Herd Bound

SingleAgain · 10-14-07, 05:04 PM

I agree that I have not personally experienced this in an animal. I have known of animals that self harm, but it is not normally an attention seeking behaviour, rather because of some other illness or nutritional deficiency.

Horses are so intelligent though, that perhaps it can happen.

Willow · 10-15-07, 02:26 AM

Hi SingleAgain.
We had a fresh castrated stallion, which, due to illness, had to be confined for 2 weeks. He started self-mutilation behavior. it is a stereotypic behaviour. The behaviours themselves may have developed in direct respone to some combination of sexual frustration, inactivity and stall confinement, and may simply be a re-directed expression of male aggressive tendencies.
On the other hand, such behavior can be corrected when the horse is somewhat able to control their environment, ie pasture turn out and change of diet, take away sugars aso. One can observe it in stallions a lot.

I seriously doubt a "self-sorrow" or "victim role" behavior exists in horses, that much comprehension ability an animal doesn't have, maybe monkeys, but I'm not interested in their behavior, so I don't know

The soon I write an ex-collegue in Wisconsin, I will ask about, he had studied animal behavior and sociobiology, whereas I studied the human counterpart

SaddleSore · 10-15-07, 11:19 PM

It would be most interesting to hear what he says. I have never heard of the behaviour in a horse either, and honestly do not know how they would present such a thing.

I do know however that rats can suffer from depression. They will starve themselves to death in the wrong circumstances.

hummingbird42256 · 11-07-07, 06:41 AM

Yes, Horses are pack animals.They live in packs .Maybe one way to solve this problem would be to take one other horse with you for a friend to ride or just as company.

hummingbird42256 · 11-13-07, 08:01 PM

We had a beautiful geilding that had that problem. He was most stubborn.My daughter would ride him out in the field and then he would whip around and make a b line back to the other horses.Never broke him from that we finally sold him for fear she would be hurt. I hated to though, we had grown quiet fond of him.

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10-14-07, 05:04 PM	Herd Bound Post #16 (permalink)
SingleAgain Member Join Date: 10-11-07 Posts: 25	I agree that I have not personally experienced this in an animal. I have known of animals that self harm, but it is not normally an attention seeking behaviour, rather because of some other illness or nutritional deficiency. Horses are so intelligent though, that perhaps it can happen.

10-15-07, 02:26 AM	Herd Bound Post #17 (permalink)
Willow Member Join Date: 08-21-07 Posts: 34 Images: 1	Hi SingleAgain. We had a fresh castrated stallion, which, due to illness, had to be confined for 2 weeks. He started self-mutilation behavior. it is a stereotypic behaviour. The behaviours themselves may have developed in direct respone to some combination of sexual frustration, inactivity and stall confinement, and may simply be a re-directed expression of male aggressive tendencies. On the other hand, such behavior can be corrected when the horse is somewhat able to control their environment, ie pasture turn out and change of diet, take away sugars aso. One can observe it in stallions a lot. I seriously doubt a "self-sorrow" or "victim role" behavior exists in horses, that much comprehension ability an animal doesn't have, maybe monkeys, but I'm not interested in their behavior, so I don't know The soon I write an ex-collegue in Wisconsin, I will ask about, he had studied animal behavior and sociobiology, whereas I studied the human counterpart

10-15-07, 11:19 PM	Herd Bound Post #18 (permalink)
SaddleSore Member Join Date: 10-12-07 Posts: 233	It would be most interesting to hear what he says. I have never heard of the behaviour in a horse either, and honestly do not know how they would present such a thing. I do know however that rats can suffer from depression. They will starve themselves to death in the wrong circumstances.

11-07-07, 06:41 AM	Herd Bound Post #19 (permalink)
hummingbird42256 Member Join Date: 11-05-07 Posts: 26	Yes, Horses are pack animals.They live in packs .Maybe one way to solve this problem would be to take one other horse with you for a friend to ride or just as company.

11-13-07, 08:01 PM	Herd Bound Post #20 (permalink)
hummingbird42256 Member Join Date: 11-05-07 Posts: 26	We had a beautiful geilding that had that problem. He was most stubborn.My daughter would ride him out in the field and then he would whip around and make a b line back to the other horses.Never broke him from that we finally sold him for fear she would be hurt. I hated to though, we had grown quiet fond of him.

Herd Bound

Does your horse need to go to the naughty mat for awhile? Talk about behavioral problems and other issues here

Herd Bound