![]() ![]() Crowell-Davis says, “Evidence to date suggests that exposure to urine may be important for normal physical and sexual maturation in colts. Young colts flehmen up to five times more frequently than fillies, and fillies flehmen more frequently than mature mares. Sniffing another horse’s urine or feces, or even their own waste, is likely to invoke an upturned lip, and horses produce the reaction from time to time when there is no stimulus that their owners can detect.įoals of both sexes show the flehmen response. Odors like smoke or fresh paint may also cue flehmen. Geldings show the behavior less frequently than other mature horses, although any horse is likely to flehmen when it encounters a novel scent such as a new dietary supplement or feed ingredient. Smelling the newborn foal and the amniotic fluids associated with birth often produce the reaction. Mares commonly show a peak in flehmen response during the first few hours after giving birth. Crowell-Davis says, “It appears that flehmen facilitates chemosensory priming of stallions for reproductive behavior, rather than being an immediate component of sexual behavior.” Visual cues may be important in the stallion’s response, as stallions whose vision was blocked showed a lower frequency of flehmen than stallions that could watch mares urinating. Stallions show the flehmen response most frequently, often after sniffing a mare’s urine or simply when they are in the presence of a mare in estrus. Depending on the scent detected, various physiologic and behavioral reactions may then be triggered. When certain scents impact the VNO, signals are transmitted via the vomeronasal nerve to centers in the brain’s accessory olfactory bulbs. In general, it is connected with the mouth, nasal passages, or both. Once known as Jacobson’s organ, the VNO has different physical forms and locations in various species of animals. What is the function of the vomeronasal organ? Sharon Crowell-Davis explains that horses display the flehmen response to facilitate transfer of inhaled scent molecules (pheromones and possibly some other substances) into the vomeronasal organ (VNO), a specialized chemosensory structure found in many mammals. In an article published in Compendium Equine, Dr. Why do horses exhibit the flehmen response? ![]() Expressing this behavior is called flehming or flehmening. Flehmen is the term used to describe the behavior in which a horse extends its neck, raises its head, and inhales as it rolls its upper lip back, displaying its front teeth. ![]()
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