Sleepy Babies

There’s not much sweeter than watching your babies sleep.  Following a full day of playing, napping, snacking, more playing, helping mom and a little innocent trouble-making, resting children are so peaceful. 

Though it’s true that horses spend most of their time snoozing while standing, thanks to a handy locking knee joint, they do also frequently lay down for that much needed REM sleep (Hey!  Horses need to dream too!).  I’ll also take a guess that no one’s ever heard of “horse tipping.”  That’s because horses, unlike cows, have a pretty wide stance relative to their body so they don’t tumble over with a little shove.  I wish I could sleep standing up without falling flat on my face.  Horses really are amazing animals.

Oh no!  Dancer’s dead!  Sniff!  Sniff!  Oh, wait . . . she’s just a foal in this picture and like any sleepy baby, she needed a nice, cozy bed to really get her rest.

Way back when I was taking an introductory animal science class, we talked about allelomimetic behavior in herd animals.  It’s basically the idea that social animals will copy the behavior of other animals nearby.  Here’s proof that the theory is true:

Stoney takes “bed and breakfast” quite literally.  Often, he wakes and doesn’t bother to get up before he starts munching on the hay that was just his mattress.