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Likely due to the fact that horses are companion animals and not to mention fairly well-cared for given the nature of their owners' standing, I was unable to find a welfare audit pertaining to equine well being. This is not surprising, as they are not mass production animals with consumers who would be concerned for their treatment, and since the audits are made for the sake of the consumer's approval, there is little need for welfare auditing in the horse realm.

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Not my finest artwork but the image is meant to convey handling a horse's flight zone at the point of balance facing perpendicular to the animal's shoulder.

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The horse ingests food by prehending with their teeth; their jaw structure contains two arcades, the upper and lower, which chew in an auger-like fashion to grind forages against their large, flattened teeth. Having fairly flexible lips and teeth, horses can be quite selective in their consumption choices, and choose grasses close to the ground, where they have a less-limited range of vision to watch for predators. Once chewed, the food bolus travels down the esophagus, pushed along by esophageal peristalsis; unlike many animals, the horse cannot perform reverse peristalsis, and therefore is incapable of vomiting toxic substances. From the esophagus, the bolus is processed in the horse's main stomach, a rather small chamber with a 'line' called the margo plicatus separating the acidic, glandular stomach from the more vulnerable non-glandular stomach.

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1. A healthy foal will begin to stand soon after parturition; generally, they can successfully manage standing after about an hour.

2. Foals will seek their mother's teat with their attempts to stand, and will generally nurse within two hours after birth. They have excellent suckling reflexes and may suck on air, their own legs, or the wall.

3. The foal will follow the mare quite closely, hardly ever really straying far from her side whether they are preoccupied with trying to nurse or not.

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1. As parturition usually occurs while the mare is lying down, she will stand in order to improve her new foal's access to milk.

2. The mare will often knicker at and lick/groom her foal, removing any excess amniotic fluids. The placenta should pass within 3 hours post-partum.

3. In a natural environment, the pair will move away from the foaling site and abandon the placenta soon after the foal's first feeding, possible to reduce the likelihood of being discovered by predators. The mare tends not to consume her placenta.

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Females typically exhibit raising of their tails, immobile posture and positioning to allow access for the male, winking of the clitoris, and, while not shown in this video, frequent urination.

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Mare in Heat || Teasing Stallion || Horse Courtship Display

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Stallions may exhibit a number of behaviors, such as nipping at the mare's back or neck, rearing back and attempting to mount, sniffing of the mare's external genitalia, and overall pacing and excitement. In response to the female's scent and pheromones given off by her own sexual behavior, a stallion may exhibit the Flehmen's reflex as seen in the photo below, which is meant to 'pump' olfactory cues into the nasopalatine ducts found in the back of the roof of the mouth. Here, these odors can be interpreted effectively.

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Horses generally tend to adhere to a linear hierarchical structure in their dominant-submissive relationships. In this setup, a single most dominant animal in the herd will be "in charge" of policing resource availability for all others, with a pecking order for all to follow in accessing resources. Some bands, however, may feature a nonlinear dominance structure, where the order can be a bit more convoluted. In wild herds, groups form in a harem, typically consisting of a single adult stallion, various mares and any foals they may have at the time, and a mix of sexually immature horses of either sex. Depending on size of the group and threat posed to the main male's dominance, other mature but more submissive males may be permitted on the fringes of the herd.

Houpt, Katherine A., et al. "Dominance Hierarchies in Domestic Horses." ScienceDirect, 22 Oct. 2003, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0304376278901177.

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Horses will exert their dominance over one another by kicking or, in the case of the photo below, biting at each other. This is meant to cause pain to the horse being bitten in order to discourage any non-submissive behavior that the more dominant horse will choose whether to tolerate. This is form of positive punishment between conspecifics, as the dominant horse is delivering a stimulus in order to make non-submissive behavior from the other horse occur less often or prevalently.

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Communication Through the Sensory Modalities

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Communication Through the Sensory Modalities

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Visual - horses may rear back to show off their size and intimidate offending conspecifics.
Auditory - screaming to intimidate and warn conspecifics of intent to defend/attack if need be.
Tactile - kicking/biting inflict pain and deter conspecifics from engaging in undesirable behaviors.
Chemical/Olfactory - urination to mark territory.

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The enclosed nature of the stall itself inhibits the horse's movement to a certain degree, at the very least keeping them from running and flailing around. A horse will learn that doing so is unwise because when they eventually run into the wall, they will experience pain, which will ultimately discourage running around and acting wily, and encourage calm behavior in the confines of the stall. This is an example of positive punishment because the addition of undesirable pain decreases the likelihood that a horse will behave in that manner in the future.
The horse can experience positive reinforcement through sticking its head out the way the horse is in the photo below. This behavior provides stimulation and is reinforced through positive interactions with people approaching the stall, whether they have food or only attention to offer. This makes it more likely for the horse to be social and agreeable, and the potential promise of treats or other such rewards increases the likelihood that the horse will come to the door when approached, making halter application easier as well.

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While not incapable of putting a hole in the ground, a horse's physiology simply is not as conducive for digging as, say, a dog's clawed paws or a pig's snout. It is possible, if a particular horse is tenacious and determined enough, for it to dig slowly with its hooves; but they are neither efficient at doing so, nor do they have much reason to exercise such behavior since they have little reason to burrow to find forages. Their physiology does not completely prevent them from learning this behavior, but they are quite unlikely to develop the idea on their own. It is certainly possible that they could pick it up through observational learning if they encountered another horse who learned to behave in such a way.

Price, Edward O. "Chapter 5: Learning." Principles and Applications of Domestic Animal Behavior: An Introductory Text. Wallingford: CABI, 2008. 47-68. Print.

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The use of whips, reins, heels, and spurs is an unconditioned stimulus that causes the unconditioned response of pain and initial shock. This can be increased in intensity until achieving desired behavior, which in the case of using such tactile stimulation is often to get the animal to move, or move faster. This turns that stimulation into a conditioned stimulus and the horse will move or increase its locomotive speed, becoming the conditioned response. This employs negative reinforcement, as the cessation of whipping/pain increases the likelihood that the animal will maintain a certain speed/behavior. It is important to not overexert and hurt the horse excessively, as it could lead to the animal behaving in a way that will displace its rider. This is also a form of operant conditioning, where the horse instead learns that bucking/kicking/threatening displays will serve the purpose of removing the undesired stimulus.

McLean, Andrew N., Christensen, Janne Winther, The Application of Learning Theory in Horse Training. Applied Animal Behavior Science. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016.j.applanim.2017.02.020.

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This phase spans approximately the first two hours of a foal's life, where they will begin to learn to stand, walk, and nurse from their mother. This is an example of equine filial imprinting, as the foal will learn to identify and socialize with its dam.

"Sensitive Phases for Learning." TAFE NSW Sydney ELearning Moodle. TAFE NSW Sydney, 06 Mar. 2004. Web. 05 Feb. 2019.

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I had a very trying time finding comprehensive studies on heritability in horses. I believe that this may be due to the fact that, since pedigree is so heavily valued in horses, little resources have been poured into research specifically on the behaviors of each breed; they may focus on performance, size, and color, but neglect to analyze the way behaviors may be affected by genes. This may also have to do with the aging and maturity of horses, as perhaps it is simply more consuming, both time- and resource-wise, to closely study generations in such a manner. So while I was unable to find an understandable chart for heritability, I was able to find a measurement of behavior prevalence in specific breeds; this suggests genetic heritability of course within the appropriate bloodlines, but does not reflect which exact genes may be responsible for crib-biting, stall walking, and weaving. The study attached to the table below also measures frequency and circumstance of these behaviors, specifically in how anxiety may influence cribbing; however, as this is also correlated to grain content in the horse's diet, a precise conclusion is difficult to ascertain.

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The Relationship Between Coat Color Phenotype and Equine Behavior

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The Relationship Between Coat Color Phenotype and Equine Behavior

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This research study analyzes the correlation between the curiosity/likelihood to approach objects/animals in the environment and genes affecting coat color in horses. As a pilot study, the data is basic and preliminary, but the research does show a higher percentage of chestnut colored horses approaching distractions, whether novel or not. This suggests that artificial selection for the chestnut phenotype may have coincidental effects on the animal's boldness and the way they interact with the environment around them.

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The relationship between coat colour phenotype and equine behaviour: A pilot study

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Mutations in the genes influencing melanocytes not only affect the colour of an animal, but are also believed to impact physiological and behavioural ...

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I chose to base this blog around the horse because, while I know a fair bit about them through my experiences in the classroom, I want to expand my knowledge further and explore more about them in depth. I think it would be especially valuable to learn more about the species’ behaviors, as my hands-on experience with them is rather limited, and I therefore cannot attest to much in terms of knowing what to expect from such animals. With that said, I find them extremely intriguing and utterly awe-inspiring to focus on, and cannot wait to learn what more I can.