All About Horses: Your Horse's Health Checklist

Like many other animals, the health of a horse can be summarized into a checklist. Normally, a healthy horse can be noted for its good appetite, a soft silky coat and a typically alert one. Whether you are searching for a horse that you want to buy, or if you possess one I am very positive that you’ll want yourself to become knowledgeable enough on to quickly assess a horse health because of the following reasons:

• You’ll want to buy a healthy horse and not the sick one.
• You’ll wish to take notice any visible signs of disorder on an instant to prevent the horse to become weak and sicklier.
• It gives you the chance to lay accurate observations to your veterinarian whenever you call for their assistance since you already know the boundary lines between normal horses from a sick horse.
• It enables you to isolate the horse right away from others and be able to reduce the risk of transferring any forms of contagious disease.

There were also some horse health aspects and factors that one has to monitor daily:

• The quantitative amount of nutriment being consumed by the horse. If a horse that normally eats voraciously suddenly slows down in its eating habits you can say that there’s something wrong happening to your horse.
• The relative water quantity being consumed every day. An average horse can drink gallons of water that may range at 5 to 10 a day but changes may occur depending upon the temperature of the air. The horses level of activity and the composition of its main diet, whether it eats grass, or it favors hay.
•  The amount of discharged manure. If the horse finds more time enjoying itself in the grasses, this monitoring basis can be very difficult for you, yet counting or be able to clean some firm and well formed manures about eight piles a day (depending upon your horse size) compared to a horse that is kept stabled. Wet and runny manure can also mean poor health or illness.
• Make it to a point that you attend to a daily horse visual check to find out some abnormalities like lumps, punctures or some scrapes, bruises, runny nose and watery eyes.
• Check hooves from time to time for any signs of cracks, loose shoes and indications of infections such as an unpleasant smell or any undesirable forms of secretions.

Before something might happen, and before anything comes to be worse, it is very important for a horse owner or a horse lover to become familiar and be able to recognize the vital signs of your horse. Checking health of your horse can also be done by taking the pulse, temperature and respiration rate of your horse for quite a few days at different time intervals to obtain the average rates.

Normally, an active riding horse has an average pulse beat rate that falls between the range of 27 and 43 per minute. However, this value may change because it may be affected by some factors such as the horse fitness and its activity.

Taking the pulse of your horse can be done in two ways: with the use of a stethoscope or by simply by using your fingers. There are many inexpensive stethoscopes that are available in several medical supply stores. Put the stethoscope just right in front of your horse’s girth area behind its elbow. Alternatively, you may press your fingers against a huge artery that can be felt under its cheekbone. Begin at zero, then count how many beats you can hear and feel within 15 seconds and after that multiply it by four. The value becomes the pulse rate of your horse per minute.

To get the temperature of your horse, you will use a livestock thermometer. Temperature is usually taken through the rectum. In doing this, it is important that you proceed with caution. Having your horse being feed in front will help him to forget about your activity at the back. However, in case of any undesirable reactions, you should be assisted by a well experienced horse trainer.

To take the respiration rate, just calculate it by counting its breaths per minute as you watch its flanks.

Remember to watch it care because you might get inaccurate calculations if he becomes excited, or he is sniffing.