Natural grooming behaviours

Grooming is important for maintaining coat and skin health, and for building and maintaining social bonds within groups of horses. Horses maintain their own coat health using self-grooming techniques, and then mutually groom other horses for bonding and assistance in getting to hard-to-reach spots. This mutual grooming is also called allogrooming.

MUTUAL GROOMING

Mutual grooming not only allows horses to reach areas of their bodies they can’t reach themselves, but also facilitates the exchange of odours between horses, a key element of recognition and bonding. This mutual grooming has been shown to reduce heart rate when conducted in certain parts of the mane and withers. Grooming of the withers by humans has a similar calming effect.

Mutual grooming begins as early as the first week of life, but tends to peak in the second and third months of life, a period in which foals seem to find physical contact intensely pleasurable. To begin with, the foal’s mutual grooming partner is his mother, who may dismiss other grooming partners if her foal attracts her attention by attempting to groom her.

Although some mature horses will never groom another horse, most will regularly indulge in this sort of activity with their favoured herd mates. Generally speaking, regardless of age, females spend more time mutually grooming than males. Mutual grooming partners tend to be preferred associates, who occupy a similar rank in the herd. Mutual grooming usually starts near the top of the neck and moves back to the withers, the shoulders and then the tail-head. Sometimes the horses will change sides along the way, but commonly just the one side is groomed. Mutual grooming sessions generally last around three minutes.

SELF-GROOMING

Self-grooming really brings out a creative streak in our horses as they seek to use their hooves, mouths and any objects they can find in their environment to relieve irritation. Foals self-groom up to 12 times per hour, compared to adults, who self-groom only one to two times per hour. This is thought to be due to the greater flexibility of the foal’s body, allowing him to self-groom more areas, more easily. Self-grooming tends to peak with the shedding of the winter coat.

In this vein, scratching and grooming by humans can act as a great primary reinforcer and really help to

NOTE

Any excessive scratching and itching should be reported to your vet, as it can be a sign of sweet itch, or another skin condition requiring attention. The quicker you can break the itch-scratch cycle in these horses, by treating the source of the problem, the less likely the scratching is to become a habitual behaviour.

consolidate the horse-human bond. However, we need to be aware of the different sensitivities of different horses, and also on the different parts of the body of an individual horse. Some horses simply do not enjoy an intense scratch, while others do, and some like to be scratched on their mane, but not on their tail. It is important that we watch our horses to see what they enjoy and what they don’t.

SELF-GROOMING TECHNIQUES

RUBBING Rubbing involves using either a fixed object or the horse’s muzzle. The muzzle is used to reach places such as the body or the forelegs that are hard to rub against fixed objects in the environment. In terms of fixed objects, some horses will use low branches to rub their backs, or will walk forwards and backwards over tall vegetation to rub their underside. Rubbing of the dock of the tail or the mane, however, remains the most common, and typically occurs against any fixed object, like a tree or the wall of the stable.

SCRATCHING This involves turning the head and neck to the rear and then using the hindlimbs to scratch parts of the head and neck. This is more common in foals than adults, but the behaviour is retained by quite a few ponies. Some ponies, particularly those with an skin condition, will in fact put their whole pastern into their mouth and nibble on the limb.

ROLLING Rolling is considered a method of self-grooming. The preferred surfaces on which horses roll are sand, fine dry soil and sometimes mud. This explains why horses in a field tend to select the bare patches of ground on which to roll, often near gates or near water troughs. Interestingly, more than 80% of rolling occurs where another horse has rolled, so the function of rolling is believed to be the opportunity to deposit the scent of another horse all over their body. As mentioned earlier, scent is vital for horses in recognising other horses and also in forming bonds.

In rolling, the head and neck help to propel the horse from side to side. Similarly, lateral bend of the vertebral column and thrashing of the hind legs seem to help the horse to balance himself on his back. Rolling horses will usually return to the same side that they started lying on. Horses tend to find rolling very satisfying.

SHAKING Shaking is another behaviour that is widely considered by equine behaviourists to be a form of self-grooming. Shaking is most commonly seen after untacking, rolling or lying down. It involves coordinated contraction of the superficial musculature. The neck is lowered and the front legs spread prior to shaking.

NIBBLING AND LICKING The use of teeth in body care varies from rhythmic scratching by the upper incisors, to small bites. While the areas that can be reached by the teeth include the sides and loins and even the hindlegs, the forelegs seem to receive a lot of attention from the mouth. The forelegs are also the main site where horses tend to lick themselves. Licking is not overly common as a method of grooming, but on the front legs horses do seem to engage in this behaviour. Foals also frequently lick as a method of grooming.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE

There are two important take-home messages from this article. Firstly, that we should not restrict our horse’s natural instincts to self-groom and allogroom, provided they are safe. If scratching becomes excessive or the behaviour you are seeing is unusual for your horse, then your vet should be consulted, but generally speaking, if a horse wants to roll in a dusty patch or if they want to nibble on each other’s withers, we should allow them to do this for both social purposes and skin health. The second takeaway is that we can build a great bond with our horses through scratches and grooming sessions. In fact, the scratches on the withers are purported to be powerful enough as primary reinforcers that some horses prefer them to treats!