Horse bones are incredibly dense and fairly difficult to break, but when they do break they do not heal well, easily, or quickly and are very prone to infection. Most would die a slow painful death from infection, even with antibiotics and other medical care. Those that survive would most likely not have full use of the leg, and have a leg prone to break again.
Founder is another big reason why it’s hard to rehab a horse with a broken leg. Hooves are meant to withstand a certain amount of pressure, they’re not meant to distribute the 1/3 or the horses weight and the horse will founder. This causes the coffin bone to rotate causing the horse permanent lameness. Horses spend most of their life standing so a sling typically doesn’t work as it puts a lot of pressure on their sensitive digestive situation and horses don’t like to stand around for a long time.
And horses bear two thirds of their weight on their front legs, so if one is injured, there’s a lot more pressure on the remaining front leg. Back leg injuries (short of a break) are typically less serious.
But even under ideal conditions, the horse can still get laminitis (founder). The race horse Barbaro had a back leg injury and the prognosis was pretty good, but his owners spent over a million dollars on about 12 surgeries, and after that he still got laminitis and had to be put down.
Another aspect is anesthesia; horses don’t always come out of it well. Ruffian woke up out of anesthesia and immediately tried to run, breaking another leg, and then had to be put down.
0 comments:
Post a Comment