Horse Behavior
January 26, 2009
Manage your horse better by understanding his behavior.
From our friends at eXtension.org
Horse owners who have a sound understanding of horse behavior can use their knowledge to help prevent behavioral problems. Listed below are a few management tips related to horse behavior:
- Design horse housing so horses can see other horses.
- Feeding horses individually will reduce aggression and allow slow eaters to get their full ration.
- Whenever possible, the main portion of the horse’s diet should be made up of forages to reduce digestive and behavioral problems.
Looking for your first horse? Avoid unpleasant surprises by downloading AQHA’s “Buying and Owning Your First Horse.” This handy report contains all the info you need to get started.
- Feed stalled horses small frequent meals rather than several large meals to reduce boredom and digestive problems.
- If horses are fed in groups, provide more feeders than the number of horses in the group and distribute the feed rapidly so that all horses can begin eating at approximately the same time.
- Practice good pasture management to encourage horses to graze the majority of available forage.
- Make fences and other barriers easily visible to the horse.
- When putting horses in a new area, give them plenty of daylight hours to locate new fencing and pasture hazards.
- Closely monitor new horses when introducing them into an established herd, and be ready to separate horses if they become too aggressive.
- Be observant for signs of unwanted contagious behaviors (alarm reactions, running, etc.) in horses and do not allow these behaviors, inadvertently, to become the normal reaction of the horses to management procedures.
- Be aware of the horses’ dominance hierarchy, and watch for signs of aggression when working in a group of horses.
- Keep feed rooms and gates securely fastened, and fence horses away from dangerous areas.
- Separate foaling mares from geldings and stallions.
- When moving mares with foals, make sure the foal is awake and alert before moving the mare.
- Be careful separating horses who are accustomed to being housed together.
- Give stalled horses opportunities for free exercise and socialization.
Get the most out of horse ownership with our detailed report. AQHA’s “Buying and Owning Your First Horse” has great information about developing a meaningful relationship with your new horse.
- Use safe, sturdy fencing between groups of horses.
- Remove halters when horses are stalled or turned out. If halters cannot be removed, use a breakaway safety halter.
Watch 2008 AQHA World Championship Show Action
Friday, January 30th
3 p.m. Eastern / 12 p.m. Pacific
presented by Bank of America, featured on the Universal Sports Network
Watch exciting cow horse action! Highlights from the reining and cutting events will also be shown along with an update about the World Equestrian Games featuring reining, which will be in Lexington, Kentucky, in 2010.
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5 Comments on “Horse Behavior”
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February 1st, 2009 at 1:08 pm
have a mare who is normally nervious,who foaled, and is so nasty nervious now,scares me. i gave special attention and treats, she almost bite my finger off, any suggustions?
February 5th, 2009 at 12:50 am
Horses are creatures of habit and have excellent memories, which make consistent training extremely important to the horse. Untrained young horses, even with top bloodlines, can be bought for relatively little money compared to those with training. Once a horse is started under saddle and demonstrates that it is trainable, ridable and has some athletic talent for its work, the price easily triples.—-from riderlove.com.
February 6th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
this is for Donna Agelis, i also have a mare that is nervios, she was very nasty with her first foal, she bit my arm really bad through insulated cover hauls and a sweat shirt. this last foal i bought a grazing muzzle that is plastic i slipped it on her when i went in the stall, it made her really mad at first then i only had to use it twice and she got the point not to bite. I always keep an eye on her and i will never trust her when she has a colt with her but that seemed to help. at leastshe could not bite me. you do have to watch other things like pawing when they have the muzzle on she did try that. i do think that it is wise to not hand feed anything.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
My new horse, who will be 7, just moved in with an older mare, 17. I understand what the dominant mare is doing, but I need to work with my horse, and the older mare won’t let me. my horse runs off. rears, and bucks. I try to keep the older mare locked in her stall, but she really acts out. what can I do? If I take her down the road, she gets nuts. The reason I brought my horse here is because the older mares stablemate and Mom had to be put down, and I wanted her to have company. Do I just need more patience?
thank you
January 18th, 2010 at 6:02 am
[...] are no longer satisfied with an approximate approach, but want to learn as much as possible about equine behavior so they can understand as much as possible about how horses act, react and learn. This is not [...]