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In last week’s article on horse head injuries, I introduced you to a horse with a skull fracture. And even though horse head injuries like that one appear pretty gruesome on the outside, the horse’s brain emerged from the incident unscathed. Today, I’ll tell you why and how you use this information to know whether or not your equine vet needs to come to your barn for an emergency call in the even of a head injury.

Your horse is a pretty good sized animal. So you would think he has a pretty good sized brain. He doesn’t. Even a 2000-pound Clydesdale has a brain about the size of a baked potato. Not to sound flippant, but that’s one reason horses don’t sustain many serious brain injuries. There just isn’t that much brain up there to injure.

But thankfully, the single most important part of the horse’s skeleton is also the strongest. It’s the assembly of bones and connective tissue known as the “brain box.”

The brain box consists of a series of bones and a lot of fiber-osseus tissue that protect the brain extremely well. The parietal bone protects it from the top. The occipital bone has its back.

The bottom is shielded by the base of the mandible (jawbone - not shown in this picture) along with all of the spongy cartilage, ligaments, and tendons that allow the jaw to move up and down freely.

Your horse’s ligaments and tendons act kind of like shock absorbers for your car. The more healthy ligaments and tendons your horse has in the brain box, the more likely he is to come out of a head injury without any real brain damage to speak of.

That’s the upside. Here’s the downside…

The brain box, as strong as it is, is rather small; there’s not a lot of unused space in the middle of all those bones and protective tissue. If your horse hits his head hard enough, his brain will swell. And there’s not a lot of room for it to do that. This, more than anything else, complicates treatment. And for horses who have sustained permanent brain damage - this unchecked swelling is the most likely reason.

In order for a horse to hurt himself badly enough to cause brain swelling, his head has to impact a hard surface at high speed. That almost always come when a horse rears so high that he falls over backwards and tags his head on a wall, a fallen log, or a concrete floor.

If he connects with the immovable object with enough velocity to damage the brain box, he could give himself a brain hemorrhage (bleeding in the brain box), which means swelling. That is a true emergency: if your horse has swelling in the area of the brain box (see above graphic), you need to get your vet to your horse pronto.

You might be asking “Sierra, how can I prevent this from happening to my horse?”

Glad you asked. The short answer is control rearing on or near hard surfaces.

You know better than anyone what scares your horse. And while you can never be totally sure what he’ll spook at, you can take some action if he gets out of hand.

If you’re horse is in close quarters and becomes just a little spooked, you can probably calm him down with a gentle hand and pleasant tone of voice.

But if your horse is so mortified that all he wants to do is rear and you can’t stop him from doing it, get him out of the area as quickly as you can. And if he’s on a concrete surface, get him off of it. ASAP.

Take all horse head injuries seriously. Just because the brain box is very strong doesn’t mean it he can’t injure it. If your horse hits his head hard enough - God forbid - it could, indeed, result in swelling of the brain. Equine vets have a hard time treating these injuries. I’m sure when I graduate from vet school, I’ll eventually have to do it. But I’m not looking forward to it, that’s for sure.

Yours for Better Horse Care,

Sierra Lynch

Sierra Lynch makes it easy to keep your horse
healthy and happy. With over 16 years experience riding and
caring for horses, Sierra will make sure your horse is always
ready to ride. Visit Sierra on the web at Horse IQ

Race horses are shod with the intent of creating speed. How this is accomplished is by leaving the toes longer than normally is accepted. Why? The extra length of toe creates a lever as the horse drives forward the foot stays on the ground just a fraction of time longer thereby generating more forward thrust resulting in more speed. When the length of the toe is increased it multiplies the leverage necessary to generate speed.

This practice of generating speed does not come without cost. The cost is a negative one- bowed tendons and lameness many times permanent lameness and the worst case scenario the destruction of the horse, “putting it down”.

Too many times we hear race horses are raced too young is the reason for the bowed tendons and lameness. There may be some truth to that but the fact that cannot be disputed is excess length of toe stresses tendons bones and ligaments and when a horse is ridden hard and is fatigued they break down where the amount of stress is greatest – the legs. Leaving the toe long to generate the speed compounds the problems already inherent with horse anatomy and especially during racing.

As the foot stays on the ground longer due to length of toe and the body of the horse travels forward the deep flexor tendon is under tremendous stress and pull. The tendon is being stretched which it wasn’t designed to do. Since the deep flexor tendon is directly attached to the last bone in the foot (the coffin bone) as the foot labors to break over due to excess length of toe the load to the deep flexor tendon sometimes becomes unbearable to the horse – result, a blown tendon, rotated coffin bone, or a myriad of other bone, tendon or ligament issues.

To further the problem the Farrier industry and textbooks teach Farriers if a horse is pigeon toed, which 98% of horses are, to lower the inside of the hoof wall which forces the foot to rotate outward thereby pointing the foot more straight forward rather than inward. Nothing could be more detrimental to the horses’ correct movement than the combination of these practices. The bones in the horses’ foot are not designed by nature to be rotated either inward or outward. Neither are they designed to carry one side of the foot being shorter than the other yet the industry administers the practice.

This all translates into an industry that teaches practices that destroy horses. This translates into horses’ everywhere at risk- including yours. Prove it for yourself. Ask your Farrier, any Farrier how he or she treats a pigeon toed horse. If the answer is well you shorten the inside hoof wall which rotates the foot you immediately know you are dealing with a Farrier that has been taught the wrong and faulty information.

So what do you do about this, how can you prevent the risk to you and your horse? Get informed – get educated – get current information. You can find the information at the web address below in the author bio. You might find yourself becoming a part of the movement to Care4Horses.

Ride well and remember to Care4Horses.

Reprint rights allowed providing nothing is changed.

Author bio: John Silveira, born in San Mateo practicing as a Farrier in the San Francisco Bay Area for 16 years. Implementing a breakthrough in shoeing practice John has a 100% track record for 16 years-Not One Single Lame Horse. He is sharing his information at the following web address:
http://Care4Horses.com

Horses are one of the true rare gifts given us; these wonderful animals pour their hearts out for us, many of which have given their lives for us as well. The countless hours spent on their backs, hundreds of hours being put to work for a variety of services, and the pure visual pleasure we experience just as viewers as we study their magnificence all bring rich reward to the human experience.

Three day events, steeple chase, dressage, endurance, racing, cutting, jumping and more all testing the limits and boundaries of performance. The willing horses guided by the human element straining and pouring themselves into what is being asked of them. Truly a marvel to behold.

With this type of use comes the importance of the utmost of care, strict feed guidelines, training regimens, rest and recovery periods, and not last and certainly not least the care of the horses feet, the latter in all reality probably at the top list of most important elements in proper horse care.

The proper care of horses’ feet cannot be underestimated or undermined. If you were to go the the hospital for any kind of medical treatment would you not want the utmost of care and attention to detail taken? Would you request or surrender yourself to a surgeon whose training has been about speed rather than quality. Without hesitation the answer to the last question would be a resounding “No.” Would anyone submit themselves to some kind of personal care where speed of execution took precedence over proper procedure? Of course not.

The Farrier industry on the other hand seems to have no problem still putting on “Speed Shoeing Contests”. The farrier industry upon further examination is still lagging behind on proper shoeing insights. The industry still operates out of “Old School Thought”. The many industry standard textbooks on shoeing practices are flawed. What Farrier schools are teaching is still not up to speed. Yet at nearly every major horseshoeing convention or AFA events there are still being held “Speed Shoeing Contests”. It just seems to boggle the imagination when thinking about this fact.

Why would anyone want to see how fast they could get a shoe on a horse’s foot? Isn’t the idea really to get the shoeing done correctly? Would you want someone giving you a haircut doing it as fast as they possibly could? It just defies logic. Yet speed shoeing contests persist. The industry needs improving and updating.

From out of the industry and schools are the Farriers that take care of the horses. Armed with incomplete and flawed information the Farriers are simply dangerous to the animals. This is a fact that needs investigating. The horses we all love so dearly are the ones being put at risk by these improper practices. How many horses have been ruined as a result? The question becomes what can be done about this. The truth is there is something available that can bring the whole industry up to speed. It’s information, understanding and comprehension to new methods. And these methods are available.

If you wish to be on the cutting edge find out for yourself and enlighten yourself to what these methods are you can do so by visiting the web page below in the author bio. This method has been in practice with a 100% track record over the past 16 years. Not one single lame horse. You can find yourself becoming a part of the movement to Care4Horses.

Reprint rights allowed providing nothing be changed.

Author bio: John Silveira a farrier in the Bay Area California. Information for the enlightenment of anyone interested in learning the truth about shoeing can be found at : http://www.Care4Horses.com

In equestrian sports keeping your horse healthy and happy is paramount. Having to worry about West Nile Virus is no laughing matter. Mosquitoes home in on CO2 and thus the horse as it breaths and exhales puts out quite a bit and the mosquito sees this from half a football field away and comes to investigate.

You can imagine a top performing Equestrian Horse, it’s value and the threat of West Nile infection. In many states horses and livestock have been infected. Although since it is a blood disease they will not spread it to other animals directly, still it is not good for that individual horse and certainly not good if you have to compete that week.

West Nile can indeed kill a horse, but generally not always. The mosquito is not the only virus vector, as the vectors include birds because an infected bird might fly a thousand miles and have another mosquito take a shot at it, infecting that mosquito.

Each of these Mosquitoes will bite one human and maybe one bird or 2-3 birds before laying 400 eggs, so yes big issues. For livestock and horses one good bite of a horse and the mosquito is ready to lay its eggs. West Nile and Horses information;

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/qa/w…

http://ohioline.osu.edu/wnv-fact/1007.html

http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/freepubs/pdfs/un008.p…

I certainly hope this article is of interest and that is has propelled thought. The goal is simple; to help you in your quest to be the best in 2007. I thank you for reading my many articles on diverse subjects, which interest you.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington