Normal & Cresty necks

[pottamus]

Can someone please explain what a normal neck should feel like when you squeeze the top of it please? My lad has always been cresty - it was thick, firm and a bit lumpy in appearance.
This has died down a lot as he has lost weight and been on box rest for laminitis but each day I check it and am not sure in my own mind what it should be like normally...so I can watch out for tell tale signs of laminitis.
He is kept on his own so I do not have otherhorses to compare against!

 

[Donkeymad]

It should feel soft and not thick. Cresty would be hard, firm and quite solid and thick.

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

If you can make the neck move about, i.e. from side to side, and make the neck sort-of wobble (if you see what I mean!) then you've got a horse who is overweight and may be at risk from laminitis. My farrier told me how to check and it was good advice. If you're looking for laminitis, also you need to check for any heat in the feet, and also get either your farrier or vet to show you where to feel for the digital pulse - on the lower edge of the fetlock - once you know where to feel you'll always be able to find it.

Laminitis is an awful thing, you don't want it, believe me, I lost my old boy to it (he had Cushings, which pre-disposes to the condition) and it was awful.

 

[PapaFrita]

Soft and wobbly is bad. Firm/solid is good. Obviously compare to rest of body!

Our riding school mare has always been chubby. She's now down to a decent weight but still has a wobbly bum and neck

 

[Kallibear]

They go back to firm and solid at the extremes however.

Some horses have a big neck anyways but NO horse should have a huge crest. Those that do are just stored fat that is often the last place they loose.

A cresty, hard and lumpy neck is often a sign of EMS, (equine metabolic syndrome) where they don't use sugar well and have funny storage of fat. They've basically had too much sugar and now fat that their bodies don't know what to do with it and it all goes haywire. It's very common in fat natives and natives can develope it from being fat. It's a major cause of laminitis.

We had a pony who had it. Best thing you can do it get them verging on too thin (were you look at them and thick 'hum') as it seems to reset their ability to cope with sugar and the way they store fat. it's what native wild ponies are deisgned to do - they get obesely fat over the summer then basically starve over the winter.

 

[brucea]

Yes that's right. A cresty neck should always be seen as a laminitis danger sign, along with fatty pads on the rump, shoulders and sometimes above the eyes.

Where this is the case - sometimes you will find that putting the horse onto Magnesium Oxide will help - it takes between 3-5 weeks to begin to take effect but then you see the crest slowly going down - and then you have to keep it up for quite a few months.

Thuis has been the case for both our lami ponies.