It is believed that the most suitable for animals are environmental conditions. Some particularly impressionable people think that only there they live happily ever after. Is it really?
Do you know how long a horse lives at home and in nature? First, let's deal with the stable content. The books contain information about 18-20 years, but experienced horse breeders say that a horse can live much longer.
From the point of view of biology, the maximum age of the animal is approximately six to seven times longer than the time it reaches physiological maturity, after which the body completely stops growing.
So how long does the horse live in this case? Given that her body ceases to grow at six years old, theoretically, age can be 36 years!
Legends say that some stallions reached an amazing age of 60 years, but more or less reliable documentary sources contain information about only 40 years. Of course, in many ways, how much the horse lives depends on the conditions of its maintenance. So, a working peasant mare is unlikely to last at least 20 years.
Do not assume that long-livers can only be stallions or only mares. At the University of Berlin, the skeleton of a stallion of the famous Emperor Frederick II is exhibited. Biologists proved that the age of the animal at the time of his death was 40 years.
The scientist Smith N. wrote about the mare, whose age was 46 years old, moreover, for all this time she gave birth to more than 35 foals. However, how much the horse lives depends to a large extent on the breed and thoroughbred of the horse.
A vivid example of this is the domestic horse Budynok. It was a purebred racehorse stallion, which for all its years of "service" managed to set more than one world record.
He lived to a respectable age of 32 years, and the last few years he was "retired", being in full custody of one of the stables at the Academy K.I. Scriabin.
By the way, how many horses live for years if Arab blood flows in them? The famous mares of the Tersk stud farm (Tarash, Sahara and Strada) survived to 31 years. Presented by the Egyptian authorities, the stallion Raafat, who also lived in the stables of the Tersk stud farm, lived to be 29 years old.
Let us remind once again that in ancient manuscripts of the same Arabs there is information about even more “durable” animals, which sometimes outlived their master, or even two.
It was not by chance that we spent so much time examining the issues of longevity of breeding horses that people care for. This was done for a better comparison with their wild relatives.
Of course, there are very few of the latter, but a lot of information about this issue was left by naturalists who lived in the recent past.
So how much on average does a horse live in natural conditions? In this case, her life span depends on a number of factors: diseases, predators and just accidents and injuries.
Naturalists pointed out that only every tenth stallion lived to the age of 13-15 years old, and the situation was even worse with the mares.
Domesticated horses began to live much longer. The development of modern pharmaceuticals suggests that soon new champions will appear.