One morning recently, the sight that greeted us was that of four horses and a donkey lying down sleeping or dozing with one horse, in this case the matriarch, standing watch (sadly not captured on 'film'). Those of you that have been reading these newsletters for some while now will be familiar with references to anthropomorphism - the attributing of human characteristics to animals. We perceive comfort as being enclosed, warmth, shutting the world out and snuggling up. Some of our animals are like that too, in their own way. Dogs and cats are great seekers of comfort, searching out warmth, making little nests…sleeping all the hours they possibly can with short interruptions for food and attention. The reason for such behaviour is that cats and dogs are opportunists; their instincts are still those of the hunter and the hours of sleep are to conserve energy when not hunting and only to hunt when it is worth, or necessary, to hunt. In this way, the animal is managing its territory.
The horse has quite the opposite role. It is not predator but prey. This has made the horse an opportunist in a completely reversed sense. The horse - like the dog and the cat - eats “when it can” which is as much of the day as is possible. But as a predator, it must also always be ready to run - to escape so rather than managing its living terrain the horse exploits it. For this, the horse has an adapted digestive system which cannot cope with large meals but is specifically for eating small amounts at frequent intervals. This avoids the “post-prandial dip” that affects both humans and other omnivores and carnivores, the energy sapping digestion of a heavy meal.
Comfort for the horse is thus a completely different concept from comfort for a human. Locked up in a stall, the horse is not at ease - there is no escape from potential predators and nobody to keep watch so the horse is less likely to sleep in its stall than out in the open. And how many times do we find, in mid-winter, that the horse has eschewed possible shelter from an open stall and found a nice patch of snow to lie in!
Shelters are most used during the daytime, in the summer…as a shelter from the flies more than anything else. The concept of shutting the horse up at night for “a good night’s sleep” is completely contrary to the nature of the animal: the horse is technically a nocturnal animal. This does not mean that the horse sleeps during the day but rather it is most active at night. Studies using GPS-tracking have shown that he covers a great deal more ground at night than during the daytime - and visual studies will usually confirm this too. As darkness falls, a herd - or even just two horses - will suddenly “wake up” and start running around the field for maybe half an hour before settling down again. If we wait, we often see them start again after a pause.
After 52 million years of adaptation - compared with the 10 million of man and the 5,500 years of domestication - the horse really is the master of his own ways. It is he that teaches us, and not the reverse… |
