Arnold Gw, G. A. (1982). Ethogram of agonistic behaviour for thoroughbred horses. Appl. Animal. Ethol., 8(1), 5–25.
Abstract: Social interactions between individual horses were observed in two herds each comprising a stallion and a number of mares. In one herd, the animals were observed whilst grazing and resting; in the other, nearest neighbours were recorded when the animals were grazing, and social interactions were noted when the animals were feeding on hay.
In both herds, the horses showed marked preferences for the company of specific individuals when they were grazing. In one herd, the associations were mainly between individuals that had been associated prior to being put in the herd. In the other herd, this was not the case. A new statistic was produced for testing for specific company preference. In both herds, the stallion was dominant over all mares and never received any aggression.
The complete social hierarchy could not be determined for the herd which was observed only when grazing because social contact was restricted to that within groups or pairs that associated together. In the herd to which hay was fed, a non-linear hierarchy existed. Statistics were produced to quantify both the general level of dominance of a horse and its specific dominance or subordination to every other horse. It is suggested that these statistics, and one for quantifying the general aggressiveness of a horse, could be widely used.
A principal component analysis allowed the horses to be characterised socially according to aggressiveness, their attitude to other horses and their attractiveness to other horses.
|
|
Casebeer, R. L., & Koss, G. G. (1970). Food habits of wildebeest, zebra, hartebeest ans cattle in Kenya Massailand. E Afr Wildl J, 8, 25–36.
|
|
Douglas Rh, G. O. (1975). Development of the equine fetus and placenta. J Reprod Fert (Suppl), 23, 495–498.
|
Duncan, P., Foose, T. J., Gordon, I. J., Gakahu, C. G., & Lloyd, M. (1990). Comparative nutrient extraction from forages by grazing bovids and equids: a test of the nutritional model of equid/bovid competition and coexistence. Oecologia, 84(3), 411–418.
Abstract: Ruminants are unevenly distributed across the range of body sizes observed in herbivorous mammals; among extant East African species they predominate, in numbers and species richness, in the medium body sizes (10-600 kg). The small and the large species are all hind-gut fermenters. Some medium-sized hind-gut fermenters, equid perissodactyls, coexist with the grazing ruminants, principally bovid artiodactyls, in grassland ecosystems. These patterns have been explained by two complementary models based on differences between the digestive physiology of ruminants and hind-gut fermenters. The Demment and Van Soest (1985) model accounts for the absence of ruminants among the small and large species, while the Bell/Janis/Foose model accounts both for the predominance of ruminants, and their co-existence with equids among the medium-sized species (Bell 1971; Janis 1976; Foose 1982). The latter model assumes that the rumen is competitively superior to the hind-gut system on medium quality forages, and that hind-gut fermenters persist because of their ability to eat more, and thus to extract more nutrients per day from high fibre, low quality forages. Data presented here demonstrate that compared to similarly sized grazing ruminants (bovids), hind-gut fermenters (equids) have higher rates of food intake which more than compensate for their lesser ability to digest plant material. As a consequence equids extract more nutrients per day than bovids not only from low quality foods, but from the whole range of forages eaten by animals of this size. Neither of the current nutritional models, nor refinements of them satisfactorily explain the preponderance of the bovids among medium-sized ungulates; alternative hypotheses are presented.
|
|
Eisenmann V, G. D. C. (1974). Caractères distinctifs des premières phalanges antérieures et postérieures chez certains équidés actuels et fossiles. Bull Soc g?ol France, 16, 352–361.
|
|
Eisenmann V, G. D. C. (1974). Caractères distinctifs entre vrais zèbres et zèbres de Chapman d`après l`étude de 60 têtes osseuses. Mammalia, 38, 509–543.
|
|
Eisenmann V, G. C. (1984). Morphologie fonctionelle et environnement chez les périssodactyles. Geobios, Mém sp, 8, 69.
|
|
Fagen Rm, G. T. (1977). Play behavior and exercise in young ponies. Behav Ecol Sociobiol, 2, 267–269.
|
Francis-Smith, K., & Wood-Gush, D. G. M. (1977). Copropgagia as seen in thoroughbred foals. Equine Vet J, 9(3), 155–157.
Abstract: Four Thoroughbred foals were seen to quickly eat part of the faeces deposited by their own dams on some 40 per cent of the mare-defaecating occasions observed between the second and fifth week after birth. They did not do it before or after this period. This behaviour was thought to be a feeding pattern which formed a normal part of the foal's development.
|
|
Green Nf, G. H. (1977). The wild horse population.... Proc National Wild Horse Forum, 1, 59–65.
|
