Fight Or Flight: What Are Horses Feeling?
Horse & Hound|March 01, 2018

New research highlights discrepencies between how a horse is acting with how stressed he may be feeling

Lucy Elder
Fight Or Flight: What Are Horses Feeling?
HOW a horse is feeling does not always match his behaviour, a study has highlighted.

Researchers from Hartpury College and Nottingham Trent University used heart rate and eye temperature monitors to measure stress levels of 46 horses.

Handlers led these horses over a blue tarpaulin and through coloured streamers while researchers looked at how quickly they completed the tests, and if they refused, what strategies they used to avoid them.

They found there was no difference in stress levels between the horses who froze and those who fought to get away. But, some of the horses who completed the task quickly displayed high levels of stress, while some of those who refused were not stressed at all.

The paper has been published in peer-review journal Applied Animal Behaviour.

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