Behaviors

In the wild, horses are prey animals that graze on open plains in bands or herds.

Flight Response

A horse is a flight animal that relies on running as its primary defense. When a horse is confronted by a predator, its main defense is to flee from danger. This flight response can cause a horse to react with sudden panic when fleeing a threat.

In addition to the flight response, other defenses include kicking, biting, rearing, bucking and striking.

Communication

A horse is a herd animal that communicates both vocally and with body language.

Lost, separated, upset, and hungry horses use vocal communication. A mare will whinny or nicker to its foal when greeting or calling it. Many adult horses will whinny to a human who feeds them regularly. A foal that is separated from its mare will neigh frantically for a response.

A horse that sees something strange will blow through its nostrils, snorting several times to alert the rest of the herd.

Squealing is another form of vocal communication. Squealing usually begins with nose touching and blowing.

However, horses do not vocalize pain the way that a dog might bark or yelp.

Body Language

A horse will use its body language just before the flight response.

The stance of a horse, the position of its head, its ear movements, making eye contact, and its chewing movements reveal a horse's temperament.

A horse that is tensing and collecting its body, suddenly raising its head, or snorting is upset and extremely dangerous. An upset horse will throw its head, shove against you, or pull away violently.

Affectionate displays of mutual grooming, nibbling each other's necks and backs, are frequent between family members, and occasionally even between the band stallion and his juvenile sons. Mutual grooming feels good and lessens tensions.

Most of the aggressive behavior displayed by horses is only a threat. Fighting and injuries can occur if horses are overcrowded and their dominance hierarchies are disrupted. A horse's fear of another dominant horse will override any human control.

Separation

A horse will gallop along with the herd because the flight response has conditioned them.

Only in cases of severe injury or illness, will a horse actually leave the herd or be driven from it.

Horses shouldn't be isolated from other horses. Their herd instinct can cause problems when a horse is forced to stay behind or ride ahead of other horses. Staying behind can cause a horse to fight for its head and leap in an effort to catch up, while going ahead of a group may cause refusal, or rearing.

Most horses accept separation from the herd after they learn that they will be returned to it.

A horse that is separated from a companion horse might run around whinnying and searching.

If another horse isn't nearby, horses will often bond with dogs, goats, cattle, or people.

Stable Vices

Because horses are flight animals adapted to running on the plains, they do not normally seek the protection of a forest when threatened. Stabling is like a forest to a horse and some never feel comfortable in a stall. Some stabled horses develop abnormal behaviors called stable vices from the stress of confinement. Stress in a horse can also result in replacement behaviors like wood chewing.

Some horses dislike separation from the herd so much that they become barn sour. This usually occurs with horses stabled for long periods.

Horses that are ridden by several different riders, whose horsemanship varies in ability, often become barn sour. It may be that these horses never develop confidence in their riders.

Some barn sour horses are actually trying to avoid work. The horse has learned that by being difficult it will be returned to its stall.