Does your horse feel comfortable enough to sleep or lie down? Sounds like an easy question…but you’d be surprised to know that horses need to feel quite comfortable and safe in order to lie down never mind sleep. Horses only sleep/doze for about 3 hours a day – true REM deep sleep is around 45 minutes in duration and done in three separate times – so a horse will only be deep sleeping for about 10-15 minutes at a time. Horses are prey animals and they have learned to adapt to sleeping in cat naps or not at all for up to 3 days if under stress (bad weather or predators)…so what can you do to help your horse?

1. Provide outdoor and indoor areas that are dry and soft to lie on.
2. Putting only a tiny bit of bedding down (as a lot of people do to save money) only discourages lying down. Horses need quite a bit of a bedding to lay down more. We are talking extra bedding not what one would think is normal. Studies done on horses show that the more cushion you provide the more they lie.
3. Nervous top leader horses sleep a lot less than the ones lower down in the group hierarchy. In these cases a large group feels safer and takes turns sleeping than when there’s only 2 horses for example. Safety in numbers.
4. Horses with ulcers or breathing problems do not lie down much – same goes with horses that have pains upon lying down on that particular body part. If your horses is reluctant to lie down much have him/her checked out.
5. If your horse lies down too much for too long…again have them checked out. It is not unusual for a horse to lie down at least once daily to a bit more…but unless they haven’t slept for a couple of days…the duration should be only a few minutes for the most part. There are exceptions to this but most of the time it means the horse is probably sore and trying to get off of their feet. Have it checked just in case.
6. Horses sleep more during day time hours or early morning…hardly ever at night unless stuck in a stall…this is because more predators hunt at night. Horses move and eat and are just as active in the night as they are in the day light hours…if not more so. Horses do better being out 24/7 in a descent sized group (where they get along) than being housed in a stall.