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Houpt, K. A., & Fraser, A. F. (1988). Przewalski horses. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 21(1-2), 1–3. |
Kirkpatrick, J. F., & Turner, J. W. (1983). Seasonal ovarian function in feral mares: seasonal patterns of LH, progestins and estrogens in feral mares. J. Equine Vet. Sci., 3(4), 113–118.
Abstract: Blood was collected every 3 days for 13 months from 4 captured [female][female] of proven fertility kept adjacent to a teaser stallion. Basal plasma LH level was greater during Apr.-July (8.1+or-0.5 ng/ml) than during Nov.-Jan. (2.2+or-0.2). A total for 21 LH peaks occurred between 13 Apr. and 31 Aug. among the 4 [female][female]; many peaks exceeded 20 times the basal level, and there was a trend to a higher LH level with each succeeding peak. On all occasions except one, LH peaks were associated with progesterone levels of 0.5 ng/ml and with increases of oestrogen (peak average 43.1+or-12.1 pg/ml). Basal progesterone level during Apr.-July (1.5+or-1.2 ng/ml) did not differ significantly from that during Oct.-Jan. (1.1+or-0.7), nor did basal oestrogen level differ significantly between those 2 periods (8.4+or-3.2 and 12.9+or-4.6 pg/ml resp.). Behavioural oestrus always occurred with LH and oestrogen peaks during Apr.-July. However, behavioural oestrus was occasionally observed during Aug.-Oct., when LH peaks no longer occurred.
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Klimov, V. V. (1988). Spatial-ethological organization of the herd of Przewalski horses (Equus przewalskii) in Askania-Nova. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 21(1-2), 99–115.
Abstract: The ethological structure of the herd of Przewalski horses includes hierarchic ranks of horses which determine their social roles in the herd. Besides the age ranks, the wild horses are characterized by the formation of harem groups, a “leading” group of females, a group of bachelor stallions, family groups, etc. The ethological structure determines the spatial one, which is the form of distribution of horses over the territory, and its assimilation and transformation into a system of informative spatial units. Under the influence of “internal” and “external” stimuli, the intragoup regulatory mechanims (social adaptations) manifest themselves, which allow the herd to function in the complicated situation of the reserve and allow humans to control the herd by using these mechanisms. There are grounds to believe that, given the balanced ethological structure of these groups, wild horses could be successfully acclimatized into natural biotopes.
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Kolter, L., & Zimmermann, W. (1988). Social behaviour of Przewalski horses (Equus p. przewalskii) in the Cologne Zoo and its consequences for management and housing. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 21(1-2), 117–145.
Abstract: Between 1977 and 1986, two actual rank changes and two unsuccessful attempts occurred among the mares of the Cologne herd. The stallion was at first a low-ranking individual, but attained a dominant position during the last 3 years. At this time he started to split his group and thus to affect attachment relationships among his mares. During his absence of half a year, new bonds resulted and disappeared again some months after his return. Foals were tolerated by the sire for a long time. His behaviour to young, sub-adult mares varied with the individual. Protection of sub-adult mares by adult mares against the stallion's attacks may occur. Young mares protect and guard strange foals from their very first day. Management steps to cope with social and feeding problems consisted of enlargement and adding complexity to the enclosure, the establishment of more feeding sites, building a stable and temporary removal of the stallion.
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Merkies, K., McKechnie, M. J., & Zakrajsek, E. (2018). Behavioural and physiological responses of therapy horses to mentally traumatized humans. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, .
Abstract: The benefits to humans of equine-assisted therapy (EAT) have been well-researched, however few studies have analyzed the effects on the horse. Understanding how differing mental states of humans affect the behaviour and response of the horse can assist in providing optimal outcomes for both horse and human. Four humans clinically diagnosed and under care of a psychotherapist for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) were matched physically to four neurotypical control humans and individually subjected to each of 17 therapy horses loose in a round pen. A professional acting coach instructed the control humans in replicating the physical movements of their paired PTSD individual. Both horses and humans were equipped with a heart rate (HR) monitor recording HR every 5secs. Saliva samples were collected from each horse 30 min before and 30 min after each trial to analyze cortisol concentrations. Each trial consisted of 5 min of baseline observation of the horse alone in the round pen after which the human entered the round pen for 2 min, followed by an additional 5 min of the horse alone. Behavioural observations indicative of stress in the horse (gait, head height, ear orientation, body orientation, distance from the human, latency of approach to the human, vocalizations, and chewing) were retrospectively collected from video recordings of each trial and analyzed using a repeated measures GLIMMIX with Tukey's multiple comparisons for differences between treatments and time periods. Horses moved slower (p < 0.0001), carried their head lower (p < 0.0001), vocalized less (p < 0.0001), and chewed less (p < 0.0001) when any human was present with them in the round pen. Horse HR increased in the presence of the PTSD humans, even after the PTSD human left the pen (p < 0.0001). Since two of the PTSD/control human pairs were experienced with horses and two were not, a post-hoc analysis showed that horses approached quicker (p < 0.016) and stood closer (p < 0.0082) to humans who were experienced with horses. Horse HR was lower when with inexperienced humans (p < 0.0001) whereas inexperienced human HR was higher (p < 0.0001). Horse salivary cortisol did not differ between exposure to PTSD and control humans (p > 0.32). Overall, behavioural and physiological responses of horses to humans are more pronounced based on human experience with horses than whether the human is diagnosed with a mental disorder. This may be a reflection of a directness of movement associated with humans who are experienced with horses that makes the horse more attentive. It appears that horses respond more to physical cues from the human rather than emotional cues. This knowledge is important in tailoring therapy programs and justifying horse responses when interacting with a patient in a therapy setting.
Keywords: Equine-assisted therapy; Ptsd; Horse; Behaviour; Cortisol; Heart rate
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Barry, K. J., & Crowell-Davis, S. L. (1999). Gender differences in the social behavior of the neutered indoor-only domestic cat. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 64(3), 193–211.
Abstract: The domestic cat exhibits a wide variety of social behavior. The aim of this experiment was to investigate factors which influence the affiliative and aggressive behavior of the indoor-only neutered domestic cat. Some 60 households comprised of either two males, two females or a male and female cat were observed. The cats were between 6 months and 8 years old, and were always restricted to the indoors. Each pair of housemates was observed for 10 h. There were no significant differences in affiliative or aggressive behavior based on cat gender. However, females were never observed to allorub other females. The male/male households did spend more time in close proximity. The amount of time the cats had lived together was negatively correlated with the amount of aggression observed during the study. Factors such as size of the house and weight difference between the cats did not correlate with the aggression rate. Large standard deviations and the correlations of social behavior between housemates indicated the importance of individual differences in behavior.
Keywords: Sex differences; Spatial distribution; Cat; Social; Aggression; Affiliation; Felis catus
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Boyd, L. E., Carbonaro, D. A., & Houpt, K. A. (1988). The 24-hour time budget of Przewalski horses. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 21(1-2), 5–17.
Abstract: A herd of 8 Przewalski horses were observed on pasture in summer. Fifteen-minute focal animal samples were used to determine the time budget of the horses during the periods 00.00-04.00, 04.00-08.00, 08.00-12.00, 12.00-16.00, 16.00-20.00 and 20.00-24.00 h EDT. The behavioral states recorded were feeding (grazing and eating grain), nursing, drinking, standing, stand-resting, self-grooming, mutual grooming, locomoting, playing, and lying laterally and sternally. The average number of behavioral states occurring per hour, and the defecation, urination, aggression and vocalization rates were also determined. Overall, the horses spent 46.4 +/- 5.9% of their time feeding, 1.3 +/- 0.1% nursing, 0.5 +/- 0.1% drinking, 20.6 +/- 5.4% standing, 15.7 +/- 3.2% stand-resting, 1.7 +/- 0.2% self-grooming, 2.2 +/- 0.7% mutual grooming, 7.4 +/- 1.0% locomoting, 1.2 +/- 0.3% playing, 1.2 +/- 0.5% lying laterally and 4.1 +/- 3.0% lying sternally. The horses averaged 45.2 +/- 5.8 behavioral states per hour, and 0.2 +/- 0.0 defecations, 0.3 +/- 0.0 urinations, 1.5 +/- 0.3 aggressions and 0.7 +/- 0.1 vocalizations per hour. The horses spent the greatest amount of time foraging between 20.00 and 04.00 h, when the temperatures were lower. They spent 68.2 +/- 2.2% of their time between 20.00 and 24.00 h feeding, but only 31.2 +/- 2.1% of their time feeding between 08.00 and 12.00 h. Recumbent rest was most common between 00.00 and 04.00 h. As temperatures rose during the daylight hours, the horses spent more time drinking and standing, rather than grazing. Stand-resting was the most common form of rest during the day. The horses exhibited the greatest number of activities per hour from 08.00 to 20.00 h. While standing in close proximity to one another during these hours, the horses exhibited the highest number of aggressions per hour (1.9-2.4).
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McGreevy, P. D., & Rogers, L. J. (2005). Motor and sensory laterality in thoroughbred horses. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 92(4), 337–352.
Abstract: We investigated lateralisation in horses because it is likely to be important in training and athletic performance. Thoroughbred horses (n = 106) were observed every 60 s for 2 h, when they were at pasture, and the position of the forelimbs in relation to one another was recorded. There was a population bias skewed to standing with the left forelimb advanced over the right (i.e. directional lateralisation). Using the first 50 observations, the distribution of preferences was 43 significantly left, 10 significantly right with 53 being non-significant (i.e. ambidextextrous). The strength of motor bias increased with age, suggesting maturation or an influence of training. The horses were also presented with an olfactory stimulus (stallion faeces) to score the tendency to use one nostril rather than the other. A significant preference to use the right nostril first was shown in horses under 4 years of age (n = 61) but not in older horses. Of the 157 horses tested for nostril bias, 76 had been assessed for motor bias and so were used for analysis of the relationship between laterality in the two modalities. There was no significant relationship between direction of foreleg motor bias and first nostril used, total number of inhalations or laterality index of nostril use. The absence of a correlation between laterality of nostril use and motor bias indicates that lateralisation of the equine brain occurs on at least two levels of neural organisation--sensory and motor--a finding that is consistent with other examples of lateralisation in species that have been examined in more detail.
Keywords: Horse; Lateralisation; Training; Olfaction; Forelimb preference
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McGreevy, P. D., & Thomson, P. C. (2006). Differences in motor laterality between breeds of performance horse. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 99(1-2), 183–190.
Abstract: This study examined the relationship between motor laterality in horses bred for different types of work and therefore different temperaments. Foreleg preference during grazing was measured in three populations of domestic horse, Thoroughbreds (TB, bred to race at the gallop), Standardbreds (SB, bred for pacing) and Quarter Horses (QH, in this case bred for so-called “cutting work” which involves manoeuvring individual cattle in and out of herds). With a one-sample t-test, TBs showed strong evidence of a left preference in motor laterality (P = 0.000), as did SBs (P = 0.002) but there was no convincing evidence for laterality in QH (P = 0.117). However, the increasing trend in left preference from QH to SBs then TBs was associated with increasing differences between individual horses within a breed. The overall preference (either left or right) increased with age (P = 0.008) and the rate of increase varied with breeds. The presence of a higher proportion of left-foreleg preferent individuals in TBs and SBs compared with QH may indicate that their training or selection (or both) has an effect on motor bias.
Keywords: Horse; Lateralisation; Laterality; Breed; Training
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McCall, C. A. (1990). A Review of Learning Behavior in Horses and its Application in Horse Training. J. Anim Sci., 68(1), 75–81.
Abstract: A literature review of the equine learning research conducted in the past 20 yr revealed that the purpose of most of the studies was to determine whether horses respond to learning situations in the same way that other animals do. The results indicated that horses can discriminate many different types of stimuli, and they learn through stimulus-response- reinforcement chains. Most equine learning studies have utilized learning tasks depending on primary positive reinforcement to get the horses to work the tests. Yet, the majority of horse trainers use negative reinforcement more often than primary positive reinforcement in their training procedures. Therefore, past research often did not have a direct application to training methods commonly utilized in the horse industry. Research also demonstrated that 1) early experiences of horses can affect learning ability later, 2) equine memory is efficient and 3) concentrating learning mals in long training sessions decreases equine learning efficiency. Many factors that might affect equine learning ability and be applicable to training practices in the horse industry have not been thoroughly investigated; for example, interactions between nutrition and learning and between exercise and learning, the use of negative and secondary reinforcements in horse training, and the horse's ability to make few initial errors compared to its ability to eliminate errors as training progresses all require investigation in future equine learning studies. N1 -
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