Animal Behaviour and Management
Online ISSN : 2424-1776
Print ISSN : 1880-2133
ISSN-L : 1880-2133
Skill reading of human social cues by horses (Equus caballus) reared under year-round grazing conditions
Ryoko KOIZUMITomohiro MITANIKoichiro UEDASeiji KONDO
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2017 Volume 53 Issue 2 Pages 69-78

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Abstract

Animals use communicative signals, such as gesture or gaze, to communicate to someone the intention or expression of the sender, which is called social cue. In the previous studies, it was suggested the skill of reading human social cue in domestic animals are influenced to the domestication, the experience contacting with human and training to obey human. In this present study, we tested the skill for horses (Equus caballus) kept in year-round grazing conditions using 33 horses differed from breed and the degree of the experience with human by object-choice task subjects choosing either of bait boxes located at the end of experimenter. As results, non-socialized horses hardly responded to human social cues. Habituated horses that were both of trained and untrained responded to human social cues, but their accuracy rates were not more than 50% except for two trained subjects. For the skill of reading human social cues, there was high individual variation in responding to human social cues in horses kept in year-round grazing conditions. The individual characteristics influenced to it more than domestication, the experience with human, and training to obey human.

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© 2017 Japanese Society of Livestock Managemment
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