mare | Horse Racing Free Tips

Hormones Play A Role In Foal Rejection

Foaling can be a high-stress situation with a lot of variables that may go wrong, from dystocias to ill foals. Though most mares have an innate mothering mentality, some mares reject their offspring and the exact reason is unclear, making it difficult to prevent.

Drs. Dalia Berlin, Amir Steinman and Tal Raz conducted a study using eight Arabian mares who behaved normally after foaling and 15 Arabian mares who typically “rejected” their foals. Rejection includes refusing to let the foal nurse, indifference toward the foal and even attacking the foal. The Arabian was chosen specifically for the study as rejection behavior in mares has been well documented in the breed.

Each mare had blood drawn at the first and third day after foaling; the blood was tested for progesterone, prolactin and estradiol, which are reproductive hormones. The most significant difference between the two groups was the estradiol-to-progesterone ratio the first day after foaling was significantly lower in mares that rejected their foals than in mares with normal maternal behavior.

The exact role the hormones play in maternal behavior is unclear, but the ratio of hormones in mare that rejected their foals increased in the three days post foaling, suggesting that the hormones may normalize and the rejection behavior may diminish.

The study team notes that the creation of hormonal treatments for rejecting mares is premature as the optimal concentration for each hormone is yet unknown.

Your Horse Doesn’t Want A Card This Valentine’s Day — He Wants A Box Of Cookies

Hallway Feeds in Lexington, Ky., is helping horses find love this Valentine's Day. A family-owned business for more than 50 years, Hallway is introducing a heart-shaped box of horse feed and treats — just in time not only for the holiday, but for the opening of breeding sheds around Central Kentucky.

Hallway director of sales and marketing Anthony Koch said the boxes are a fun way for horse owners to show their horses they care, and a good introduction to Hallway's brand. It's also a timely reminder of the economic impact of the upcoming breeding season on the state, where 228 stallions will meet 17,241 mares this year.

Learn more at Hallway Feeds.

Like Humans, Dominant Horses Usually Found In Group’s Center

It's been recognized for decades that wild horse herds have a distinct hierarchy, typically with one dominant stallion that fathers all the offspring and one dominant mare that leads the herd to grazing ground. However, new research shows that there is actually a multilevel social structure to feral herds.

Drs. Tamao Maeda, Sakiho Ochi, Monamie Ringhofer, Sebastian Sosa, Cédric Sueur, Satoshi Hirata and Shinya Yamamoto used a drone to study 200 feral horses that lived in Serra D'Arga, Portugal. The study team took aerial images of the horses at 30-minute interval from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. for 30 days. They were able to identify more than 100 of the horses from the air using ground observation to determined color, markings and body shape.

The team then studied the patterns of interactions between the horses in the images to better understand their social structure. They concluded that there are multiple smaller social “units” within the larger herd. Each unit is comprised of two types of social groups: a harem of one or two adult males and several females and immature individuals; or an all-male unit of bachelors that could not attract any females.

The team discovered that these units all operate together to form a herd. In the herd the team studied, large mixed-sex units were typically at the center of the group of horses, with smaller mixed-sex and all-male units on the periphery. Their findings are consistent with the hierarchical strata of other social animals in which the more-dominant animals often occupy the center of the group, pushing subordinates to the periphery.

Read the full report here.

Sad Circumstance Allows Researchers To Study How Feral Horses Perceive Death

Researchers in Portugal who witnessed the decline and death of a foal in a feral herd were given a unique opportunity to see how wild horses reacted to the situation. Drs. Renata Mendonça, Monamie Ringhofer, Pandora Pinto, Sota Inoue and Satoshi Hirata watched the foal, who had been injured in a presumed wolf attack, for six hours; they noted his behavior as well as that of his dam and other herd members in the vicinity. Every two minutes, they recorded things like the distance between the horses and the injured foal; every five minutes they recorded horses moving, resting, eating and interacting with others.

The herd walked during the first several hours and the foal moved when prompted by his dam. He eventually went down and could not rise. His dam stayed near him and nuzzled him occasionally. After 15 minutes, the herd left the mare and foal behind. The stallion returned and attempted to move the mare from the foal, and succeeded on the seventh try. The dam whinnied to the foal 10 times and the foal responded once.

A second group of horses arrived and stood within 20 yards of the foal for 40 minutes. Though all members of the group were interested in the foal, two mares remained interested after the others had left to graze. These mares licked and sniffed the foal for several minutes, while the foal's dam watched from a distance.

During this interaction, the dam whinnied for the foal 44 times, but the stallion prevented her from returning to her foal. The foal responded only once after the other mares had left.

The dam returned to the foal once and fought with bachelor stallions who were interested in her. She left the foal to join the herd that was about 200 yards away. The foal stood and called for her one time after she left, then fell and died within an hour.

The research team notes that the mare moving away even though her foal was alive makes sense from an evolutionary context; it ensured her own survival, which allows her to reproduce again and benefit the species. The scientists were surprised by the reaction of the other two mares toward the foal. Traditionally, horses are antagonistic toward foals that are note their own; that the two mares were not could mean that they perceived something different about the foal.

Though there is still much to learn about how horses perceive death, the research team advises that owners and managers take equine emotions and reactions into account when dealing with the death of a domesticated herd mate.