Are horses vegetarian?

Are horses vegetarian?

CuChullaine O'Reilly's book, Deadly Equines has certainly opened a can of worms. The trick question is whether horses will eat the worms. The whole concept of the horse as placid herd living vegetarian has been called into question by CuChullaine's book and like so many other behavioural issues, we discover that nice, neat and tidy divisions, end up as a complex, messy continuum. But however complex and however messy, if we are to understand our animals, we need the truth, not a simple system which just happens to be based on a lie.

The first animal, however we define it, will have lived on plants, because unless it ate itself, that was the only option available for the first animal. That does not make it a vegetarian. If I go to the house of a strict temperance teetotaller, I do not become teetotal, I just can't get alcohol. It is not drinking in pubs and the houses of those who do drink alcohol, that would define me as teetotal, if I didn't reject the idea. Anyway, at last years apple and pumpkin day, I was passed a glass of what I thought was apple juice, but which was actually a very fine cider.

It was very nice, but despite the claims of the AA, I am not back on the demon booze I have had a glass. I just can't claim that I don't drink alcohol. I mention this because the vegetarian/vegan fanatics have a lot in common with the Alcoholic Anonymous and Anti Smoking lobby. They insist on this black/white scenario when the world is full of colour.

I stopped drinking alcohol about three years ago, and stopped smoking about ten years ago, and was a keen supporter of both industries at an industrial level. Now I am not. I don't have withdrawal symptoms, I don't avoid smokers or drinkers and I don't try to convert them. I am gradually eating less meat, but for no major reason, I am just eating less of it.

So the first animal was an omnivore, there just wasn't very much omni to vore that wasn't plant based. As the numbers of animals increased, some obviously decided that eating animals was an easier route to the proteins etc that they needed. But this split was from an animal that had evolved on a pure plant diet, not because it was a strict vegetarian, but because there wasn't an option. So an animal that has evolved on a pure plant diet, can evolve into an omnivore, eating plant and animal. Eventually a specialised great white shark will appear , but its ancestor ate vegetables exclusively.

That animal was water based, because evolving motion, ie becoming an animal, is easier in water. But on land, the first animal would have lived exclusively on vegetables, because again, the alternatives weren't available. As they spread over the earth, some of the land based plant eaters would have taken the easy route and started eating meat, but I doubt the marine carnivores would have competed on land. A shark makes a suitable anti hero in the water, but on dry land, rats, or even horses, would finish the shark off pretty easily. So the land based vegetable eaters evolved into Tyrannosaurus rex to provide Hollywood with something else to feed off.

Then mammals arrived on the scene. I suspect that the first mammals were predominantly vegetable eating. But from this vegetable eating ancestor, the sabre tooth tiger evolved.

The glorious divide we have created between carnivore and herbivore clearly has shaky foundations. The ferocious Grizzly bear, in reality is a omnivore, happily eating the fruits of the land when salmon or whatever isn't available. As the ice caps melt, the Grizzly is apparently hybridising with then Polar Bear, and producing viable young. This suggests they are pretty close genetically, yet the Polar Bear is pure carnivore. The fact that ice floes produce a very limited crop of nourishing grain, is a possible reason.

Animal, and human, food preferences are based on what is available. There is also an inevitable tendency to specialise. I friend of mine who did some time at Her Majesty's pleasure, met a guy who shoplifted from B & Q. He knew the routines, where the cameras were etc, and wasn't going to risk the dangerous environment at Homebase. Who knows what sort of savage predators roam the aisles preying on innocent shoplifters?

Animals specialise from both ends of the spectrum, so edible meat tends to be surrounded by creatures that will eat it. If a corpse is already surrounded by vultures,hyenas and jackals, there is probably a lion on the way as well. This is not the sort of group a sensible wild horse is going to join. So the wild horse gets on with grazing, while the carnivores dismember the corpse. The obvious reason that the smell of fresh blood scares horses, is that fresh blood suggests a carnivore is being carnivorous in the area. This is not a good place to hang out.

It is the risk of carnivores eating them that keeps herbivores away from kills. At the very least the blood would be an easy supply of salt. CuChullaine is right, we cannot look on horses as placid, flight oriented vegetarians, that is what the Sabre Toothed Tiger, T Rex and the Great White Shark all evolved from. The horse may be gentler, and eat less meat, in the same way that I drink less, and smoke less and eat less meat, but I have evolved, (in my lifetime) from chain smoking, heavy drinking consumer of bloody steaks to someone who does much less of all of them. But I still have the same lungs and digestive system, I just use them differently.

We are looking at a continuum, and once we accept that our horses behaviour will tend towards eating vegetables and running from predators, but that the basics are there to let them kill and to eat what they have killed, we will learn where on the continuum they actually are.