Most domestic horses readily adapt to a variety of housing environments. That is, either immediately or within a few days they appear comfortable, reasonably content, and they adopt a pattern of maintenance behavior similar in many respects to that of horses at liberty.

When behaviorists catalog all the odd, abnormal, or unusual behaviors ever observed in stabled domestic horses, the list seems very long. But in reality the majority of abnormal behavior of stabled horses fit into a few distinct categories; the remainder are quite rare curiosities.