Unfortunately the number one rule of equine medicine is that the horse is a stupidly delicate animal for being as large as it is and everything will kill them.
To little grass? Dead. Too much grass? Dead. A normal amount of grass after not having access to much grass? Dead.
A lifetime ago when I was a vet student, one of my clinical professors was the vet for the National horse race track in our country, first class he said essentially the same thing. He spoke about how much he loves them, how beautiful they are, & then told us that we needed to understand that if we happen to end up in his position we should expect it to be a frustrating side of vet med because you can do every little thing perfectly, & a tummy ache will still kill them.
It’s actually not the necks. It’s their anatomy. They have a flap in their throat that stops them from being able to vomit. At least iirc. That flap is really similar to the ones all mammals have over their tracheas, where they split off from the other one (don’t know what the food one is called in english)
It’s not a flap at the throat that’s the epiglottis that is to prevent aspiration of food or water into the trachea when swallowing. The part of a horse that prevents vomiting is the esophageal sphincter that is right before the stomach, it is extremely strong compared to other animals and prevents stomach contents from going backwards. Rabbits and rodents also have this same sphincter!
Mine vomited his raw breakfast on the kitchen rug. Looked upset when I picked everything up without allowing him to re-consume it. Cats... He's got a hairball of the dog's fur. Dog's blowing her coat. Or spider webs. Because he's just that weird.
It’s funny, mine never re-consume their own regurgitation, but they will go sit in the corner and watch as the other four-legged freaks all fight over whose turn it is to get a second helping of breakfast or dinner 🤢🤮
Mine found a rogue almond that fell under the couch (high levels of arsenic for a small animal) she wasnt feel good and threw it up. Now when she vomits i remind myself of how lucky I am that she can
It's not so much the flap as it is that the angle at which their esophagus enters their stomach makes it hard for them to bring food up, it's something about the pressure and the angle, especially if they're bloated. But it does make them hard to troubleshoot because then things can only go out one way and that causes a lot of problems.
TIL that i have something in common with a horse. I had a type of fundoplication surgery last year that makes it impossible for me to vomit. Stomach bugs are now dry heaving and retching while praying I don't die. My heart goes out to all horses.
I have a rabbit and they’re very similar! They can live for a VERY long time or they can die from being startled. And yes, tummy aches are the main cause of death. Horse colic is very similar to rabbit GI stasis. But both are very treatable if caught early! Horses can die easily but they can live 40+ years, and rabbits are even more sensitive but can live longer than most dogs! (15-16 years, mine is almost 14!)
horse is a stupidly delicate animal for being as large as it is and everything will kill them
Meanwhile most ppl still think that a moose is cute and fluffy XXXL cow, while in fact it is probably the closest thing to animal tank we can meet in boreal regions. It also weights a ton and is almost always grumpy, but since it weights a ton, has XXL antlers, being grumpy is not his problem anymore.
Replace bison with any large animal, and there's good cause to use caution with them. Horses have been somewhat domesticated, but one could still absolutely kill you easily with a kick to the head and they have.
Don't get me wrong, not saying you should fear, because I think that implies a certain irrationality, but everyone should have a healthy respect for any animal bigger than themselves. Because I love all animals, everyone should have a healthy respect for animals in general, but for the benefit of the animals at that point.
My friend has some horses. One of them is absolutely a dickhead. She got most offended when I said "that house is a bit of a dick". Cue "blah blah blah he's young etc etc." About a month later I get " horse x is such a dickhead, every time I feed him he charges me". No Shit Sherlock, he's a massive tool.
Statistically a deer is far more dangerous than both of those animals combined. Bambi flatlines about 150 people every year in NA, Moose about 10, Bison 0.
The Bison thing surprised me, although they may give a "leave me the fuck alone" headbutt, they just don't kill people.
I can only imagine what a moose would be like. I had the misfortune of a deer running into my car. Watched this animal spin a full 360 while it tumbled to the ground. Then just got up and ran off. While my car was dented as hell. If it was a moose there would be no car
In Canada you are technically not supposed to swerve to avoid an animal on the road as you put more people at risk. But a moose? The swerve is worth the risk as a head on collision can be very fatal.
My aunt lived In Alaska for years. One day, driving down the road she hit a moose. Full on 50mph. In her giant suburban! Totaled her suburban… She said it stood up and just walked away like nothing happened! They are ridiculously huge and strong animals!
i wandered into the woods near our camp in Colorado, not too deep mind you, and put up my hammock and was about to start writing in my journal… when i looked down and registered that the soft ground was covered in moose prints. i noped out so fast lol. also saw a bear way too close when i was trying to discretely vomit with a hang over one morning at this location. slowly backed my ass up the path to camp. but i’m pretty sure i had moose sniffing and grunting at the door to my cabin all night, i tied the door knob to my bed frame lol, did not want to find out which creature it was
A bull moose is one of the most dangerous animals in the wild in North America, and probably the most dangerous herbivore. Just because they don't eat meat, people have this mistaken assumption they are harmless.
The only car accident I’ve ever been in was when a moose ran into the road and hit our car. Passengers were all fine, as was the moose, but the car was totaled. Wasn’t even that big of a moose, seeing how massive a bull moose can get. They aren’t an animal you want to mess with! A few years later when I took driver’s ed we had a whole class of watching videos on how to not die when you can’t avoid hitting deer or moose.
Sometimes I think about horses that come into town from other areas to run at local events and they don’t do well or leave in a sorry condition because of weather alone. Really makes you think about those Pony Express mustangs and how tough they were
That is true it is highly individual horse dependent. I’ve had some horses that would go off their feed and pull up lame if you looked at them wrong, and then I’ve had other horses that were tanks.
My childhood pony was a rescue from a hoarding situation who was missing half of an ear due to frostbite and who’s back haunch was pretty much just solidly a scar and I think that horse could’ve survived nuclear winter.
Kind of but not really. There are pony breeds and horse breeds. However they are the same species. Also if you get technical, any equine under 14.2 hands high is a pony. Any equine over 14.2 is a horse, regardless of breed. However, some folks will argue on this.
So accurate. Though some will cut the middle man and attempt both at once!
I trained a lot of ottb into hunter jumper show prospects to pay for college and I feel like 90% of them were intent on a murder-suicide at least once in the process
Wrong kind of grass? Dead... After three ranch calls for colic and a massive fucking bill.
/sigh
Got an invasive weed I didn't notice. Pretty sure that's what killed the horse... but could have just been good ol fashioned twisted intestine from rolling in the dust.
We had a rescue thoroughbred who LOVED to crib. We ended up putting halved PVC pipes on all the boards he could reach. He started trying to use the mulberry tree just over the fence. Poor thing was bald on one side because our wanna-be giraffe wearing a stupid fuzzy collar couldn't chew on plastic. Thank goodness he finally outgrew it, but I spent too many nights helping my parents walk him until he farted or the vet arrived to essentially burp the friggin horse until then.
my horse decided to take himself galloping for 10 minutes nonstop in 40-degree heat this evening. i concur with everything you just said, especially has her then had to be cajoled to go into the shower to have a cool off. The imbecile.
That part about the grass is true for humans too. Too little food? Dead. Too much food? Dead. A normal amount of food after not having access to much food? Dead. (This is actually what killed a lot of holocaust survivors shortly after liberation)
When you realize that half of their "leg" is actually the bones that make up a human's foot, and they're just always walking/running on tip-toes, it's honestly surprising they're as durable as they are.
My professor used to say: horses are constantly trying to die and as their owner, it’s your job to try and keep them from doing so for as long as possible
To be completely fair to horses, “A normal amount of food after not having access to much food” is also a thing that makes us dead. Refeeding syndrome is a nasty thing.
True… but with horses it’s more like “access to grass after having a perfectly adequate amount of hay and oats for while.” So not a starving horse. A perfectly healthy horse can founder and die if given unfettered access to grass in the spring after making it through winter on hay.
My buddy owns a horse farm and absolutely despises horses lol. The amount of things he talks about that would just kill them is sad but hilarious. They practically need to be bubble wrapped to live a normal life
My husband and I make our living in the equine world and it astonishes me that people will pay tens of thousands of dollars for a creature that can accidentally eat too much sandy grass and die.
The thing is a lot of them don’t. Most mustang herds are chronically undernourished and foals starve every spring from dams that can’t produce enough milk
Humans and selective breeding are probably to blame, as wild equine species such as Przewalski's horses and especially zebras are generally resilient af compared to all the many breeds of domestic horse
The thing is for horses it isn’t after fasting. A perfectly healthy weight horse that’s been eating a proper amount of hay and feed can die if suddenly given access to grass.
That mainly applies to broken bones, specifically broken legs. If they break an ankle, then there really isnt any saving them. That ankle will never heal, because horses are stupid and will refuse to stop running on it.
When it comes to other things, infections, surgery, medicines for various diseases, treatments for common skin diseases, these things are not the same as a broken leg. I mean, during covid, some people literally started taking horse de-wormer medication as a way to treat covid... dont ask me why, it's stupid.
TL;DR it is more correct to say that a horse that cannot walk is a dead horse.
Fractures to the sesamoid can often be fixed surgically depending on the type, some horses even return to racing after. A condylar fracture can be fixed nicely with screws and that ankle will be stronger than before. It's fractures of the long bones that are the worst.
For the record- that dewormer isnt specific to horses. It's actually a medicine fda approved and often used on people needing it. Trying to use it for covid is mentally unstable behavior, but it would work well for people as a dewormer.
Just because something can be used for a horse doesn’t preclude it from being used in humans (from what I’ve heard ketamine was for horses and some humans LOVE it).
Ivermectin won a Nobel prize iirc for its use in humans and saved a lot of people from going blind and from dying? (It’s been a while since I deep dived this)
Ketamine is used on horses but it was not originally made for them, no. It was always intended to be a safer anaesthetic for humans first and foremost. It’s a crazy safe anaesthetic, too. First choice for a lot of pediatric surgeries to the point that if you had your tonsils out as a kid, you almost certainly were just given straight up ketamine as your anaesthetic. It’s used so much in veterinary medicine and field medicine because it doesn’t require intubation and leaves the airways intact, so if you have a badly injured animal offsite, you can just jab it with ketamine, knock it out pretty much immediately, and get to work on treatment or stabilising without having to get to a surgical suite.
The horse tranquiliser association has given ketamine this outsized reputation. It’s a safe, effective anaesthetic that is also an extremely powerful antidepressant that can literally cure suicidal ideation overnight.
Ivermectin was also not originally made for horses either? That’s kind of my point :)
And my kids had his adenoids out thrice (I know, how fun) and a couple other things and he gets fentanyl and it’s always so disconcerting thinking about your kid on these ‘street’ drugs before you remember they were invented for medicine not for getting high.
I’m only responding to the part where you said ketamine was for horses, which is not the case. I had no idea you could have adenoids out more than once!! Do they grow back???
I was a bit shocked myself when I had jaw surgery, and the second I woke up they were like “we are giving you so much fentanyl, you do NOT want that pain to break through. if you need more, tell us immediately” but yeah, it is just a very powerful anaesthetic at the end of the day. And I’m glad it exists
Yeahhhh we have a familial history on both sides of adenoid issues so first time out was 18 months then 4 ish and last time he was 9 ish and they haven’t come back since so we’re golden now! Verrrrry rare to have to do it again but usually they don’t get taken out before 5 ish.
Prevented blindness, yes. It does. I don’t think it treats it though?
And just saying it was made for human consumption and is now used on horses. It’s a lot more logical to ingest ivermectin for covid than bleach as an elected official has suggested 😂
I dont disagree that that is more logical, but that's a really low bar to clear. At that point you may as well just start doing heroine to treat your covid. I mean, either way it ain't gonna work, but atleast with heroin you'll feel good while you destroy your own body.
I went down the rabbit hole years ago of why horses don't recover from alot of leg injuries. It's pretty interesting if you never learned exactly why. I always just accepted that if they break their leg, they got put down, but not the why.
A lot of people think it's just because a horse breaks its leg, but it's more complicated than that. Horses have relatively poor blood supply to the lower parts of their legs, which makes healing slower. On top of that, they weigh over 1,000 pounds and can't stay off the injured leg like humans can. They have to stand most of the time, so the healthy legs end up carrying too much weight, which can lead to serious complications like laminitis. If the fracture is severe and there's little chance of a pain-free recovery, euthanasia is often the kindest option. Some horses do recover from broken legs, though. It depends on the type and severity of the fracture.
Importantly, horses don’t have the ability to send blood back to the heart from the legs without aid from systems in the hooves. So on top of it being a nightmare for leg injuries anyways, horses require their hooves on the ground (taking steps) to be able to send blood back to the heart.
I've heard they evolved to be much smaller, and it's modern, human-bred horses which are oversized. Would it also be fair to say that's caused a lot of these problems?
I'm just a natural tease. It's pretty interesting how they use their lower legs kind of like secondary hearts. They depend on them for proper bloodflow and not being able to walk causes edema and circulatory failure among other really bad things.
On top of that, their leg bones don't break like human leg bones do. They splinter and shatter like glass, which introduces a ton of other complications.
Humans do, too. If you don't walk around, your heart had to do more work. Our leg-veins have loads of one-way valves. Turns out, that our ass muscles can force those valves to pump blood easier than shitty little hearts. It's why after sitting down for a few hours, you get the dumb...lack of brain oxygen forces you into power-saving.
Yeah, it's more complicated than they are brittle or they like other horses. Their lower legs are pretty fragile. They don't have muscles in their lower legs. Their circulatory system depends on them moving. The pressure in their lower legs that is generated by moving and running helps move blood through their bodies. Without the pressure on the lower legs, they have circulatory issues and inflammation that can kill them.
Not a vet. But I remember asking myself why they can't try some kind of prosthesis and investigated the real reasons why lower legs injuries are so critical. They also tend to have inflammation in their other legs if they favor one, which can cause damage to the hoofs and structure of uninjuried legs.
Pretty simple really, it's cause they're 1 ton animals with delicate bone structure and a powerful instinct to run.
I mean, have you seen a horse's ankles before? They're thinner than your wrist, and they hold up over 1000 pounds. So this is to say that they can break pretty easily, which is important because of the second part. Horse's are kinda stupid, and their instincts tell them to run whenever they sense danger.
So like, you have a 1400 pound horse with a broken leg and a split holding the leg in position to heal. It's laying in the grass, keeping the weight off it's broken leg, when suddenly the horse hears something in the distance, and it's head suddenly jolts to alert. It hears the sound approaching, so it stands up and tries to run away, the horse's instincts override it's thoughts, and it runs away. However, it's ankle is still broken, and now has 1400 pounds slamming down on it every time the horse gallons. So naturally, the splint breaks, because that's way too much weight, and then the ankle gives out, causing the horse to fall to the ground again.
Or you can stick them in a stall for the next month and watch them slowly die from other complications caused by being held in a stall for such a long time. Turns out horses are social animals with a lot of needs that cannot be met inside of a stall.
Lmao no! If you look at a horse wrong they try to colic and die lol I joke that if I was a horse I’d already be dead because I have stomach issues! They’re extremely sensitive babies and their medicine is lowkey often better than our own for sports medicine. We do joint injections for performance, shockwave therapy, chiropractics, acupuncture etc.
For horses leg injuries as well as hooves are easily fatal because of quality of life issues. Although i do wish we still took out the good old shotgun instead of all this hippy euthanasia… /j!!
No existen antibióticos para equinos, lamentablemente debido a la gran cantidad de litros de sangre que poseen.
Esto hace que la dosis requerida sea demasiada alta, seria más costeable comprar uno nuevo.
Para más información o cualquier otro tipo de consulta, aquí su médico veterinario rediturro de confianza.
Posdata 1: lo más recomendable sería la amputación del miembro que fue mordido por el felino, y sugerencia de doble amputación para la simetría, muy importante visualmente.
Posdata 2: de lo dicho en el primer párrafo no hay ninguna evidencia científica.
They do, the supermarkets in the UK can vouch for this on account of the beef horse burgers they sold a few years back with beef horse meat that was loaded with steroids from race beefs horses.
bro this reminds me of this manga i read where everyone was like immortal or something and people were smuggling veterinarian medicine for the ppl who weren't lmao
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u/Molly-Grue-2u Jun 19 '26
I think they have antibiotics for horses now too