Plaited Horse Manes

[kl]

I recently was following a "discussion" on a Facebook post about Bigfoot braiding horse manes. One person was determined it was from lack of human grooming (you know how it goes on Facebook.) Causes I could list, in no particular order: Bigfoot, but nobody has seen a Bigfoot doing it. The horse rubs its neck on the fence or something. Allogrooming/social grooming where another horse's lips, teeth and tongue does a lot of twisting of the hair. Wind in the mane. I wonder if people are seeing true braids like we would do or is it tangled twists and people think it is was a braid done by a Bigfoot. Thoughts??? Horse owners out there have any instances of plaited manes you really found strange???

[Nathaniel Bronis]

I grew up in an area where our neighbors would have us feed and watch their animals, horses will groom others manes by rolling their hair up with their tongue ( this can cause a braid as the animal loops the hair around a bundle of hair not gripped by the lips or resulted in just rolled loops ) I have come across it a number of times and watched it happen at least once.

I have come across zero cases of this that had significance and about 90% of the cases the people claiming such things demonstrate clear signs of mental illness.