Credit: Dan Soder on the Your Mom’s House podcast

  • Chickenstalker@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Horses are known to eat small animals. There’s a video floating around of a horse eating a chick (baby chicken).

    • PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So many people seem to not realize this.

      Most animals will eat whatever they can get in their mouth. They may be specialized for some things, but it’s not like koalas won’t eat bugs.

      Especially for, like, typical, common animals. My ducks eat anything. It’s especially fun when one of them catches a tiny snake.

      People also seem to ask me what I feed them a lot and then get confused when I tell them I feed them duck food, as if they don’t feed their dogs dog food and their cats cat food.

  • PixelAlchemist@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Since they would be predators, their eyes would be positioned on the front of their skulls instead of the sides for better stereoscopic vision, and they would likely have sharp incisor teeth. Those 2 things alone are pretty creepy.

    • canthidium@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Yes, super scary. And another commenter mentioned they would also have paws with claws and legs more like big cats. Oh man

  • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    That would make it significantly more expensive to raise and stable a horse, making them unsuitable for labor or war for all but the most wealthy, and even then it would be a dangerous prospect to raise or ride one, as we are made of meat. Other animals like oxen or elephants would probably fill this void, and lands with climates that support them would become far more valuable. Overall there would be a lot less energy available to pre-industrial people and travel over land would be a lot more difficult.

    Plains nomads probably wouldn’t exist or would lose their historical advantage. The Huns, the Golden Horde, etc., probably would not have risen to prominence.

    • PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I am not disagreeing with you - but would it not be just as likely that if the horse was not a viable choice, humans would domesticate some other animal - cow, deer, etc.

      Imagine warriors come riding on a friggin’ elk!

      • SgtAStrawberry@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There was a girl in my country that taught her cow to jump like a hores, because she wouldn’t get a hores. So give it some time and dedication we could probably beed up some really nice battel cows.

  • IonAddis@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If horses were obligate carnivores, they probably wouldn’t have been as readily domesticated. It’s cheaper to feed a plant-eater than a meat-eater. Dogs are omnivores, for example, because human scraps are often plant-based so it was an advantage to be able to eat more plants than a wolf might have.

    And if horses weren’t domesticated, that would have changed the development of technology and warfare massively. We might have still had the wheel from the potter’s wheel, but things like carts and chariots might not have developed and spread like they did if one of the main animals to pull carts was not domesticated.

    The way the horse and stirrup changed warfare also would have made ancient war very different, as there’d be no sudden incursions of horse-mounted warriors invading various regions at various times so I bet a lot of national borders in the modern day would be quite different.

  • Generic_Handel@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Large animals that were difficult or costly to domesticate (like the Aurochs) were generally just wiped out.
    My guess is if horses were carnivores they would be extinct or limited to a few in zoos and some of the wilder places (like tigers).

  • kozel@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Watch LotR to see ridden carnivores.
    I don’t know, how would the world be different, but to spark your fantasy, imagine horses being herbivores, but turn carnivorous at every conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn (~ every 20 years).

  • vldnl
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    1 year ago

    We would be riding cows instead.

  • SeeMinusMinus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I read that as cannibals imao. I would imagine in a world like that there would be shows where horses would face each other to the death in a battle and eat the loser in front of everyone.

    • canthidium@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      You reminded me of a standup show by Anthony Clark (He was the main on the show, Yes, Dear) where he talked about growing up on a farm and always thought about feeding the cows a hamburger, lol.

  • degen@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    I’m too busy imagining getting run down by a teeth-gnashing Clydesdale and pissing myself to answer the question