Ten Really Weird Things About Horses and Other Equines

Let’s admit it– horses are amazing creatures. And there is so many wild and wacky things to learn about them that even long time horse owners learn more every day they spend time with their horses.

But there are some really weird things about horses that many people don’t know… so even though I once wrote an article about 25 Interesting Facts about horses, I never got into the really weird stuff. So that’s what we’re going to do today– we’re going to really dive deep into all of the weird and crazy things that help make the horse, a horse.

Here’s one that all the science nerds will know first…

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#1 Horses are related to rhinos and tapirs.

I know, they look nothing alike. But horses, rhinos, and tapirs all belong to the Order of Perissodactyla– and no, that’s not some sort of secret club. In animal classification, animals are grouped by like creatures to make them easier to study. They’re divided by Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species (I always remember this with the pneumonic “Kookaburras Pass Cryptonite Ocelots For Good Smiles. Some people also use the pneumonic “Kings Play Chess On Fine Glass Sets”). All creatures, plants, bacteria, and fungai known to the world are divided into these levels. Horses, for instance, belong to Kingdom Animalia (because they’re animals), Phylum Chordata (AKA they have a backbone and skeleton), Class Mammalia (Mammals are creatures that have hair, give birth to live young, produce milk and have a backbone), Order Perissodactyla (all hoofed Mammals with an uneven amount of toes, including rhinos and tapirs), Family Equidae (Horses, zebras, donkeys, and all the equines of the world), Genus Equus, Species Equus Ferus, and SUBSPECIES (classification is complex) Equus Ferus Caballus.

(Homeschoolers, let your moms know you read this article. That paragraph alone just gave you ten minutes of science for the day)

Horses, tapirs, and rhinos are all hoofed mammals with an uneven amount of toes, so scientists have grouped them into the Order Perissodactyla. While some secular scientists say that this is proof that they all came from the same ancestor, those who believe in Creation (as I do) know that God made all of the animals according to their kind. Horses don’t come from rhinos as much as we don’t come from raccoons. At some point, I would love to write an article refuting the idea of equine evolution, but as this section is already so large and we’ve still got nine facts to go, we’d better move on.

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#2 Some horses grow mustaches

You’ve seen it today, folks. A horse with a mustache. Your life is now complete.

All horses have whiskers around their lips and nose, but some horse breeds, such as Friesians, Haflingers, and Gypsy Vanners grow very thick hair that curls into a mustache shape. These should not be cut off, because they are actually sensory fibers that help a horse navigate and use his sense of touch.

(But then again, why would you cut off such a glorious ‘stache?”)

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#3 One genetic mutation in pinto horses will guarantee the death of the foal

Lethal White Foal syndrome is a genetic disease produced by the overo genes. Two overo horses paired together may produce a white foal with blue eyes that seems completely normal at birth, but this gene paralyzes the colon and foals colic and die a few days after birth. Most foals are euthanized, since there is no treatment.

However, LWF doesn’t even have to be out of phenotypical overos. So long as the parents have the genes, they don’t even have to have overo coats to produce a Lethal White Foal. However, LWF is a recessive genetic disorder– you need to have two copies of the gene for it to show. Most carriers have one LWF gene and one non-LWF gene. If these carriers are mated to other carriers, there is a 50% of a LWF.

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#4 All horses have chestnuts, but not every horse is a chestnut.

Chestnuts are an odd, horny growth made on the inside of the horse’s leg. They will continually grow and peel off over time. Evolutionists argue that this is proof of a horse’s extra toes way back when they were tiny creatures no bigger than foxes with five toes and stripy bodies, but some creationists say that they’re actually scent glands to help foals connect with their mother. They’re also very sensitive, so it’s also possible that they have to do with the horse’s sensory system. More research needs to be done on exactly why they’re there. Some people say that they have no purpose, but I don’t believe that, because God is a purposeful designer, and there’s too much to the horse that says “this is just a random mix of chemical reactions.” We humans don’t understand yet, but we don’t know the mind of the horse and how they know about it in their mind. For all we know, chestnuts could be some form of code between horses that we haven’t discovered yet. That’s why you should always be willing to keep learning.

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#5 One breed of horse was regularly fed cooked chicken.

Once upon a time, Turkmen racing horses were fed dates, chicken, and other wild desert foods. They were also covered in sheets so they could sweat off extra fat. While Turkmen horses no longer exist, their close relatives Akhal-Tekes (seen above) carry many of their similar traits.

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#6 A zebra cannot whinny

While zebras make a variety of sounds, the common nicker and whinny is not one of them. Zebras make an assortment of whistling noises, ranging from a donkey’s bray to a puppy’s whine. Zorses and zonkeys (crosses between zebras and other equines) often will have a vocabulary that crosses between the two– like they can’t decide which creature to sound like.

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#7 A stallion x female mule cross is harder to produce than a male donkey x mare cross

A donkey has 62 chromosomes and a horse has 64. For whatever reason, it’s easy to breed a jack donkey to a mare, (sometimes the donkey is reluctant, but it can be done), but when you try to breed a stallion to a jenny donkey, it’s a lot harder to get a live pregnancy. A horse x donkey cross is called a hinny, and they are not fertile. Some hinny stallions will still attempt to breed, but it will always be futile. Hinnies are notoriously hard to produce from a stallion and jenny, so many people stick to breeding mules.

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#8 Some mules are fertile

In most cases, mules cannot reproduce, but some female mules have been recorded as producing foals out of stallions or jacks. One mule mare in Texas produced seven foals, three of which became fertile sires. Some mule mares are also used as embryo donor recipients, where a unborn horse foal is inserted inside the mule and the mules carry the foals to term. This was actually part of how the Gypsy Vanner horses were saved from extinction.

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#9 Horses cannot burp

Due to the structure of the digestive system, horses cannot burp– as a general rule. However there have been instances where a random horse burps and completely disproves the theory. So sometimes they can, and they are very special, but in most instances, they cannot.

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#10 Horses have a magnifying glass in their nose.

A lot of mammals have an organ in their nose called the Jacobsen’s organ. This is basically the smelly version of a magnifying glass, because if a horse comes across an interesting smell, he can lift up his upper lip to let the scent pass over the organ. This identifies the smell further and helps him record it in his memory. Stallions use this to tell if a mare is in heat, or if a manure pile is from one of their rivals. Some horses also just do it if they come across something weird and touch it with their nose.

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And there you have it! Ten really weird facts about horses. If I missed a really weird fact that you know, feel free to share it in the comments!