Cattle and horses have traditionally lived together and were familiar with each other. In many modern operations however, most cattle and horses live separately, so they very rarely encounter one another. Horses kept in suburban areas may go their whole lives without exposure to bovines or other hooved animals. 

When horses that are not used to cows are exposed to one outside of their familiar barn, they may act fearful and try to avoid the cow. The research team from the University of Life Sciences in Lublin, the University of Chester in England, and the Polish Academy of Sciences created a study to determine if horses were more fearful of cows than other novel objects. 

They created an experiment using 20 healthy riding horses; they put each horse individually in an arena familiar to them and exposed them to two different cows tethered in the space and a box on wheels. They also exposed them to nothing so they had a control. 

The arena was marked off in sections, with section one being closest to the cow and section three being furthest away. The researchers then measured how much time the horses spent at different distances from the cow, as well as the horse's heart rate. The horse's reactions were also recorded. 

Two months later, each horse was led either toward one of the cows or toward the box. The horse's heart rate was monitored. While loose, the horses avoided the area closest to the cow and the box; horses that were led became more fearful the closer they got to the cow and the box.

The results showed that the horses were as afraid or more afraid of the cow than a box. The scientists say this reaction suggests that the horse's fear of novel objects may also be a part of a horse's fear of unfamiliar species.

The team concludes that as prey animals, horses are sensitive to unknown and frightening stimuli, and they often act in fear despite years of domestication and selection against fearful behavior. This instinct to avoid fearful objects, living or not, may be exacerbated when the horse is restrained (in this case led toward the object). They also concluded that with handler support, trained horses can be easily habituated to objects they once found scary.

Read the full study here. 

Read more at HorseTalk. 

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Dr. Claire Ricci-Bonot led a study that paired 32 riding school horses with a companion horse they did or did not know.

Half the companion horses were taught to not react to an opening umbrella or a striped gymnastics ball being placed near their hooves. The test horses, either with or without a companion they may have been familiar with, were then exposed to the objects.

The research team measured the test horses' heart rates and reactions, discovering that the horses reacted more calmly to the ball when they had a companion with them, whether they knew the other horse or not.

Their fearful reaction to the umbrella was the same with and without a companion, but the test horse's heart rate decreased more rapidly when paired with a companion than when alone. This discovery suggests that a companion has a post-reaction calming effect.

Read more at The Horse.

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Dr. Agnieszka Sabiniewicza and her research team collected body odor samples from 10 people who were either happy or fearful to see if the emotional states elicited different responses in horses exposed to them.

The researchers asked the people involved in the study to avoid smoking, smelly foods, exercise, and alcohol for multiple days. They also asked them to wash their clothes in a perfume-free detergent. The scientists then showed the people a cartoon or a horror video while they were wearing sterile pads in their armpits. The pads were collected and frozen to preserve their odor.

The team exposed 21 adult horses to the pads that the fearful or happy humans had worn; the horses were also exposed to pads that were not worn at all, which served as the control.

For the test, two people stood in different corners of the stall while each horse was shown the pads. One person was familiar to the horse and the other was unknown. Neither person interacted with the horse. A pole with four odor pads (either all fearful, all happy or all control) was shown to the horse.

The team found that the horses exposed to the fearful odor raised their heads more frequently and for longer periods of time. These horses also touched the familiar person in their stall more frequently and for longer than they did when exposed to the control or happiness odors.

The team concluded that human body odor alone can serve as an indicator of human emotion and can cause horses to behave differently.

Read more at Equine Science Update.

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Lead by Dr. Kim Junyoung, the study team tested the blood of 34 horses for oxytocin and serotonin. The trainability, fearfulness, and dominance of each horse was then scored by three professors familiar with the horses.

The researchers concluded that a high concentration of oxytocin reduces fearfulness and can make a horse more trainable. The research team suggests additional studies be completed to determine the effects on a horse's temperament when being treated with the hormone.

Read the full article here.

Read more at HorseTalk.

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Colic surgery can seem scary, but improvements in the past few decades have lessened the chance of a negative outcome, reports The Horse. Yet, myths regarding colic surgery remain. Dr. Jacqueline Hill, who practices at Littleton Equine Medical Center in Colorado, dispels some of the most common colic surgery myths.

Myth 1: A horse will never return to pre-surgery performance levels. Though colic surgery is a major surgery with a long recover period, horses can go back to their pre-surgery performance levels. A study that used over 200 horses of different breeds found that 84 percent of the horses returned to their discipline after colic surgery and that 79 percent were performing at or above the level they were at before the surgery.

Myth 2: A horse can be “too old” for colic surgery. The life expectancy for horses, like humans, has lengthened in the last few decades, with many horses ridden well into their 20s. A recent study from the University of Pennsylvania compared horses between 4 and 15 years old that had colic surgery with horses that were over 20 that had colic surgery. They found that both categories had similar post-operative complications and survival rates.

Myth 3: A horse is never the same after having a resection. Horses tend to fare differently depending on the section of intestine that has been resected: horses that have had their small intestine resected tend to fare better than those that have had the end of the intestine resected. It was recently reported that horses that have had their large colon resected have 65 to 75 percent long-term survival rates; small-intestine only resections see up to 75 percent of patients with long-term success.

More evidence is needed to resolve the myth that horses that have had colic surgery are more prone to colicking again. Studies have reported that between 0 to 35 percent of post-surgical horses have another colic episode within 12 months of a colic surgery. Factors that appear to affect this include what portion of the bowel was affected and what surgical procedure was used. Generally, if a horse doesn't colic in the first year after surgery, his risk of colicking again is similar to a horse that didn't have surgery.

Read more at The Horse.

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Drs. Janne Winther Christensen, Carina Beblein and Jens Malmkvist note that horses will always face situations that can scare them, but through habituation and breeding for a calm demeanor, they can be trained to not flee.

Horses that are scared cause accidents; the researchers note that everyone involved with horses, from those who breed to those who play sports and teach others how to ride, have a responsibility to try to reduce accidents. They also report that it is unethical to breed fearful animals as it has a negative impact on animal welfare.

However, to study equine fearfulness, the same group of horses need to be kept in the identical management situations for the first three or four years of their lives, which is unusual. Winther Christensen and her team followed 25 Warmblood stallions from five months to 3.5 years of age; they were kept as a group with limited human handling.

The researchers reported that foals on their dams' side showed distinct differences in how they approached novel items. Some foals hurried back to their mothers when they saw a scary object while others approached and investigated it. Heart rate monitors showed that the foals that hurried back to their mothers had higher heart rates than the more-inquisitive foals.

Tested again as 3-year-olds, the same horses had similar reactions; overall, the horses that were more alert to the object had more pronounced fear reactions. The team determined that a foal's expression of alertness can help predict later behavior. Fearfulness is consistent across ages, which is helpful to know to ensure proper training and handling of the most-fearful horses. Additionally, if breeders were to breed only calm horses, after a few generations the population would generally become less fearful.

Read more at Horses and People.

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