Can horses be affected by noise?

[ester]

I was more than disappointed I had hoped that they would revolutionise my life and the new Sony ones would have been great for the office as if you cover one ear you can hear people asking you daft questions .

Apparently some people get over it/adjust but I decided I couldn’t risk that sort of money and have stuck with the earplugs!

 

[OldFogie]

The only trouble with noise amelioration is - the more you make an environment quiet - the more penetrating sounds you can hear! We used to calibrate a Confidential office at 35Db - down there you can start being aware of your own damn pulse. It's also enormously difficult to achieve - the test pieces ( very similar to fire tests ) are really all fiddled - the samples wall/ceiling sections etc., are usually build by guys from NASA or the CIA and are far different to the stuff that gets done on site.
You are far better off using plugs or eardefenders. I had a call from my bank the other day and had to hang up - it sounded like the guys was in a chicken shed - how on earth can he work in it is beyond me but perhaps that's because my hearing has been ruined by jack hammers and rather large bangs.

 

[ester]

I would love to try an anechoic chamber, it would be interesting if anyone has done any research as to whether people who are already noise sensitive can hear the blood etc stuff more or less than 'normal' people.

From reading after discovering that me and noise cancelling would get on the effect seemed to be lessened if you were playing music alongside the noise cancelling, but as that wasn't what I wanted them for knowing that didn't help. It is interesting that it happened en masse!

 

[Dave's Mam]

I would love to try an anechoic chamber, it would be interesting if anyone has done any research as to whether people who are already noise sensitive can hear the blood etc stuff more or less than 'normal' people.

From reading after discovering that me and noise cancelling would get on the effect seemed to be lessened if you were playing music alongside the noise cancelling, but as that wasn't what I wanted them for knowing that didn't help. It is interesting that it happened en masse!

I have been in one. It's the most bizarre sensation.

 

[ester]

As a teen I did work experience at the local hospital and their audiology room was lovely (I never realised quite why at the time )

Traffic noise definitely makes me sicker, although I have never lived somewhere totally without it when I lived on the main A road through the village I really struggled so won't do that again . At least I live in an age of double glazing

 

[Hanno Verian]

Given that horses are sensitive creatures anyway, with excellent hearing, I often wonder if they are affected by the noises generated by modern life. There is plenty of documentation to support the idea that long term exposure to heavy traffic noise can cause high blood pressure and autoimmune diseases in humans so could the same happen in horses? Horses in stables or fields, that they can't get away from, are often subjected to motorway noise, chain saws, quarry noise, heavy agricultural machinery, the whining sound from airports, repetitive gunfire from commercial shoots etc. etc. If we don't like a noise we can retreat inside but they can't. Is it possible that some of the behaviour problems seen in horses could be related to the stress of noise?

We had a lovely cob, who became a complete neurotic mess over the course of a year because of the commercial shooting in the estate where we kept him, he developed ulcers and turned from being a kind reasonably placid creature to an absolute fiend. We rehomed him and he's living the life of riley as a family horse doing PC and hunting, but no shooting in his area

 

[Shavings]

Levi hates! and i mean hates! scrambler style bikes, we can be out and about a normal motorbike goes past fine.. but been in the plantation before now and he hears the bike long before me and he just spins and mad panics! luckily its only happened once as he then broke him self so never returned to the plantation as of yet!

 

[OldFogie]

As a teen I did work experience at the local hospital and their audiology room was lovely (I never realised quite why at the time

The firm built several radio studios for the Beeb at the old White City and a full t.v. video sound stage in the Canary Wharf tower 1 - another in Hilversum, Netherlands and oh yes, I remember a fantastic specification recording suite of studios in an old stone barn - 3 inch thick fully floating slate floors and ceilings! They used the first track on Oxygene - Jean Michel Jarre for the test - with the lights off - how weird was that!

On the other side of the scale - I've also shouted firing orders to my platoon over friggin' great loudspeakers playing the battle of Armagedon - and appraised by the number of hits in the right spots! I've also been blown up by my own side!! So my ears are knackered.