Horses’ ears are a means of communication and listening for sounds. Using ten muscles, a horse can rotate each ear independently, up to 180 degrees, to locate, funnel, and magnify sounds. This allows the horse to position itself towards the sound that is making the noise. Do horses have 10 Read more…
A horse’s neck is a complex structure with more than 100 muscles and seven cervical vertebrae. How many muscles does a horse have? Your horse has a lot of muscles; 700 skeletal muscles, to be exact. Compare that to around 300 in the human body. Where is the neck muscle Read more…
When walking, a horse’s legs follow this sequence: left hind leg, left front leg, right hind leg, right front leg, in a regular 1-2-3-4 beat. At the walk, the horse will alternate between having three or two feet on the ground. A horse moves its head and neck in a Read more…
The front legs of the horse bear most of the horse’s weight, while the powerful back legs act as the motor that drives the animal forward. Horses carry the weight of a rider on their backs just behind the withers. A saddle helps distribute the weight evenly over the weight Read more…
“Hot shoeing,” also called “hot setting” or “hot fitting,” is a common practice among farriers. After the foot has been trimmed, rasped and is ready for the new shoe, the farrier will heat the shoe in the forge and place it briefly on the foot to sear the path where Read more…
The temperature of a horse’s foot or hoof is a good indicator of a variety of things. Horses do increase blood flow at times to one foot versus another as a normal process, and this manifests as heat in the hoof wall that can be felt. Anything causing inflammation in Read more…
four heart sounds. All four heart sounds (S1, S2, S3, S4) are audible in healthy horses. How many heart sounds do horses have? Most people think there are just two heart sounds, often described as ‘lub-dub’. However, there are actually four heart sounds, though not all of them can be Read more…
A hot nail is simply a nail that was driven too close, or directly into, the sensitive laminae inside the hoof. Ouch! What is a hot nail in horses? In its simplest definition, a hot nail is one driven into a horse’s hoof during shoeing too close or one that Read more…
On an average-size horse, place the stethoscope about 5 inches behind and 7 inches above the elbow (just behind the girth and below the saddle flap on a horse wearing an English saddle). Listen for the gentle blowing sounds of healthy lungs, similar to someone blowing to cool hot soup. Read more…
Tachypnea. Increased number of breaths per minute. Horses. normally breath about 8-20 times per minute. What causes increased respiratory rate in horses? An increased respiratory rate is seen with exercise, excitement, stress, pain, shock, blood loss or anemia, and certain metabolic abnormalities. Good athletic condition, sedation and anesthesia, and rarely Read more…