Horses yawn, just like humans do. They open their mouths wide and appear to sort of stretch and grimace and let air out of their mouths before they go back to normal again.

The big puzzle revolves around the issue of just why horses yawn.

Typically, yawning happens when you are tired and wish to sleep or when you are bored out of your mind. Regularly you yawn just after you wake up. All of these yawning factors appear to be common to humans and horses.

Yawning can also occur as a reaction to some stimulus? Enjoyable or otherwise. Many gurus associate yawning with pain. But inversely, horses often yawn even if they’re feeling happy, in the quiet of their stalls. Horses are also known to yawn after they have gone through a session of chiropractic treatment or a massage. This proves, naturally, that yawning is linked with the kind of pleasure that comes with release from stress or tension.

Yawning also accompanies health problems like agony in the jaws, colic and ulcers. Regularly ammonia builds up in the blood because of liver illness and results in a selection of neurological symptoms like yawning.

All this would indicate that yawning accompanies feelings on either end of the range.

You could have also noticed that horses yawn after they have released breath that was restrained during times of stress, both physical and psychological. The concept is that oxygen is momentarily diverted to muscles brought into play during an emergency, and that huge air intake is a requirement to get oxygen back to the brain after the emergency is over and done with.

To get back to horses and their yawning practices: they’ve been known to yawn when it is approaching feed time. They also yawn when the bridle is removed, possibly to stretch the muscles in and around their jaws.

Plenty of individuals have the idea horses yawn out of pure habit. And no importance should be give to the whole thing.

On it’s own, your horse’s yawning shouldn’t give you cause for worry. You must get alert if your horse yawns more than is normal for him, or if his yawning appears to join some other more potentially significant set of symptoms. In such cases, get in touch with your vet.

Horses are Heather Tomspassion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers read more