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As is well known, horses cannot talk. Yet they can tell a lot about themselves through their mouth. And when they can't say anything, they must use their physique. This makes the body language of horses much more complex than that of humans, and it's not always easy to decipher.
For us, horse behavior becomes a completely new language that we must learn, and we can easily misunderstand it. This is especially true when horses use their mouths. Why does it lick its mouth? Why does it raise its head and lift its upper lip? Why does it stick out its tongue? When the horse uses its mouth, it communicates - even though it cannot articulate. Every signal with the tongue, lip, or perhaps the teeth is a direct expression of how it feels.
If you learn to understand what parts of a horse's oral behavior mean, you can also learn an important part of your own horse's language. Let's therefore take a look at what some of the most normal signals through a horse's mouth mean.
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When your horse licks its mouth, it's a sign that it's relaxing. It usually happens after a more or less stressful situation has ended. It can be after a hard ride or after the horse has felt pain or fear.
In more technical terms, the horse switches from letting its sympathetic nervous system control to letting the parasympathetic nervous system take over. The sympathetic is what is set in motion when the horse experiences stress. The parasympathetic, on the other hand, works exactly the opposite and helps the horse relax so that calm can spread throughout the body once the stress is over. When you see your horse lick its mouth, you know that it now feels comfortable and safe. Isn't it nice to know?
One can wonder when seeing their horse chew on nothing in particular. What's the point of that? Is it "chewing on a thought"? Or does it perhaps have something stuck in its teeth? Most of all, it looks like it's chewing on something for a short while and then swallowing it. And that's exactly what it's doing - producing saliva.
It may be easier to understand if you try it yourself. What do you do when you need to produce a saliva blob inside your mouth? You move your jaws and tongue, and then you spit it out. That's exactly what the horse does - it just swallows it.
It may also be related to saliva production when the horse licks its mouth. After a stressful situation, it may have become dry in the mouth. By chewing and licking, it can regain moisture in the mouth. Therefore, both chewing and licking behaviors are reactions to the horse's parasympathetic nervous system taking over and finding peace. Communicatively, it helps to spread calm throughout the herd. Although a horse cannot say, "Just take it easy, friends", that's precisely what its body language tells when it stands there and chews on nothing and licks its mouth a little.
Many horses love to lick on all sorts of things - especially after eating or getting a treat. Whether it's a hand, a jacket sleeve, or the edge of a stall door doesn't matter, as long as the horse can lick something. And why is that? It's partly because the horse's saliva helps dissolve the feed. So when the horse licks something after eating, it's part of its digestion.
Furthermore, saliva enhances the taste of feed because in its dissolved state, it can more easily flow into the taste buds in the mouth. In fact, humans do the same; when we really want to taste our food, we produce saliva, and it can sometimes be difficult not to slurp. When a horse licks something, it enhances its sense of taste in exactly the same way. This allows the horse to form an impression of what it has in its mouth; whether it is poisonous and needs to be spit out, or whether it is completely harmless and maybe even delicious.
One thing is to lick the equipment in the stable - and on its rider. Another thing is to lick directly on the ground. If you ever see your horse do that, you should take it seriously. It is usually a clear sign that it is missing something - or that it is very hungry. If the horse continues to do this when there is plenty of forage in the paddock, it is most likely because it is severely deficient in an important mineral, and is instinctively trying to retrieve it from the ground.
In addition to being a sign of a mineral deficiency, it can also cause serious sand colic in the horse. Therefore, the best thing to do is to have your veterinarian take a blood sample immediately so that the horse's mineral needs can be determined and corrected.
Also, keep in mind that even if your horse has a salt block, it may still be deficient in salt. If the horse finds the salt block distasteful, it will rarely lick it, even if it needs the minerals. Instead, it may lick other things that taste salty. So if your horse likes to lick things - and the ground, for that matter - you may want to try giving it a new salt block. Most horses prefer a natural one, such as a Himalayan salt block, because it is more taste-neutral than those produced industrially.
A horse never sticks out its tongue for no reason - especially not when ridden. For obvious reasons, the horse cannot tell when something hurts, but it can try to alleviate some of the pain by doing something physical. Some horses may react violently by rearing or bucking, while others may show pain by sticking their tongues out of their mouths - simply to vent the pain. Unfortunately, it is rare that a tongue sticking out of the mouth is taken as seriously as a rear or a buck, but the cause can be just as serious. Therefore, it is important to get hold of your veterinarian even if the horse "just" sticks out its tongue.
Do you also think that it looks like the horse is smiling when it lifts its head and lifts its upper lip? In fact, it does it to better capture a scent. By lifting the upper lip, horses can sharpen their sense of smell, because the scent is closer to the organ that captures the smell in that way. This organ is located in the palate and is therefore directly connected to the nostrils. It is most common for the horse to "smile" when it comes across a scent it does not know or likes very much, and which it therefore wants to investigate further.
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A horse that yawns after a ride is not necessarily tired. Not at all. It is just really good at "stretching out". When the horse yawns, it releases tension in the body, which it can do after training, when you groom it, or when it has received a massage or other body-close treatment. Some horses even yawn when they get a walk break during training – simply to release tension.
Of course, it also happens that a horse yawns while standing in the paddock or in its box, and it is just a sign of good health. What is important here is that the horse has a halter that is wide enough for it to fully yawn. It is only with a proper yawn that the horse can fully relax.
Do you know a horse that does any of these things with its mouth? If so, you should definitely share your knowledge so that even more people can learn to interpret their horse's oral signals. At least now you have become a little wiser about part of the language that many horse people can have such a hard time understanding. Once you understand the physiological logic behind it, it's not that difficult after all, do you think?
