Want to learn about horses?

Some nice research showing, that horses who have their behavioural needs met actually learn better!

Interesting results from a recent study show that horses living at pasture with other horses are better at following human-guided cues than those living in stalls or paddocks, regardless of their relationship with the human giving those clues.

The findings suggest horses might learn to understand humans’ gestures over time, but that good welfare, husbandry, and mental stimulation can strongly affect their learning ability 👇

🔓 link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-023-01775-0

Lots of sycamore saplings about this year….took a hold in our sand paddock. Luckily it’s not in use but a serious problem re atypical myopathy.

Forage - should always be your main focus, both for nutrition of your horse and also allowing your horse his basic behavioural need of trickle feeding over most of the day.

Forage to Concentrate Ratios are irrelevant nowadays!!

In the 'old days' we used to limit forage and add concentrate feed according to workload.

Now we know better!

Good feeding means getting as many nutrients as possible from forage, and then adding feed products - whether that is a vit/min supplement, a balancer or a concentrate feed - to make up for the shortages in the forage.

Good feeding is not limiting forage intake unless needed for healthy weight maintenance.

Researchers have proved that hard working horses can grow and compete successfully on forage diets (high energy forage balanced with vit/mins).

Choose appropriate forage for your horse, then add as much bucket feed as necessary to keep them maintaining weight, condition and performance.

Feel free to share!
🐴🍏

Nice little post that we all would do well to follow.

Nice paper showing the importance of a close long term relationship for a good bond and, ultimately, better welfare
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159122001678

Observing horses is an important skill that takes time to develop. It can provide important information for solving behavioural problems and is essential when getting to know a new horse and avoid common teething and adjustment issues. But regular observation is important for all horses to assess subtle changes that may indicate pain or difficulties with their environment. Examples of good observation are watching from a distance at feeding time or sitting quietly in a field / adjoining field quietly and unnoticed.

It's important to pinpoint the reasons for a particular behaviour as if the root of the behaviour can't be found, it also cannot be satisfactorily be resolved.

Grumpy Horse While Tacking and Mounting? That’s Not Normal – The Horse Researcher: Don’t ignore subtle signs of equine discomfort before riding. Often the cause is a veterinary issue.

Not just babies that respond to baby talk, as most people who have animals already know. Here's the science to back it up!
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-021-01487-3

Horses are sensitive to baby talk: pet-directed speech facilitates communication with humans in a pointing task and during grooming - Animal Cognition Pet-directed speech (PDS) is a type of speech humans spontaneously use with their companion animals. It is very similar to speech commonly used when talking to babies. A survey on social media showed that 92.7% of the respondents used PDS with their horse, but only 44.4% thought that their horse was...