Horses open doors and gates
International study shows amazing ability of horses to free themselves independently from boxes and gates
Did you know that some horses open an amazing complexity of locked doors and gates? In a recent study, entitled “Animal behaviour in a human world: A crowdsourcing study on horses that open door and gate mechanisms”, at the journal PLOS ONE (link), Konstanze Krueger* from Nürtingen - Geislingen University Germany, Laureen Esch from the LMU Munich, Germany, and Richard Byrne from St Andrews University Scotland gave the horses abilities to open locks a closer look. After collecting reports from horse owners of various countries and searching You Tube for videos the authors came up with a collection of a multitude of door and lock types opened by horses. The horses opened 513 doors or gates on hinges, 49 sliding doors, and 33 barred doors and gateway. The mechanisms included 260 cases of horizontal and 155 vertical bars, 43 twist locks, 42 door handles, 34 electric fence handles, 40 carabiners, and 2 locks with keys. Opening was usually for escape, but also for access to food or stable-mates, or out of curiosity or playfulness. While 56 percent of the horses opened a single mechanism at one location, 44 percent opened several types of mechanism. The more complex the mechanism was, the more movements the horses applied to open them, varying from 2 for door handles to 10 for carabiners. Mechanisms requiring head- or lip-twisting needed more movements. Experience favoured opening efficiency; subjects which opened several door types applied fewer movements per lock than horses which opened only one door type. 74 horses reported in the questionnaire had options for observing the behaviour in stable mates, 183 did not, which indicates that the latter learned to open doors and gates either individually or from observing humans. The authors failed to identify a level of complexity of door-fastening mechanism that was beyond the learning capacity of the horse to open. Thus, all devices in frequent use, even carabiners and electric fence handles, are potentially vulnerable to opening by horses, something which needs to be considered in relation to keeping horses safely.
* Corresponding author:
E-Mail: Konstanze.Krueger@hfwu.de
Krueger, K., Esch, L., & Byrne, R. (2019). Animal behaviour in a human world: A crowdsourcing study on horses that open door and gate mechanisms. Plos One, 14(6), e0218954. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0218954
Wissenschaftlicher Ansprechpartner:
Prof. Dr. Konstanze Krüger E-Mail: Konstanze.Krueger@hfwu.de
Originalpublikation:
Krueger, K., Esch, L., & Byrne, R. (2019). Animal behaviour in a human world: A crowdsourcing study on horses that open door and gate mechanisms. Plos One, 14(6), e0218954. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0218954