How does the horse experience the world? As a driver on a public road, it is not always easy to imagine how a horse thinks or how a horse will react. When approaching a horse, pay attention and perform the correct actions to ensure that the horse is not startled. Recognizing the senses is a tool to understand horse behavior.
Sight
The horse’s eyes are positioned lateral to the head, giving it a wide panoramic view of 178 °. In order to perceive danger from afar, the horse has good distance vision. Because the horse’s eyes are on the side of the head, the nose is in the way of forward vision. As a result, the horse has a blind spot about 2 meters in front of him. There is also a blind spot behind the horse, this is approximately 20 ° per eye. With a slight movement of the head, the horse can see everything that is happening behind it. The sharpness of a horse’s vision is not as good as that of a human. A human can see an object sharply up to 33 meters while a horse can see up to 20 meters. With other animals there is often a better view, for example a dog can see sharply up to 50 meters and a cat even up to 100 meters.
Horses have both a monocular and binocular field of view. With a monocular view, the environment is scanned with each eye separately. With narrow binocular vision, the monocular images overlap at an angle of 60 ° in front of the horse’s head to form depth perception. With large changes in light intensity, the horse may be temporarily blinded. His eyes and brain need a few seconds to adjust to the new situation.
Horses are dichromats, they can only see colors to a limited extent. For example, they mainly distinguish blue, gray and yellow. green tones. Dichromates do not have intermediate shades like trichromates.
Hearing
Horses have a very strong hearing. They hear better than humans. Human hearing is between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, while a horse hears from 55 Hz to 33,500 Hz. Horses therefore hear sounds that we as humans do not hear. That explains why a horse is sometimes startled when we think there is nothing wrong. The horse can perceive and interpret sounds through the ears.
Due to the 180 ° mobility of the ears, horses can pick up a lot of sounds up to 4,400 m away. Horse ears are very sensitive to loud and high sounds. Many horses therefore do not feel comfortable in a noisy environment. When a horse is standing next to a busy road or near an airport, this may be the reason why the animal cannot fully relax. Hissing and very low sounds are also very annoying for the horse. Horses therefore find a spray can or braking trucks scary at first. It irritates their eardrums. The horses use their ears not only to perceive and interpret sounds but also as a means of communication. Here too the mobility of the ears is of great importance.
Smell
Horses mainly use scent to recognize things. In this way they can distinguish good food from spoiled or poisonous food. Smell is also an important communication tool for horses. Horses recognize each other by smell. Horses have an additional olfactory system: the vomeronasal organ. This allows them to detect pheromones in urine. Horses flutter to better identify an unknown odor. When flossing, the horse straightens its neck, raises its head and curls its upper lip. By smelling, a horse can determine whether something is dangerous or not. They can make use of this when offering new things. Letting horses smell in new situations can prevent startle reactions.
Feeling
The horse’s coat is very sensitive to various stimuli. One body part is more sensitive than the other. This depends on the thickness of the coat, the thickness of the skin and the number of receptors present on the skin. The mouth, withers, flanks and elbows are very sensitive areas. Some horses don’t like to be touched by their eyes, ears and groin. A horse also has whiskers on the nose. These are used to feel and determine the distance from something. Touch is important in collecting information, but also in communication.
When two horses have sympathy for each other, social brushing occurs. The areas that horses brush the most are the mane and withers. They brush for hygiene, but it also has a calming effect, which will lower the horse’s heart rate.
Taste
Just like humans, the horse can distinguish between sweet, sour, salty and bitter. This distinction can be made by the taste buds on the back of the tongue and in the palate of the horse. A horse needs taste to determine if the food is safe to eat. Horses are also able to distinguish and select food. For example, the horses can show a preference for a certain food.