Can horses be short-sighted?

madmav

madmav

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Or even long-sighted. Just curious. Since my faculties are failing as the years go by and everything that is close to is a gentle blur (hey no wrinkles!), was wondering if the same thing happens to horses or indeed all mammals. Would explain the severe spooking at innocent little plants. Whereas a noisy motorbike speeding close past our behinds causes no problem.
 
I think my Shetland is one or the other as when he was a babe he used to bump into things a lot, like leave it too late to stop and crash into the fence, and even now he sometimes walks into me like he thought I was further away!

He can spot a carrot on the floor from 10yds though!!
 
interesting thought.... could explain why my horse is clumsy.... or it could just be him
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They make contact lenses for horses in the U.S.

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For vision correction? I've only heard of them for treating ulcers, injuries etc. and providing protection. I know there are certain Breed showing people that have been rumoured to use them for appearance sake but I can't say I've ever met anyone who has actually done that.

Part of the question with spooking though involves how horses see in general, how they process and react to sensory information, and how they use all their senses to make up a picture of the world. It might not make sense to us that they some of them spook in the ways that they do but then we're not horses and don't process the world in the same way. The perception of movement, especially without correlating identification from another source (hearing, touch etc) is hard wired to produce a flight response. After all, predators hunt silently and carefully - if you don't run when the grass moves you might not get another chance!!! Big, lumbering things might be scary just as they are but they don't tap into the same primal fears and both require and allow for more of a thought process.

As to deficient vision in some horses, why not? A few years ago in the US a race horse went straight through the far rail and was subsequently discovered to be almost blind. What's even more interesting is the horse had been impaired for a long while, during which time it had been racing successfully!

I know a horse that got seriously electrocuted and I swear something was wrong with either his eyesight or his processing afterwards. (I also think he got headaches, just from his expressions and behaviour sometimes.) He was certainly a very strange boy afterwards but did a few things that seemed specifically vision related.

Horse adapt to light - dark changes much more slowly than people do and I've seen a few horses that seemed to do so even more slowly than average. Surely there must be other differences in sight but I guess since an afflicted horse wouldn't have any means for comparison so long as it was still functioning it would be pretty hard to diagnose.
 
I've heard about the contact lenses for horses but I would be interested to know exactly how thay would test the horses eyesight to prescribe the lens. I'm picturing strange images of horses with those big glasses that they put on you in the optitions trying to read an eye test chart!!!
 
I've got a cremello with very blue/white eyes and I think his eyesight is getting worse as he nearly runs into things - for example the kids left out some games equipment in the arena and he richoched his way through, spooking at every piece at the last moment. The other day he couldn't find the entrance to the far field, even though the gate has been in the same place for years!

My friend is an optician and had a look at his eyes, and although it's not the same as humans, he said that the lack of pigment in the iris means he would not be able to focus an image on the retina as well as a horse with a dark iris. Happy for any vet to correct him on that though!

Anyone else with a cremello whose eyes are dodgy?
 
Yes. Cairo has only one eye, and the other has had a lot of surgery and radiotherapy for cancer over the years.

We have noticed this year that as he is getting on in years, he is having problems with close vision - has been a bit clumsy round gates and occasionally bumping into things.

He strides out and is happy enough, and we have noticed far happier generally since being back in with Chancer now his leg is recoverying.

We just take more care with gates etc and are monitoring him.
 
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