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Horses calmed by mirror in stables By Jenny Jarvie (Filed: 09/09/2001)

HORSES are happier and more relaxed if mirrors are fitted inside their stables, scientists have found.

A research team at the Lincolnshire School of Agriculture near Grantham studied horses exhibiting signs of stress and discovered that the mirrors had a calming effect on all of them.

Horses commonly sway their heads and necks from side to side, a behaviour called weaving, when they are frustrated, bored or distressed. After fitting acrylic mirrors to the stable walls, the researchers found that animals who had exhibited such behaviour stopped or considerably reduced it within 24 hours.

Daniel Mills, a Principal Lecturer at the Animal Behaviour, Cognition and Welfare Group at the University of Lincoln, who carried out the study, said: "The behaviour stopped almost instantaneously. Some of these horses had been displaying this behaviour for six years."

More than three per cent of horses sway their heads from side to side while they are standing on the spot.

It is not clear how or why the mirror reduces weaving. The researchers believe that it could mimic visual contact with other horses and reduce social isolation within the stable, or that it could act as a distraction and reduce the perception of confinement.

The study found that the horses spent more than a quarter of their time inside the stable facing the mirror. However, it did not affect the proportion of time each horse spent gazing out of the stable door or dozing and when the mirrors were removed the horses did not immediately resume their former behaviour.

Mr Mills said: "It's not very nice to see horses making these strange movements. Weaving is a sign of social frustration. Horses shouldn't be kept in social isolation. I am concerned that we are treating them as machines. Although most horse owners are well-meaning, that doesn't always mean that they do the best thing for the horse."

A traditional way of preventing horses from weaving is restricting their movement by erecting bars within stables.

"Their behaviour is frustrated by the bars" said Dr Jonathan Cooper, a senior lecturer at the group, who was also involved in the research. "They still want to weave and get very stressed."

Mr Mills said, however, that horse owners should not put glass mirrors up in stables. "It is important that the mirror is shatterproof," he said. "We are thinking of developing the mirrors we used in the study as a commercial product."

-- Anonymous, September 08, 2001

Answers

Horses are very social animals, and they have a social order. they do not like to be alone, they are herd animals...they tend to bond with sometimes....it could be a person, a duck, or alot of times it is a goat that is the "pal" often staying in the stall with the horse.

Horses also have stress and it can even lead to colic....tummy troubles that can kill a horse.

Horses are also very intelligent on some things, and dumb as door nails on other things. (hehehe know that I LOVE my horses, but this is really the truth!) they are happiest when they are learning, as in (schooling) and they really try to Please their "masters"

And about the mirrors...I was in a show where there were mirrors, and the horse all seemed to be in "competion" with themselves!

-- Anonymous, September 08, 2001