page_title: Bucking
section_title: Consequences of chronic bucking
hierarchical_section_title: Bucking / Consequences of chronic bucking
context_page_description: Bucking is a movement performed by an animal in which it lowers its head and raises its hindquarters into the air while kicking out with the hind legs. It is most commonly seen in herbivores such as equines, cattle, deer, goats, and sheep. Most research on this behavior has been directed towards horses and cattle.
  Bucking can vary in intensity from the animals’ slight elevation of both hind legs, to lowering their head between their front legs, arching their back, and kicking out several times. Originally, it was predominantly an anti-predator and play behavior, but with domestication, it is now also a behavioral issue in riding horses, and a desired behavior in bucking bulls. If powerful, it may unseat a rider enough to fall off. Bucking, in some cases, may have consequences for serious injury to animal and rider.
context_section_description: Horses that are chronic and consistent buckers cannot be ridden safely and if they cannot be retrained become unsuitable for any type of ordinary riding.  There are few options available to such an animal, and thus may become unwanted by many buyers. Thus, humane euthanasia or sale to slaughter may be that animal's fate.
  In a few cases, a horse that cannot be retrained not to buck may be sold to a rodeo stock contractor.  Ironically, such horses often fetch a high price in the bucking stock world because they often are easy to handle on the ground, yet very clever and skilled at unseating riders, thus allowing a cowboy to obtain a high score if the rider can stay on.  At rodeo auctions such as the Miles City Bucking Horse Sale, a spoiled riding horse, particularly one that is powerfully built, will bring a top price and have a long career in rodeo.
caption: Some horses are chosen for use in rodeos, due to their habitual or powerful bucking ability.
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