minigal
Well-Known Member
At some point when a horse moves that stump will have to bear the whole of the horses weight on a tiny surface.
I cannot imagine if it lay down, how it would get up.
Human legs have lots of muscle and fat and skin, which can be used on the end of a stump to "pad" it our and make it a nice weight bearing area. Horses just don't have this, we all know how thin the skin is on a horses leg. Stumps often grow extra boney tissue - hypertrophic ossification, this will cause pain when a prosthesis is worn, it needs to be operated on and the stump rested, do they put horse in a sling for x amount of time whilst this is happening?? I think the best a horse can hope for is to hobble around delicately and that would be a result of a huge amount of restriction for the horse whilst waiting for the stump to be ready.
I'm sorry but from a risk/benefit POV it's not good enough for me.
ETA I personally would think long and hard before putting one of mine through a colic op or anything that required a GA. It would have to have a reasonable chance that horse would return to a quality life in a not too long time frame for me personally.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to consider a humans amputation versus an animal one. It's the closest we can get to understanding it after all!
I cannot imagine if it lay down, how it would get up.
Human legs have lots of muscle and fat and skin, which can be used on the end of a stump to "pad" it our and make it a nice weight bearing area. Horses just don't have this, we all know how thin the skin is on a horses leg. Stumps often grow extra boney tissue - hypertrophic ossification, this will cause pain when a prosthesis is worn, it needs to be operated on and the stump rested, do they put horse in a sling for x amount of time whilst this is happening?? I think the best a horse can hope for is to hobble around delicately and that would be a result of a huge amount of restriction for the horse whilst waiting for the stump to be ready.
I'm sorry but from a risk/benefit POV it's not good enough for me.
ETA I personally would think long and hard before putting one of mine through a colic op or anything that required a GA. It would have to have a reasonable chance that horse would return to a quality life in a not too long time frame for me personally.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to consider a humans amputation versus an animal one. It's the closest we can get to understanding it after all!
Last edited: