Evidence suggests that mutual grooming in horses is sometimes used as a way to deal with increases in stress, in what appears to be a kind of “tend and befriend” coping strategy.
Researchers in Australia and New Zealand looked at the central aspects of horse life in determining what should be considered normal for the species. The review team focused in particular on the lives of wild free-roaming horses to gain a better understanding of the impacts of human interventions on the welfare of horses in both…
Horses have made a contribution to mankind’s efforts to colonize the Moon and Mars, by contributing manure for a food-growing experiment.
Today’s jockey position has its origins in both Native American horsemanship and the sprints that gave rise to Quarter Horse racing in the United States. Early riders and their peers likely rode this way off and on throughout the final decade of the 19th century, but, when the position found its way to England, the…
Certain sounds, especially unfamiliar ones, can stop a horse in its tracks. Researchers in Poland wondered whether sound could be used to create a virtual fence.
It is difficult to prove whether horses realize that their own behaviour is the source of the behaviour they are seeing in their reflections. Mirror self-recognition was recently studied in horses by Italian equine behaviourist Paolo Baragl.
Most equine nutritionists consider water to be the most important nutrient because of the various functions it performs. These include regulating body temperature, digestion, absorption, and utilization of nutrients, moving feedstuffs through the digestive tract from mouth to rectum, and removing waste products.
A Swiss study looked at how well human selection stacks up against a horse’s hay preference for palatability.
PhD students at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax are helping to create a database for future research about the species. The almost mythical Sable Island horses have bewildered generations of scientists eager to learn more about their existence on the remote island off the coast of Nova Scotia.