Feral Horse Behavior

[Hal]

This may not be related to draft horse behavior at all, but I recently had the chance to observe some interesting behavior in some semi-wild horses that live at a state park in my area. A group of three horses (a stallion and 2 mares) blocked a walking trail and did not seem to want to move despite my coming within a few yards of them. While there are often feral horses on the path, they usually move when walkers come by and I was taken aback by what seemed to be their stand-off-ish behavior. After about 15 minutes of watching them and waiting for them to move, I decided to give them a wide berth and skirt around them. When I looked back, they left the path, as though they had been waiting for me to leave.

Any thoughts on why they might have done this? It seemed almost like they thought that I was an intruder on their territory, but that confuses me because they should be used to humans walking on that path.

[Robert MoonShadow]

They might have had young hid very close by – very young (newborn). Seen deer do this, and a feral donkey (burro). You might ask BLM – they’ve got the mandate on collecting data on these, so have volumes of info on mustang/burro behavior.
Very interesting behavior, whatever the cause.

[Author]

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