How Horses Communicate

Horses can and do communicate vocally. High-pitched sounds are signals of distress. When dealing with horse you should always lower your tone.

Low-pitched sounds are used by a mare to her foal, a stallion to a mare, and among friends. Pitch your voice as low as possible if you want a horse to consider you a friend.

Body language is the way horses really communicate. Apparently it is also a significant part of human communication as well. But horses are prey animals and humans predators. We do not speak the same language without extensive training on our part. Horses all ready understand predator very well thank you.

Almost everyone knows if a horse's ears are laid back against its head it is prepared to bite or kick. This is just the bare essential though when it comes to horse body language.

Horses have an extensive vocal vocabulary of about eighty different sounds. Their real communication though is through body language. They are experts at it. So much so that I recently read of one medical school that is requiring its students to take a course in horse handling so they will become aware of what their body language is and the message it is sending.

Horses as prey animals have been reading predator's body language and using this knowledge to survive since before they were really horses. They are very, very good at it. And we are predators. Because they are animals developed to live in wide-open areas they developed a language that can be heard over great distances. In this case seen rather than heard.

A horse's body language may be as subtle as looking at another horse or as dramatic as a full-fledged fight.

Communication via body language will begin with one horse looking at another one. A dominant horse can cause a lower ranked horse to move merely by eyeing it. A tilt of the ear and/or nose may the next step up. The next signal will involve the higher ranked moving towards the lower ranked horse. If the lower ranked horse still hasn't moved (or hasn't moved fast enough) the next step will be for the ranking horse to bite.

Which brings up another point, in some ways biting is more dangerous than kicking in that it is an aggressive power play. Kicking can be used to assert power, but mostly it is a defense mechanism. If a horse kicks at a human he may just be trying to defend himself against a predator. If a horse bites a human though, he is definitely trying to assume a leadership position.

Recently I had an experience where I was teaching a woman how to control her gelding that had been in charge for a lot of years. He studied what was going on and finally made the decision to try to bite me. After all, I was the one teaching his person how to get the upper hoof. Yes, horses can and do, think and reason. I quickly made him back up and keep backing up until he finally dropped his head and began making licking and chewing motions with his mouth.

The reason I chose to make him move his feet rather than smacking him is because horses like to play a dodge'em game where they bite at one another and whoever misses loses. The real way to assert a dominant position in the horse's world is to make the horse move its feet and then occupy the place it was standing. She who moves her feet loses.
Here is a quick dictionary of horse body language.

Ears are both radar and semaphore. They move constantly to gather sound. One reason horses can be difficult on windy days is they can't hear the rustle of a predator approaching so they must depend on other means to detect the approach of an enemy.

The ears also act as signals. A horse standing with head up and both ears stiffly alerted in one direction tells all the other horses in seeing distance that there is something it is concerned about. If it continues to be on alert the lead mare will come to investigate. If she checks things out, lowers her head, and begins grazing, the rest of the horses will also relax their guard. If, however, she takes alarm and issues a blasting snort of alarm the herd will prepare to follow if she decides running is necessary.

When horses are not alerted by one particular thing their ears turn this way and that so they are constantly picking up information. When riding a horse it is nice if the horse has one ear back towards you paying attention to you. If you are doing something that demands great concentration then both ears turned back towards you is desirable. This is not the same thing as the ears laid back. When a horse has its ears laid back because it is going to bite or kick they lay flat against the neck and can hardly be seen.

Occasionally a horse will flip its ears forward when something interests it. The posture and body will be more relaxed and casual in this case. You'll see this a lot at feeding time or when the person who is a carrot source approaches.

Eyes are another source of a lot of information. A horse's eyes are on the side of its head and there are two significant blind spots; directly in front of it and directly in back of the horse. Otherwise a horse can see for miles. Their vision is peculiar in that it is designed to function best while a horse is grazing.

You read things about horses showing the whites of the eyes. People, dogs and cats do this as well as horses. When scared the eyes widen so much that you can see a ring of white all the way around. It is more noticeable in horses because usually you cannot see the white part of their eyes. That is except in the case of Appaloosas, which are supposed to show white all around their eyes. Other breeds have the occasional horse that has white showing all the time.
Another phrase bandied about is hard eyes. What actually happens here is a horse gets so frightened that its blood pressure goes sky high. This causes the blood capillaries on the head to fill and become tight. Tight skin is harder for teeth or claws to rip or tear. When the horse is relaxed the skin around the eyes will be soft, flexible, and have wrinkles. So, it isn't the actual eyes that are hard, but the skin around them.

Head position speaks volumes about how a horse is feeling. If the head is down and the skin is loose he is probably in a good place. Lifted it may merely mean something interesting is occurring, such as someone messing around with feed.

The head cranked high with stiff ears and rigid body it is an alarm system. The high tense head position also causes a release of adrenaline, which aids in flight. Using a tie down to keep the head low will not circumvent this reaction. It may just make it worse. Better to teach your horse to lower its head when you ask it too.

An ill horse will have his head hanging and may even be touching the muzzle to the ground to help support itself.

Neck position is something else that transfers huge amounts of information. A stallion posturing will arch his neck into an elegant bow. A mare will gracefully curve hers when flirting with a stallion. The graceful curve will be different when she is cuddling and petting her foal or favorite person.

When a horse is relaxed the neck will be stretched out and carried below the withers unless its natural conformation makes a higher carriage easier. That long neck can stretch amazingly like a giraffe's when the horse is trying to reach something it really wants. The prehensile upper lip can really make this an efficient gathering structure.

Horses also use their necks as weapons when fighting. A head that is about a tenth of the horse's body weight can pack an amazing wallop when swung at the end of that long, flexible neck.