A Study on Herd Leadership

If asked, "What is a society of horses like?" I would probably answer, "a ladder," or "a totem pole," or even "stairs" - something with a clearly defined top (almighty leader), a definite bottom (spineless wimp), and a bunch of stepwise levels in between. Since that question doesn't really require a specific answer, and no one wants to stand around

When is the top the top, and when is it really just a higher part of the middle?

listening to me muddy my answer with details and contradictions, such a description would work. Sort of.

Horses appear to live their lives with an awareness of the "secret stairs". I see them expressing their positions on the rungs of their social ladder as they walk in line from one area of the pasture to another, take turns drinking from the watering trough, and choose piles of hay at mealtime.

Unfortunately, my simple answer would (and does) beg the oft asked question, "Who is at the top?" and I am forced to decide whether I will use a simple, needs-no-further-explanation answer, or the "Great question, lets open a dialog and chat for a while!" answer.

Dancer waiting to be first through the gate for breakfast. Is the first one through the top "dog?"

The simple answer is quick, easily grasped by everyone, and assumes that, through might (think King Kong) or cunning (Macchiavelli), one among our horses has risen to the top, and become "Leader of the Pack". I quickly consider which horse has usually walked through gates first, and usually picked first from among the hay piles at mealtimes, and rarely ended up chased off or sporting a bite mark. Today, I might smile and answer, "Dancer". In truth, it might also be Jake…and sometimes Wally, while Spot and Sport are strong contenders. And to offer such a simple answer, I sometimes need to ignore the fact that just that morning I might have seen Dancer chased off of his chosen pile of hay by the much lower ranked Ollie.
Luckily no one has yet asked me, "Who comes in fourth?"

Why, even though I see the horses of our herd interacting daily, can't I simply answer the question, "Who owns the top

rung?" I see evidence of the herd order in almost everything that our horses do. Perhaps my mental model is wrong.

When I feed hay to the horses, I set separate piles around to accommodate every horse. Once the hay is set out, I open a retaining gate, allowing the horses to move out to the eating area. My feeding scenario sets up at least two separate tests of horse social protocol: the gate and the hay piles.

The Gate: Generally a group of 5 horses moves right through the gate, including Dancer, Jake, Spot, and Sport and BJ (Do you recognize most of these names from above?). Ollie meanders up toward the end, carefully avoiding others as he makes his way through the gate. From his position passing through the gate, I would categorize Ollie far down the social ladder.

The Hay Piles: Dancer gets his pick of hay piles, and will sometimes move Jake off of his pile, for no reason that I can see, other than to reinforce that he can. Jake will move almost anyone off of their own pile of hay, creating a domino effect of horses shifting to new piles. Many of the horses of the herd are capable of displacing Ollie from his pile of hay. If, however, through the subsequent domino effect, Ollie gets moved off of his hay, I have seen him come around and chase Dancer from that first pile!

In another Escher-esque hay pile scenario, I have seen Wally displace Jake, Jake displace Spot, and Spot come back to once again displace Wally, before everyone settles down to eating. So who is on top here?

It is possible that musical hay piles is a game that I have set up with my feeding strategy. I might see VERY different behavior if I were to set out only a single pile of hay. I sometimes watch with amusement as one of the more dominant horses stops, while passing through an open gate, and waits for a while. All horses positioned to follow that horse stop as well. Everyone waits as if at a traffic signal turned red. If the gatekeeping horse gets crowded, he might turn his head at look directly at the offending horses. I have not seen a low ranking horse try this - low ranking horses choose to get-out-of-Dodge rather than stand in the way of others. I imagine that if one of the lower ranking horses were to stand in the gate opening in a similar fashion, it would get sharply nipped in the rear, and would then jump right out of the way.

Sooooo, sometimes dominance appears to be absolute, while at other times it is shades of grey. Maybe every pair of horses has their own understanding of who is on top. The horses that I perceive to be dominant in the herd are the ones who hold the top position most often, but the herd is much more dynamic than my ladder model describes. Or maybe the rungs of the ladder are organized differently for different situations, defying my attempts to define a single leader. Or perhaps I just need a new model…

Ollie takes feeding time to show some strength with Olin. Olin has to wait until Ollie is ready to pass through the gate.

And now it's time for Ollie to chase Olin away from his pile.

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