Why the long face? Horses can remember the facial expressions they see on human faces and respond differently if you smiled or frowned when they last saw you.
Leanne Proops, now at the University of Portsmouth, UK, and her colleagues at the University of Sussex showed in 2016 that horses respond differently to photographs of happy or angry human faces. Now they have studied whether horses can form lasting memories of people that depend on their facial expressions.
First, they showed horses a photo of one of two human models, displaying either a happy or angry face. Several hours later, the model visited the horse in person, this time with a neutral expression. As a control, some horses saw a different model in the second part to the one they saw in the photograph.
Quick backstory: a lot of Norway including my area is having a really bad drought this summer which means pastures are essentially sugar bombs: very little food but a LOT of sugar in what there is. My horse is a Welsh Cob, not exactly known for handling it well.
The owner of the pasture is there twice a day opening up small areas of new grass so they aren't constantly gnawing on the roots, so that's a little less sugar right there, but it's clearly not enough cause my girl is beginning to get fat deposits on her neck and I doubt it's from too much fat. :(
Pasture is ~20 minutes away from her stable by car, so keeping her off the grass during the day isn't a possibility unless I move her back there, but that means fewer horse friends and no grass at all which is a bit sad, but of course I will do it if necessary. As much as it sucks I would much rather she be a bit bored than get founder.
That being said, do any of you brilliant people have any ideas for what I can do to avoid that? I've kind of been thinking of feeding her lucerne or something to fill her stomach and get her nutrients she's not really getting in the grass so she would eat less, but she would probably just feel full for an hour and then go back to constantly eating. And I can't even go see her every day because of illness (haven't been able to exercise her much during spring because of it either, but I'm beginning to get better and am now spending all my available energy on her).
Hay is sadly extremely scarce this year, we are importing from all of Europe to even keep our horses fed through the winter, meaning supplementing with it is a very very last ditch effort...
Very long jumbled post, apologies for that. TLDR how get horse to eat less sugar/digest sugar better
Just bought a former Amish Percheron from New Holland. He'll be here in 3 weeks. Where the f can I buy a draft size halter?
A new horse portrait which I am working on- not quite finished yet still got a load of detail to add but please let me know your thoughts.
