symptoms of pain

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alison247

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Following on from my post in any vets in.
Can anyone tell when their horse is in pain?
other than when they are injured lame etc how do you know?
 
flaring of nostrils, heavy breathing, worried eyes, sweating, dull eyes, too quiet, fidgety, bolshy, too vocal, lethargic

i know some of these contradict themselves, but thats the way it is.
 
Hi canasta - dont worry yourself now! In my thread I was particularly thinking of colic. Some horses would just show mild belly ache symptoms yet others, like my mare would have you believe they are about to give birth to Alien. My old TB would lose a shoe and be so lame he could hardly walk if he bruised his sole yet others are different.

Just know that you did the RIGHT thing for your boy at the RIGHT time. Thinking 'what if's' and 'if only' will not change a thing. The positive thing here is that you have been able to help me.
 
Yawning can also be a sign of releasing tension and submission. It gets complicated sometimes.

Some signs are very subtle - change in posture, a worried look, constant shifting of position, unexplained aggression, withdrawal, increased stereotypies (vices, like cribbing), anorexia (very common), . . .

The problem is, like people, horse don't necessarily all react the same way to the same situations. What makes one explosive can make another lethargic. Not to mention horses have very high pain thresholds (think of post-op surgical colic patients walking back to their stalls - few people could do that!) and are hardwired as prey animals to not show weakness, especially if they're unsure/stimulated.

The trick is noticing what's different about a horse and then trying to track down why. Often if people have a "feeling" just watching for a bit when the horse is quiet will yield more information.
 
Oh you just know. Sixth sense or whatever; when you know a horse well and watch its habits, you always pick up on it when something is not quite right. I'd say horses are quite easy animals to pick up on something being wrong; you only have to watch them for a few weeks to notice their normal field patterns and when they display different patterns, you can be pretty sure that something's amiss.
 
im surprised no1 has suggestd this one so far:

Holding tail to side?

I have always been told it is a sure sign your horse is uncomfortable!...especially if he is collicy...My vet also said he is suspicious when he sees horses holding it over.
 
Shaking/trembling. My girl pulled a leg in the field, started to get better then hooned round on it again
frown.gif
Brought her in and she was trembling from head to toe, but seemed okay other than that (she's a bit of a scatty one at the best of times). Quick call to vet - two Bute and twenty minutes later she had calmed down.
 
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