Nettles

TheCurlyPony

TheCurlyPony

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Hi All,

Does anyone know if nettles can sting horses? Went out for a ride last night, and went along side a field where the grass was fairly over grown, one minute we were ambling along and the next ponio had tripped was layed on the floor and i was in the nettles. :eek::eek: Ouch !!!:D.

Ponio was then not a happy bunny and started to welly out with a hind leg and was a little miffed to say the least. Now i had a fairly good look, not easy when pony trying to welly out, but could'nt find anything out of the ordinary so all i can put it down to was he too landed in nettles and got stung too. There were no lumps on him. (unlike my arm, by this time you could of done dot to dot, and hurt like hell) :mad::mad:

Walked him around for a few minutes and then got back on and carried on with my ride. Has anyone any experience of this kind of thing.
 
As far as i know they can be stung .. but my mares eat them, poke there noses in it with no issues! Maybe its just the senstive areas like their bellies ect ?
 
Yes I would think probably just took some stings on that much thinner skin under the belly or up high in that very thin skin between the back legs and your horse's "bits". I had to ride once through some very high nettles and while the ones brushing past his face and flanks caused no problems he was lifting his back legs up a bit afterwards which I assumed was from those that stung him underneath. Like when we get stung it probably wears off after a few hours/by the next day. Hope your stings ease off soon!
 
Oo Mocha, still stings this morning. He does have less hair on his legs than his belly, so it was probably there he was stung.
 
Some horses seem to react badly, others don't mind stings.

Flynn rolled in a patch of nettles and was fine. The big mare dropped down in the same spot and immediately started to scream. She leapt up and belted off into the woodchip turnout area still screaming, bucking and kicking out. She ran round like a mad thing and Flynn panicked as she was so upset. Then Flynn thought she was attacking him and started to kick back. It was a difficult moment or two! When I managed to get Flynn away from her she eventually stood still and pretty much the whole of her near side was covered in lumps from the stings: head to tail and spine to underbelly.

By then she could hardly walk except in a twisted crabbing way. She was so uncoordinated that she couldn't stand very well either and kept losing her balance. She was bright and alert in herself and her breathing was fine (well as much as could be expected after exertions) and she wasn't sweating up so we kept a close eye on her. She was still sore from the stings for a couple of days but recovered her balance and straightness in a couple of hours.
 
My TB goes nuts when stung. We had a major whoopsie a couple of weeks ago when he went in some nettles by mistake. The pain just sends him mad.

My ISH, however, can walk through them absolutely fine. Some horses obviously have thinner skin than others.
 
I would think so, my dog runs through them all the time, but one day after we had strimmed, she put her paw on one and yelpped like she was dieing!!! So I would think is soft places, they would hurt like hell.
 
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