[BLANK_AUDIO] Alright, welcome to the first lecture of week three. And this week we're really going to jump in to equine behavior. And it, it, it's something I'm very passionate about. I love watching animals in the wild, how they behave, how they respond to stimuli. And that carries over into our domestic species. And it's really important, you know, behavior for when we want to train them, or just working with these animals on a daily basis. So hopefully the next six lecture will give you some basal understanding of natural behavior. Now I start this lecture off, you know, with talking about the senses and, you know, obviously very similar to our own. As, as we're mammals, too. But, you know, going back, that's why we talk about the history of this, the horses and donkeys and the zebras as they developed, you know, they're, they're developing as they evolve, you know, to survive predation and survive in, in the wild in these outdoor, harsh environment with weather and, and all the other things that are against them. You know, so they've developed the senses to survive in these environments. Now you know, you have to think horses or you know, the other eqids, you know they're constantly, constantly evaluating their environment really for threats and they they're also looking at things for food or if they're looking for potential mates or Hey, the weather's changing, you know, and they take notice of that. And it's, it's, it's something that you need to be aware of that, that they're, they're constantly doing that. And, funny enough, if you think about it as humans, us, we're constantly doing that too, all the time. We just do it, a lot of it we're doing subconsciously. Next time you're walking down the street, you know, wherever you are in the world or you're walking down somewhere, just kind of pay attention to your behavior. You tend not to think about this but you're looking if you're near cars, oh, is that car a threat, traffic, you know, if somebody's approaching you, you look at them and you're like, okay, are you a threat or not, am I safe. You're constantly making these decisions. Horses are doing that too. So, you know, we're going to talk about the different senses that the horses have. So the, you know, obviously one of the most important ones is sight. You know, for any of us as mammals, you know, sight's an important part of that. But it's important to remember you will run into either partially blind horses or fully blind horses. And they can have, you know, good quality of life. So, you know, without some of these, you know, like us, they can have a great life and, and don't need to be euthanized or anything like that. Sound, well obviously, you know, the donkeys have the huge, huge ears compared to horses, but sounds very important that we're going to talk about. Smell. They really have a highly developed sense of smell compared to us. Taste. They maybe not as, you know particular than us. But they do taste different, different things. And then touch. Obviously, tough is important to them. So what, we'll kind of jump into these. So, starting with sight. You know, horses have these eyes that are set wide apart, you know, and I like to compare it to predators because you know the prey animals, their eyes to the side of their head and where as predators our eyes are set in the front. And what that does is it gives the horses and other animals like them a wider view peripheral vision. Whereas predators, we have greater binocular vision. So if we actually look at what the horse could see, and you could see this large field almost all the way behind them. That's a peripheral vision. So we call that monocular vision because they're looking out with one eye. Now the binocular vision. Is not as great, which is what's straight ahead. So they, they, they have limited depth perception, they, they can't quite focus in as well as we can. But they still can. I mean they still some binocular vision, just not as great as ours. But really it's that monocular vision. So if you've looked, you know, if, if you're looking at a computer screen, or, or your phone, or however you're watching these lectures. You know, you, your heads straight ahead looking at the screen. But you notice you can still see off to your side, sides, you just can't focus in. And how we use our vision and say something you know, moves quickly over there, we'll turn our head and focus in on it with our binocular vision. Well imagine that range almost all the way behind you and you could still see things way back here and that's how a horse sees. So, so pretty neat with their vision. A couple of other things with that, is that, they have much better night vision capability than we do. So they can see things a lot better and then, their color vision, is a thing called dichromatic. So you can see the, the color chart there with the human on the left, horse on the right. We can see, you know, more aggressive I guess green colors. It's particularly red which horse can't see red. And horses are more of a bluish, yellow, gray type range of color that they can see. So they can see some color, just not as great as us. And if you look at these slides, the the a and be is what we would see. And the C and D is what a horse would see. So, you know, especially when I talk, about training, and, and for my students is, you know, you gotta kind of keep this in mind, because, you know, if you're looking at, different color patterns and different jumps or different types of events, you know it may be important to, to have colors that a horse can actually see clearly, versus some of these ones that kind of blend into the environment, makes it a bit more difficult for them. Now obviously they have much larger ears than us you know, and the donkeys have you know, greater ears than horses. And could be just where they evolved in those deserts you know, where they could catch sounds much further than the horses that developed on the plains of North America. But what they do is they, they catch the sound waves with these ears, and they, they have great movement of ears, and they direct those sound waves into the inner ear, where they can hear the sound. Now, horses, often in training, we use particular words, and I, I'd say probably one that most everyone recognizes is whoa. You know, whoa, and you know we use that to slow down our horse. They don't know what whoa means, but it's how we say it is how the horse can perceive it. So when I go whoa, and I train my horse like that, whenever they hear that, they'll know that I want them to stop. But if I go one day and said whoa, you know, at a high pitch or something like that, you know they would probably misunderstand what I was trying to say because they, they don't speak English, or whatever your language is. They don't speak it but how we present the cue with our pitch and amplitude is how they perceive it. Now some other cool things about horses with, with hearing is they can hear with their legs. So their leg bones can actually detect vibrations in the ground. And again, you know, thinking about how they evolved, if the herds starts running or it's, it's late at night they don't see it or whatever they you know there's another herd of horses running towards them or you know prey animals are pretty good at you know sneak it around but at any other type of animal that's running may be say from a potential predator. Horses can detect that in the ground and then they, they can take off and, and evaluate that thread. Also you know its, its cool to think with animal behavior you know what are things that always amazes me is how animals can almost detect earthquakes way before we can. So some of this innate abilities they have that maybe we haven't yet defined in all species is what gives them an advantage in the wild. Say verses us where, you know, I've been in plenty of earthquakes in my life growing up in California and you know, you don't know it until it hits you and it's pretty scary. But the animals know it way before it does. Now the smell of the equids is, is very acute. They have really, really good sense of smell and they use this all the time. So, a lot of times, like in this picture, you can see them nose to nose and they're trying to determine, you know, do you smell good? Are you something I recognize? You know mares and fowls. You know, mares do quite a bit of licking and nuzzling with their young foal, you know, trying to recognize them as hers. You know, and sense of smell is one of the ways they do that. And they've got obviously a greater sense of smell than we do, and they have these large nasal cavities dominated with many, many chemoreceptors. And the horse on the left is doing what we call the phlegm and response, and we'll talk more about this in another lecture. But they draw those smells in to where those chemo receptors can read it and determine you know, if it's friend, foe or whatever they're trying to do. Now the next sense is taste, so obviously closely related to smell, I mean we know that, we go into a bakery everything smells delicious and then it tastes delicious and you know, it's really good. If something smells really kind of putrid that's kind of a warning for us not to eat it, because it not only probably does it taste bad, it's probably bad for us. So with, with, with horses and, and the other equids, they can actually determine you know, they, they can, sm, taste sweet and bitter. So, that's why a lot of times you'll see for, for horse feed what we call a sweet feed. Which is added molasses or cane sugar or other things that people may put in there, and the horses really like it. They, they gobble it up cause it tastes good. Things like poisonous plants, if a, if a horse goes and nibbles on that, they tend to be bitter. You know the poisonous plant does that for survival of that plant so the horse will avoid or learn to avoid, those type of plant. Now, it doesn't say horse can't eat poisonous plants, they, they do and we'll talk about this in pasture management. But more often than not they, they tend to avoid those. And then, foals, like this foal licking this car, I mean they use this a lot in early life to explore. Some believe that they get the, their, their gut bacteria by doing a lot of this, exploring their environment, and using their mouth so they get some of this natural bacteria in their gut that helps them with digestion. Now touch obviously horses can feel touch and you know, the different things like we can feel. They use this quite a bit you know, as far as you know, reinforcing social bonds, nurturing, these two horses obviously kind of you know, friendly with each other. Or they will use it as a, you know, aggression, they'll bite, they'll kick, so, you know, obviously that's an important aspect of, of their abilities. Their muzzle it's, it's good to know that it's, you know, highly enervated, there's a lot of nerves there and, and that's important too, especially with these whiskers. So when they're on the ground feeling around and they can't really see the end, tip of their nose. Again going back to they eyesight, not really great binocular vision plus a little bit of a blind spot right there. When they're down on the ground their, their whiskers and, and that nose can feel around and find the forage that they're looking to eat. So it's always important to remember that. And then other sensitive areas you know, the lower leg, the flank, neck, and shoulders which is I have highlighted here. These are really sensitive areas too, so if like say you're grooming with a hard brush or a curry comb, you want to make sure, you're careful around these areas, that you don't really rub hard. You know, especially skin on bone. Obviously, those areas are going to be sensitive in the lower legs, but also the neck and the, and the flanks. Again, areas that they're pretty sensitive to, to the touch. So that's just kind of you know an overview of how horses are perceiving their environment and we're just going to keep building upon this, you know, getting into natural behavior. So the next lecture we'll kind of talk about you know how they communicate with body language and vocally. So I'll see you then. [BLANK_AUDIO]
