Horses normal heartrate!

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XxCoriexX

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How many of you know your horses normal heart rate? My mare had a colic last Friday so the emergency vet was called out. obviously as part of his checks he took her heart rate.........it was 26!!!!! he asked me if this was normal and to be 100% honest I had no idea what her normal heart rate was. no vet had ever mentioned it before and I had never checked! he said it could be caused by a few things, but that he wasn't too concerned! have sourced a stethoscope and will be monitoring it just for my own information. has anyone else ever come across a horse with such a low rate before?
 
I know my boys is normally 32 but no I've never come across on with that low a rate before! I tend to just take his pulse behind his jaw though and then if he comes in with a high respiration rate I can tell if it's an AAD attack or if he's been hoolying!
 
I have charted Mickey and Otto's resting heart rates, temps and respiration rates over the past 7 days. I re-chart every season so that I am always aware of their "normal" rates and I have always done that for any horse in my care, since I was a child. When stabled, I also got familiar with poo amounts as well...not so easy when out 24/7 with no poo picking.

I have always thought it very important as helps to pick up on something early on. If a horse is looking or seems a little off...a quick check of vitals can very quickly tell me if there are changes and that means I can monitor or call the vet rather than wait for more obvious signs to show.

It's honestly something I will always do.
 
Yup...I do the same as GG as it's always a good indicator of 'something amiss' perhaps in those departments.

I know my boy is a bit of a 'hot bod' and his normal temp is around 38.2 -4. This could seem high to alot of folk, but it's pretty normal for him! If he started climbing towards 39 degrees I'd start to be concerned...and similarly falling down the other way too!

So yep,...always good to know these 3 little things in my personal opinion. ;)
 
Janovich said:
Yup...I do the same as GG as it's always a good indicator of 'something amiss' perhaps in those departments.

I know my boy is a bit of a 'hot bod' and his normal temp is around 38.2 -4. This could seem high to alot of folk, but it's pretty normal for him! If he started climbing towards 39 degrees I'd start to be concerned.

So yep,...always good to know these 3 little things in my personal opinion. ;)
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Yep. I think it's actually one of the most critically important parts of caring for a horse. Example, we had a horse on my old livery yard that used to colic a lot. When he showed first signs, I would do a quick HR check and it would tell me whether or not to get the vet because symptoms but normal HR meant mild colic, 15 minutes walking slowly and he'd be fine...elevated HR meant call the vet immediately as he was about to go downhill fast.

Knowing your horses resting HR can and in many cases has saved horses lives through the early calling of a vet!
 
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