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Horse's Choice: Do Horses Have a Color Preference?

CSEF · 2013 Mammalian Biology

Brooke E. Leonard · Long Beach Academy of Classical Education, Long Beach, Los Angeles County

Overview

Objectives/Goals It has been documented that horses are capable of seeing color. If that is the case, then would a horse have a color preference for the food box that they eat from? Methods/Materials Five horses, 4 different color boxes, Oats/feed. For my method I placed the 4 color boxes in the arena where I would bring a horse to and allow them to select which box to find their food. All the boxes had the same feed and I switched the location of the color boxes each time so that I could eliminate a location preference. I used 5 different horses and did 5 tests for each horse for a total of 25 experiments over a 5 week time period. Results I made a hypothesis that yellow would be the most preferred color box the horses would go to because Yellow is a color horses do not often see and it's a non-threatening color. The results supported my hypothesis. Conclusions/Discussion Yellow is a favorite color for the horses I tested. I would enjoy doing this project on a much larger scale with many varieties of horses. Knowing a horses favorite color could enable veterinarians to color code medicine so the horse would be more willing to taking it.

Summary statement

Testing whether or not horses have a color preference and if so how to use that to aid veterinarians and trainers.

Help received

Mom helped record, Joelene Dunlop at B&B stables allowed me access to the horses

Competition history

  • CSEF 2013 Mammalian Biology · Entry J1215

Resources

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