Posted by zebra-guy on January 15, 2003 at 08:52:50:
In Reply to: Re: Zebra personailty? posted by PHAppies on January 07, 2003 at 20:18:54:
Sorry about the empty message that follows this one. This is my first time here and I messed up on my first attempt to post a message.
My wife and I had horses for twenty years and now have two zebras and I can tell you a lot about how they act. There is very little about them that is like horses. To give you much of an idea of how zebras act, this will have to be a fairly long post, so let me just whittle away at the answer and see where it takes us.
If you have one zebra alone with horses, that zebra will begin to act somewhat like the horses. Having said that, they never quite get over being wild, so there are many things that a horse would pay no attention to that will upset or panic a zebra. If there are multiple zebras together as we have with just our two, they feed each other's fears and handling them can be a real problem. Ours wear halters and can be led, but if they decide they don't want to move or conversely are afraid and want to run, good-bye! They react to the other animals around them. Ours watch the neighbor's goats for signals of danger. If the goats all start to move in one direction, even if it is only to go for food, the zebras figure they should be on alert for lions. They tolerate our dogs but are not happy about them being around. They have no fear of our familiar dogs, but if any one of them starts to bark, the zebras think of that as a danger alert and are ready to run. If one of the zebras startles from anything, the other one is instantly on the run. They hate windy weather. Much harder to listen for lions! They can go from standing still to a full speed run in about two steps. If you watch closely when they panic you can see that all four feet come off the ground and hit the ground almost together as the zebra launches its flight.
Zebras are much more herd oriented than horses. A lot of people keep one horse. One zebra does not do well alone. Most people give them horses, donkeys, goats or even llama as companions. They also have a strong pecking order within the "herd". Both of ours are female, but if the dominant one decides she doesn't want to come to the barn (which she often decides) she will block and drive away the other one, preventing her from coming to the barn. They are also protective of "their" owner. Our dominant zebra is attached to my wife and objects to her giving any attention to the subordinate zebra. The other zebra relates better to me and will actually stand up to the dominant one when she is with me and the dominant one comes to butt in.
There are differences we could talk about all day, but you probably get the idea. Zebras do eat some of the same foods horses eat. We feed ours alfalfa hay and horse sweet feed. They also love persimmons and acorns.
If you are interested in looking at pictures of zebras, go to the barred-m-ranch web site. Follow their zebra thread to the virtual photo shows. If you look at 2001 show results for pictures of Ziggy and Zelda you will find our two zebras.
