Horses Snort When They’re Happy, Study Says

Sci-News.com ^ | July 12, 2018 | News Staff / Source

[ETL]

Snorts — non-vocal signals produced by the air expiration through the nostrils — are associated with more positive contexts and states in horses, according to a new study published online in the journal PLoS ONE.

Assessing positive emotions is important for improving animal welfare, but it has been challenging to identify reliable indicators.

Physiological markers often give contradictory results, and many behavioral signals are ambiguous.

Anecdotal reports have indicated that horses frequently produce snorts in positive situations.

Following up on this evidence, Université de Rennes researcher Mathilde Stomp and co-authors evaluated snort production by horses that lived either in restricted or naturalistic conditions.

“We observed 48 horses living in two ‘extreme’ conditions: restricted conditions (riding school horses that spent much of their time in individual stalls) and naturalistic conditions (stable groups in pasture),” they explained.

“The immediate place (e.g. stall/pasture) and the behavioral/postural (behavior performed/ears positions) contexts of snort production were observed.”

“We additionally performed an evaluation of the welfare state, using validated behavioral (e.g. stereotypies) and postural (e.g. overall ears positions) welfare indicators.”

Snort production was significantly associated with positive situations and with a positive internal state, as indicated by ears positioned forward or sideways.

For example, riding school horses produced twice as many snorts in pasture than when they were in stalls.

“Our results lead us to believe that acoustic signals constitute a potential marker of positive emotions, suggesting a new breakthrough in research evaluation of positive emotional states in horses,” the scientists said.

[Himyar]

When horses snort, they are up to something. Stallions sure aren’t being friendly when they snort. Other horses snort when they are running and playing. If you are on a horse or have one in hand and they start snorting it usually means they are fixin to have a come a part.

[Bellflower]

I remember meeting a mother horse for the first time. Just like any mom loves it when you praise their little one, she loved it when I praised her beautiful colt.

Her colt was frightened. I noticed that she didn’t coddle the colt. She merely showed the colt by example that it didn’t have to be afraid, because she wasn’t. The colt caught on quickly. More people should be like that with their children, rather than over coddling them.

[Bellflower]

I will snort also, when I laugh really hard. I once had a great friend who snorted quite a bit when she laughed. It in itself was quite funny.

[ETL]

Lol! He probably was.

[rjsimmon]

Not really- the snort means “I feel awesome” and a stallion is trying to convey his status, not his weakness, so he’s going to snort to express how awesome and fit he is.

I've been around plenty of stallions. Snorting to them is a sign of aggression. Never said anything about being a weakness. Their most aggressive posture is rearing to try and gain an advantage over a rival or countering a threat. But snorting is one of their ways to clear their path (or their nostrils).

He’s saying “get out of here” by pawing the ground.

All horses hoof the ground, and for various reasons. When they are in their stalls, in cross-ties, or awaiting food in a paddock. Most do so out of boredom.