these behaviors.
See also
- Domestication of the horse
- Equus (genus)
- Glossary of equestrian terms
- Horse
- Horse breeding
- Horse care
- Horse training
- Sacking out
- Stable vices
Notes
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- ^ McCall, C.A. (2006). "Understanding your horses' behaviour". Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Alabama. Retrieved October 21, 2013.
- ^ Greene, B.; Comerford, P. (2009). "Horse Fight vs Flight instinct". extension.org. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
- ^ Hood, R. (2001). "The 5 F's –Flight, Fight, Freeze, Fidget, Faint, TEAMM Connections, vol 3 (no issue given)". tellingtonttouch.com. Retrieved October 22, 2013.
- ^ Margioris, Andrew; Tsatsanis, Christos (April 2011). "ACTH Action on the Adrenal". Endotext.org. Archived from the original on 6 March 2013. Retrieved 18 April 2013.
- PMID 12909458.
- ^ Kilby, E. (1997). "Glands at a Glance – The horses' endocrine system". EQUUS Magazine, Cruz Bay Publishing. Archived from the original on November 3, 2013. Retrieved October 24, 2013.
- ^ "How cells communicate during the flight or fight response". University of Utah Press. 2002. Archived from the original on August 8, 2013. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
- ^ a b Burton, F. (1999). "7". The Horses' World', Ultimate Horse Care. Ringpress books UK. Retrieved October 22, 2013.
- ^ a b c d "Equine Nervous System". Equine Education Connection. 2008. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
- ^ Butcher-Gray, M. (2011). "Horse Brain Discussion: Part II". nickernews.net. Retrieved October 22, 2013.
- ^ Heitor F, do Mar Oom M, Vicente L (2006) Social relationships in a herd of Sorraia horses Part I. Correlates of social dominance and contexts of aggression. Behav Process 73, 170–177. doi: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2006.05.004
- ^ Keiper R, Receveur H (1992) Social interactions of free-ranging Przewalski horses in semi-reserves in the Netherlands. Appl Anim Behav Sci 33, 303–318. doi: http://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(05)80068-1
- ^ Keiper RR (1988) Social interactions of the Przewalski horse (Equus przewalskii Poliakov, 1881) herd at the Munich Zoo. Appl Anim Behav Sci 21, 89–97. doi: http://doi.org/10.1016/0168-1591(88)90102-5
- ^ "VanDierendonck MC, de Vries H, Schilder MBH (1995) An Analysis of Dominance, Its Behavioural Parameters and Possible Determinants in a Herd of Icelandic orses in Captivity. Netherl J Zool 45, 362–385 (PDF)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-01-15. Retrieved 2014-01-14.
- ^ Vervaecke H, Stevens J, Vandemoortele H, Sigurjönsdöttir H, De Vries H (2007) Aggression and dominance in matched groups of subadult Icelandic horses (Equus caballus). J Ethol 25, 239–248. doi: http://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-006-0019-7
- ^ a b c d e Krueger, K., Flauger, B., Farmer, K., & Hemelrijk, C. (2014). Movement initiation in groups of feral horses. Behavioural Process., 103, 91–101. viewed January 9, 20144, http://www.rug.nl/research/behavioural-ecology-and-self-organization/_pdf/kr_ea_bp14.pdf Archived 2014-01-09 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Hood, R. (2017). "Horses in Company (no issue given)". lucyrees.uk/. Retrieved October 6, 2019.
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- ^ Mistral, Kip. "The Secret Life of Stallions". Horse Connection. Retrieved June 22, 2007.
- ^ McGreevy, Paul (2004). Equine Behavior. Saunders Company.
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- ^ "Wild Horses Behavior" (PDF). ADVS 3910. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 30, 2007. Retrieved June 22, 2007.
- ^ Kincaid, A.T. (2008). "Wild or Feral? Historical and biological consideration of free roaming horses (FRH) 6" (PDF).
- ^ Hallberg, L. (2008). Walking the Way of the Horse: Exploring the Power of the Horse-Human Relationship. iUniverse. p. 144.
- ^ "The Natural Horse and Unnatural Behaviour." Reproduced with permission from the Proceedings of the BEVA Specialist Days on Behaviour and Nutrition. Ed. P.A.Harris et al. Pub. Equine Veterinary Journal Ltd. Website accessed June 22, 2007 at Effem-Equine.com
- ^ Bergstein, Stan. "We have the technology..." originally published in Daily Racing Form, March 12, 2002.
- ISBN 978-0-449-00561-3.
- ^ Barakat, Christine. "Is your horse sleep deprived?" Equus, February 2007, issue 353, p. 34.
- ^ a b Scott, Laurel. "Equine Expressions: Understanding Your Horse's Body Language" Equisearch.com. Accessed July 2, 2010
- ^ "Audio Samples of Common Horse Sounds". Archived from the original on 2011-05-05. Retrieved 2010-07-02.
- ^ Aronson, Linda. "What's my horse saying?" Archived 2011-06-17 at the Wayback Machine September 2000, Practical Horseman. Accessed July 2, 2010
- ^ Do Horses Sleep Standing Up? Web site, accessed March 23, 2007
- ^ "How Horses Sleep".
- ^ "Horseware Ireland North America - The worlds leading equine product leader for horse and rider".
- ^ a b c "How Horses Sleep Pt. 2 - Power Naps". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-03-24.
- ^ a b "Did you hear the one about the policeman's horse?" Web site, accessed March 23, 2007 Archived November 14, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Belling Jr, T.H. (1990). "Sleep patterns in the horse" (PDF). Equine Practice. 12: 2–26.
- ^ "Equine Sleep Disorder Videos - EquiSearch".
- ISBN 0-684-82768-9
- ^ Williams, Carey A.,Ph.D., Extension Specialist. "The Basics of Equine Nutrition" from FS #038, Equine Science Center, Rutgers University, Revised: April 2004. Archived 2007-04-08 at the Wayback Machine Web site accessed February 9, 2007
- ^ Williams, Carey A.Ph.D., Extension Specialist. "The Basics of Equine Behavior," FS #525 from Equine Science Center, Rutgers University, 2004. Archived 2007-04-07 at the Wayback Machine Web site accessed February 14, 2007
References
- Budiansky, Stephen. "The Nature of Horses". ISBN 0-684-82768-9
- McCall C.A (Professor of Animal Sciences, Auburn University) 2006, Understanding your horses’ behaviour, Alabama Co-operative Extension System, Alabama, viewed 21/10/13,
External links
The Horse Trust - Equine Clinical Animal Behaviour Hub
Basics of Equine Behaviour - Equine Behaviour & Training Association
Case Studies of Equine Behaviour - FAB Clinicians
Media related to Horse behavior at Wikimedia Commons