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Let Sleeping Horses Lie: A Look at Horse Sleep Patterns
05/26/2008
Horses retain certain aspects of their sleep patterns from being a prey animal in the wild. Thus, they have maintained the ability to sleep both standing up and lying down. They are also able to take short naps and lightly doze while standing.
Horses retain certain aspects of their sleep patterns from being a prey animal in the wild. Thus, they have maintained the ability to sleep both standing up and lying down. They are also able to take short naps and lightly doze while standing. Their legs have a “stay apparatus” which secures their legs while they relax their muscles for sleep – keeping them upright and relaxed at the same time. A horse engages this by shifting its hip to lock its patella in place. At the stifle joint, a “hook” structure on the bottom of the femur clasps the patella and the ligament, securing the leg and keeping it from bending.
Horses, unlike humans, do not need a long, designated block of time for sleep. Throughout the day and night, horses obtain their rest from short naps and periods of sleep. This is another feature carried over from their days as a prey animal; if a predator was nearby, the horse needed to be able to get up and leave quickly – so long periods of sleeping that would leave them too susceptible to attack were out of the question. Total actual sleeping time in a 24-hour period for a horse ranges from several minutes to a couple of hours. Generally, a horse requires two and one half hours of sleep per day. There are long periods of rest, but actual sleep time remains fairly short.
Horses cannot achieve REM sleep while standing up; they must be lying down to experience this. Horses can get their REM sleep an hour or two every few days and be perfectly fine. They do need this sleep, however, so horses need opportunities to lie down so as to not become sleep deprived. If a horse does not get this opportunity, after several days it can collapse from slipping into REM sleep while standing.
When kept in groups, horses feel safety in numbers. Thus, a few horses can lie and get good sleep while a few others stay awake and watch for predators. A horse on its own may feel threatened and sleep poorly.
