The principles of ethological horsemanship
Ethological horse riding brings together horse education techniques, from American horsemanship practiced by the “ whisperers », and scientific knowledge on horse behavior: equine ethology. Its objective: to take into account the nature of the horse to ensure its well-being.
From equine ethology to ethological riding
It is important to distinguish ethological horsemanship from equine ethology which focuses on describing and understanding horse behavior. A scientific discipline in its own right which studies the behavior of animals in a natural environment, equine ethology gained recognition in 1973 when Niko Tinbergen, Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for work on animal behavior, each in different areas.
- Before 1930, the training phase of the discipline is described asnaturalist ethology.
- Subsequently and until the 1960s, the classic phase was characterized by an opposition between the European objectivist vision and the behaviorist approach developed in the United States.
- Finally, since the 60s, the scientific discipline has entered a phase of maturity, called modern ethology. She knows different movements in the scientific community.
It was not until the end of the XNUMXth century that ethological riding appeared in the United States, a method of educating horses based on understanding their deep nature and behavior in order to better communicate with them.
The horse, a sensitive and complex animal
Le cheval is a large mammal of the family equines. Herbivorous prey, the horse, unlike the cow, does not chew the cud. His particularly fragile digestive system even prevents him from vomiting.
Just like humans, horses have different senses allowing them to analyze the outside world. From 5 senses of the horse, we find in particular sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch, which are identical to those of human beings. There are, however, some notable differences in their use:
View
The horse cannot see immediately in front of him, for a distance of up to 2 meters, nor behind him, in the extension of his body. Very sensitive to contrasts, it requires long minutes of adaptation during sudden changes in light intensity. But then he sees perfectly in the dark and at night. Its color vision also seems different from ours.
The smell
The horse, like many other animals, has a specialized organ called the vomeronasal or Jacobson organ. It allows it to analyze the molecules emitted by its congeners, pheromones, contained for example in the urine of mares in heat.
Taste
While great attention is paid to the horse's diet, we paradoxically know very little about its taste capabilities. One thing is certain, it has, like humans, 4 types of taste buds. These are concentrated on the tongue and allow it to distinguish sweet, salty, bitter and sour.
Hearing
The horse's hearing range is much greater than ours since it hears ultrasound. That is to say, very high-pitched sounds that humans cannot perceive. Conversely, the latter is sensitive to serious or low frequency sounds, inaudible to the horse. Our voice is, fortunately, one of the ranges of sound that horses hear best.
Touch
Very sensitive to touch, the horse has some anatomical particularities: the vibrissae and the platysmic muscles, quivering reflexively when an insect lands on the skin.
The domestication of the horse
The counterpart of domestication
If domestication provides comfort and security to the horse which, for example, no longer needs to find its own food, it also brings its share of negative consequences. Indeed, this life in contact with Man is considerably impacted…
Horse nutrition
The nutritional needs of the horse domestic, fed with very rich foods, are covered very quickly. He spends a large part of his day in “forced rest”. The absence of fiber in its diet (grass, hay, etc.) is also detrimental for the horse whose digestive system is designed to be permanently active. Related risks: gastric ulcers, colic, too much energy, obesity, thinness, etc.
Horse habitat
The individual box is still, at present, the most common mode of accommodation. While it protects the horse from bad weather and insects and provides it with clean and comfortable bedding, it also deprives it of movement and social contact, essential to its well-being. Related risks: apathy, aggressiveness towards humans or fellow humans, etc.
Activities
In natural conditions, the horse covers around ten kilometers per day, mainly at a walking pace. On the other hand, the outings that a rider offers to his horse are short, intense and based on much livelier gaits: trotting and galloping. Related risks: release of steam during mounted or lunge work, lameness, back pain
Stereotypies, a sign of discomfort
Described as repetitive movements with no apparent purpose or function, they would allow the horse to tolerate its domestic environment. It is therefore strongly not recommended to prevent it from ticking but it is preferable to look for the cause. Some examples: leaning twitch, air twitch, bear twitch, serpentine tongue, wandering... The leaning twitch is one of the most common equine stereotypies. The horse leans with its incisors on a support and contracts its neck, producing a hoarse sound.
The language of the horse
Understand how horses communicate
Visual communication
La visual communication is the horse's preferred means of transmitting information to its peers. For this, it has numerous postures in which each part of the body has a role to play. Thus, its body language includes a wide range of facial expressions which would be richer than that of the dog and even the chimpanzee!
The transition from one posture to another is gradual to give the target horse time to react and thus avoid coming to physical contact.
Olfactory communication
In horse language, olfactory communication is used in the context of individual recognition. It is particularly used by stallions to analyze the urine and droppings of mares in heat. Smell is also involved in marking behavior during which stallions demonstrate their presence by covering droppings that do not belong to them.
During greetings, horses blow air into each other's nostrils in order to analyze the body odor of their fellow horse.
The transition from one posture to another is gradual to give the target horse time to react and thus avoid coming to physical contact.
Sound communication
La sound communication includes two categories of sounds. First, the vocalizations emitted by the vocal cords (neighing, contact call, squeaking, moaning). Then, those only produced by the inhalation or exhalation of air (snoring, snorting, blowing). Each of them is expressed in a very specific context of horse language. They therefore have very distinct meanings.
Made with an open mouth, the neighing can be heard up to 1 km. It is used to reestablish contact during a separation.
Tactile communication
La tactile communication is mainly reserved for affinity relationships between privileged partners. For mutual grooming, the head rests on the conspecific or head to tail to chase away flies, for example. However, physical contact can sometimes occur in less positive contexts: biting, kicking, fighting, etc.
Tactile contacts between preferred partners thus strengthen social bonds between horses.
The horse's daily life
How the horse distributes its time
If domestication provides daily comfort and security for horses who, for example, no longer need to find their own food, it also brings its share of negative consequences. Indeed, this life in contact with Man is considerably impacted…
Food
In its natural state, the horse rarely stays more than 3 hours without eating. It grazes, while being mobile, more than 60% of his time.
The horse is herbivorous, its diet is varied: grass, but also leaves, berries, moss, bark, etc.
The male has 40 teeth, the female generally 36. The incisors allow the horse to practice very short grazing.
displacement
Horses live in a home range where they find everything they need: horses, water, food, shelter, etc. It can be shared with other families. The horse is therefore not a territorial animal.
4 to 8% of the day is devoted to travel, mainly walking and in single file, between the different areas of interest.
The horse thus shapes its environment and creates trails by always taking the same paths.
Repos
Rest, standing or lying down, occupies 20 to 30% of the day of the horse. It is available in several cycles of 30 to 60 minutes, in particular because of its large mass which in the long term leads to a crushing of the internal organs.
REM sleep, a period when the horse sleeps deeply and dreams develop, can only occur when the horse is lying down.
Vigilance
The horse devotes 4 to 8% of your day monitoring its environment. If a suspicious element is spotted, he signals it to the group by an alert posture and the emission of sound signals.
The stallion spends more time under observation than the mares. It monitors possible dangers and the arrival of potential competitors.
And the remainings ?
Finally, the remaining time of the horse's daily life is devoted to social behaviors, reproduction and so-called maintenance behaviors: urinating, defecating, scratching, rolling, drinking, etc.
The social organization of the horse
The different social structures of the horse
The social organization of the horse evolves over the course of its life. Indeed, solitary, in a group of singles or in a herd, the horse experiences different types of social structures. He must therefore adapt to the situations and people he encounters. Each structure has its own characteristics which make the horse's social organization varied and different from that of humans.
The Family
The family, also called “harem“, is generally made up of several equines. A stallion, sometimes two in the event of an alliance, one to three mares, foals of the year. Young people can also be present until the age of 2 or 3 years.
The young males then join a group of single stallions.
Young females can join them, be picked up by another stallion or remain in their original group if their father is no longer at the head.
The family is a stable and multi-age structure.
The group of single males
This group is made up of young people who do not yet have their own group and males of all ages.
It is at this time that young males learn the social codes useful for their future life: fighting, driving, playing games, rituals around droppings, etc.
This structure is less stable than the family due to the regular departures and arrivals of horses of all ages.
Life alone
Young males leave the bachelor group around the age of 5 years. They can then live alone for a while before forming their harem or getting one back. The old male who is deposed may thus in turn be led to live alone for a while.
The rider, an educator
The nature of the horse is different from ours. This is why it is important to know and understand him in order to improve our relationship with him. Understanding the horse, how he perceives things and how he learns them, enriches the practice of horse riding.
By devoting oneself to ethical riding, the rider becomes an educator. It addresses the horse's brain and not just its physique. It is therefore important to explain to the horse, not to force it but rather to convince it. It is up to the rider to find the means to make him understand and make him adhere to what he is asking so that his physique is expressed.
Texts by Déborah Bardou and Hélène Roche, ethologists – Photos Hélène Roche