Life Span:  20 years + or –

Activity Level:  designed for constant movement.

Horses are a preY species.  They have the instinct to flee because bolting from a potential threat is what saves the horse’s life.

Social Patterns:  Horses evolved living in herds.  They are very social and love and strongly bond with their herd mates.  Horses engage in mutual grooming and game playing with each other.  Being hierarchical, there is one leader and all others fall into place in a pecking order, operating much like human social order.  Horses need leadership.  If their human earns their respect, s/he will view the human as an authority figure to be followed.  If not, the horse will take charge.  Although even when the horse respects his/her human’s authority, s/he will challenge it from time to time.   

Normal Physical & Behavioral Characteristics:  The instinct to flee is at the core of the horse’s psyche. Living in a human world conflicts with all of a horse’s instincts but they manage to do so when they learn to trust their human.  While they are far subtler than dogs about their affections, horses are capable of forming profound bonds with humans. They still need to have regular interaction with other horses, however. They have better vision, hearing, and smell  than humans do. Horses recognize one another and their human cohorts by smelling each other’s breath. Horses are constant grazers and have never been know to voluntarily fast for more than 3-4 hours.  The sense of touch is variable over different areas of the horse’s body.  They have four resting states:  idling, resting, drowsing, and sleeping. Weaning:  4-6 months.  Puberty:  about 2 years.  Adult at age 6.

Horses communicate by facial expression, position of the head and ears,  arching of the neck, open/closed mouth, flared nostrils, tail postures.  Vocalizations:  knickers, neighs, snorts, and squeals.

Horses are equipment intensive and labor intensive.

SPAY/NEUTER INFO:   Horses usually have only one foal per year.  The gestation period is about 342 days and produce single births although multiple births (2-3) do happen.  Mares are not spayed.  Neutering or gelding is done only to male horses.   Recommended age for gelding is between two weeks and 6 months.

MOST COMMON PROBLEMS:  cribbing, weaving, pacing, bolting feed, misbehavior under saddle (bucking, rearing, refusing to move), evading capture, pulling back to avoid tying, biting, kicking, crowding, dragging, shying, refusing to leave the stable, “unauthorized” backing up, fighting with other horses.