Fauna's Journey - MYWY Mustang Madness

17/04/2023

17/04/2023

CAN WRINKLES ABOVE THE EYE TELL US HOW A HORSE IS FEELING?

Horses communicate primarily using body language and they display a number of facial expressions.

Their eyes, in particular, can be very expressive and are thought to reveal how a horse is feeling. Many equine behaviourists and horse owners believe the wrinkles above a horse’s eye may be associated with discomfort, fear, stress or anxiety – they are often called ‘worry lines’. However, until recently, there has never been any scientific study researching the links between these facial expressions and the horse’s emotional state.

A team of researchers from Switzerland, the UK and the USA set out to examine whether eye wrinkles are caused by negative emotional states in the horse, or whether it was simply a case of humans interpreting these wrinkles as they would for themselves.

The wrinkles studied appear above the upper eyelid are a result of the contraction of the underlying inner eyebrow raiser muscles. These eye wrinkles are commonly seen, but may differ in shape, number and severity in different individual horses.

The team placed 16 horses at the Swiss National Stud Farm into two ‘positive’ situations:
* Anticipation of a food reward;
* Being stroked.

And into two ‘negative’ situations:
* Competing for food;
* Having a plastic bag waved nearby.

These four test conditions were chosen as they were situations the horses were reasonably likely to encounter in their day-to-day management.

Photos of the horses’ eyes were taken while they were tested and the images analysed based on overall impression, shape of the eyelid, eye whites, number of wrinkles, markedness and angle.

In the situations presumed to be positive, the researchers found that while stroking did reduce the expression of eye wrinkles, wrinkles were sometimes seen when food was present. This may have been as a result of the horses being frustrated around food. The negative situations did increase the likelihood of the eye wrinkles occurring.

The researchers found the angle of the wrinkles changed, depending on the situation. The angle was wider in negative situations, compared to positive, due to a stronger contraction of the inner eyebrow raiser. More eye white was seen in negative situations.

The number and depth of wrinkles and how much white of the eye was shown revealed that some characteristics of eye wrinkling were affected by different emotional states.

Researchers concluded that a horse’s emotional state could be linked with their eye wrinkle expression and therefore this could be a potential indicator of horse welfare. However, the team indicated that further research was needed.

Research team: Sara Hintze (University of Bern and Agroscope, Swiss National Stud Farm, Switzerland); Samantha Smith (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom); Antonia Patt (University of Maryland, United States); Iris Bachmann (Agroscope, Switzerland); Hanno Würbel (University of Bern, Switzerland).

18/09/2022

I completely forgot to update this page after the competition! Fauna did great and even though we didn't compete under saddle she still took 4th place in the mounted division. Then we bid on her and brought her home to live with us forever!!

Flora jenny aka Miss Cookie took 1st place in the b***o division and is also staying with us forever!

This was a long time dream of mine that came true. What an amazing journey and I hope to do it again next year!

21/08/2022

Donkey days of summer ***o

20/08/2022

Morning prayers

08/08/2022

***o

03/08/2022

Auction catalog is up! Check out Fauna's baby hip #207 🥰

https://www.mustangyearlingswashingtonyouth.org/adopters

MYWY competitors have until summer to decide if they are keeping their in-hand competition animal (all mustangs in the mounted division will automatically go to auction).  During the summer a list of animals that will be available at the auction will be listed here on the website and shared in the ...

03/08/2022

Fauna freshly bathed for the big weekend! Unfortunately she seems to have a slight injury to her right hind deep flexor tendon. No obvious injury, but it looks a little inflamed and she is "off" when walking/trotting. We will be doing in-hand only and I don't want to push it so maybe not even the free style in-hand 😕 The past several days we have been buting and cold hosing and have been doing in-hand only training and flat pasture turnout, so she hasn't been able to run the hills with the rest of the herd 😔

30/07/2022

Send her in, back her out.....

28/07/2022

Evening ponying wearing the western saddle and all the accessories 😂

27/07/2022

Hanging out in the shade with her bestie Chloe

26/07/2022

Farmer Pickles Fotos

21/07/2022

Fauna and friends were found safe & sound. None the worse for wear🥰

19/07/2022

6 Canyon horses missing since Sunday up Nahahum canyon!!!!!!!!!!

15/07/2022

Rockin a saddle and boat bumpers on trail ride last night😜

15/07/2022

Standing quietly for fly spray

11/07/2022

Having fun in the obstacle course!

10/07/2022

Heading up to the herd

10/07/2022

09/07/2022

Fauna is still scared of the cowboy curtains but will go over/under just about anything else.

09/07/2022

09/07/2022

7 miles at the horse park in Cle Elum today. Fauna did great!

08/07/2022

Trying to push things along with this sweetheart.....

08/07/2022

Hanging out with the herd ☺️

03/07/2022

Fauna is very tolerant of loud motorized vehicles 🥰

30/06/2022

MYWY competitors have until summer to decide if they are keeping their in-hand competition animal (all mustangs in the mounted division will automatically go to auction).  During the summer a list of animals that will be available at the auction will be listed here on the website and shared in the ...