Every day, accidents occur—some­time, somewhere. Most of us think of accidents as they affect people, but you must realize that accidents can happen to horses as well.

Illness strikes horses as well as it does human beings. A horse can get a cold just the same as you, and other sicknesses can plague him. The all-too-common horse complaints are colic, distemper, thrush, and lameness. Because they are so frequent, you must be prepared for these emergen­cies and know how to help your horse, or when to call a veterinarian (a doc­tor, you will remember, who treats animals; the word is often shortened to "vet").

But before we come to these prob­lems, you must realize that there are two things even a healthy horse needs regularly—and these you cannot do for him. First, any horse that gets ridden will have to be shod about every six weeks. Make certain that you use a reputable blacksmith. He will know just what type of shoe to put on your horse. For example, if you own a pleasure hack, a hunter or a jumper, the best shoes will be light, flat ones. But a gaited horse will re­quire weighted shoes so that he'll lift his feet high. In winter a horse may need leather pads on his front hooves to prevent the soles from becoming bruised—or corks to keep him from slipping.

The second thing your horse will need is to be wormed at least once a year by a veterinarian.

In Chapter 4, there was a list of medical supplies you ought to keep on hand in your tack room, preferably in some separate cabinet. Now you are going to see how to use some of those supplies.

Colic is one of the most frequent and one of the most painful sicknesses to strike a horse. Some kinds, accord­ing to Dr. Manuel Gilman, Examining Veterinarian of the New York State Race Tracks, are generally fatal and these require the expert attention of the vet. Other forms of it are serious but can be treated successfully by you.

Colic is a bad pain in the abdomen— the region just below the horse's stomach (see chart on p. 10). It causes more deaths among horses than any other single illness, death being due to failure of the horse's heart as a result of pressure from gasses. The causes of colic are, in the order of their frequency: bad feeding, over­feeding, feeding the horse when he is hot or excited, and poisonous weeds sometimes found in hay.

One type of colic is gas colic. This is not basically serious, but it can be­come so if not attended to promptly. A second type is called impaction colic. This occurs when a quantity of grain becomes stopped in the horse's intestine and prevents any­thing from moving. You should know that a horse cannot vomit. This means that if his digestive tract is blocked, he's in for real trouble. A third form of colic is sand colic. This is found pri­marily in the West, in regions where horses are on sparse pasture during droughts. The horse, in trying to get at the scrub grass, picks up sand. The sand accumulates and, in time, stops up the bowels.

When a horse has mild colic, the first thing he will do is stop eating. Then you'll begin to notice that he looks around at his abdomen. Fre­quently he will lie down and roll, and his eyes will have a staring expres­sion. He may break out in a sweat.

If the horse has severe colic, you'll have no trouble recognizing it. He will roll violently and thrash his feet about. He'll be wet with sweat and his eyes will be noticeably bloodshot. You will have to hit him to get him to his feet and, once he's up, you will have trouble keeping him on all fours.

When you find that your horse has severe colic, call a vet immediately. Then follow the instructions for treating mild colic while you wait for the vet to arrive.

In cases of mild colic, the first thing to do is to remove the feed and water from the horse's stall. Then put a shank on the horse and, if he's lying down, firmly get him to his feet and walk him. Give him some colic mix­ture with a dose syringe accord­ing to the directions on the bottle. You will need help from one of your parents or from a friend. This person should hold your horse and quiet him while you are busy giving him his medicine. After the colic mixture, you should give him four (4) or five (5) ounces of warm water with the syringe by mouth (see p. 65) to wash away the irritating taste of the medi­cine, followed by the same amount of mineral oil, also given with a dose syr­inge by mouth. When you are not giv­ing the horse medicine, keep him walking. Remember, your horse's life may be at stake.

When you are pretty sure that your pet has only mild colic, wait an hour after treating him before you call the veterinarian. If after an hour, how­ever, he seems no better, then be sure you get a doctor for your horse.

Founder (or laminitis) is another ailment common to horses. Founder is actually a serious congestion of the blood vessels inside the horse's hooves, and it usually affects both front feet. It can be caused by a number of things such as toxins or poisons, accumulated from poor shoeing or concussion on hard roads, and mares can get founder from carrying heavy foals.

Stones in horse's shoe cause lameness

At left, horse gets medicine by syringe correctly placed through side of mouth. This forces liquid down throat. Wrong way, above, is through front of mouth.

Founder can also result from a horse's having had colic. However, the commonest cause is allowing a horse to stand still for more than a few minutes after he has had heavy exer­cise. That is why it is essential for you to walk your horse whenever he gets hot before you put him back in his stall.

The symptoms of founder are un-mistakeable—the horse simply does not want to move and, in many cases, really cannot move. If your horse does walk, he will move gingerly, as though he were walking on eggs. Also, he will run a temperature: you will be able to feel fever in his front hooves. A horse's normal temperature, taken by rectum, is 99° to 100½0 Fahrenheit. When he has founder, he will run a temperature of about 102° or even higher. (To take his temperature, you will again need help. Have the horse's head held steady while you insert the thermometer, heavily coated with Vas­eline, into the rectal opening. Stand well to the side of the haunch so that he cannot kick out at you. You should hold the thermometer in place about three (3) or four (4) minutes—the time you would need with a child.)

When the case of founder is severe, the animal will break out into a sweat and may even refuse to stand up. You should remove the horse's shoes as gently as you can, and get a veteri­narian to look at him as soon as pos­sible.

Bandage is tied on by strings at end. To re-roll bandage, start from string end

The longer you wait, the less chance there is for recovery. If no vet is available, the first thing you should do is to stop feeding your horse corn and give him bran mash instead, at both feedings. Now prepare for the real treatment. Get some epsom salts and put a good double handful in a pail of hot water. Soak the horse's hooves for an hour in this mixture, then apply crushed ice packs. Alter­nate the procedure every hour.

If you can clear up the condition with one day—or a day and a half, at the most—recovery will be com­plete. But if the sickness persists for two or three days, you may have a chronic cripple on your hands.

Coughs and colds are usually asso­ciated with young horses and, as in the case of humans, they are gener­ally caused by a virus type of infec­tion for which there is no quickly effective treatment. As long as your horse has a simple cold, then, there is no need to call in a vet. The horse's cold will last for about ten days to two weeks, unless complications set in. During that time, you should keep your horse in his stall and blanket him. Feed him a bran mash once a day (he can have his usual mixture for his second meal) and take his tem­perature at least twice a day. A horse's cold, like the cold you may get, is catching, so you should keep him away from other horses. And just as you do when you have a cold, your horse may have a runny nose. If so, the best thing is to put a little Vicks salve in each nostril (see p. 65).

Should complications set in, how­ever, your horse may be in danger of getting pneumonia. When a cold be­comes severe, the horse will run a high fever and will not eat. If this happens, your pet needs antibiotics, like the ones you are sometimes given for a hard cold, and he needs the care of a vet. Call your vet as soon as you find out, by taking the horse's tem­perature, that the fever has gotten out of hand. Over 102° is a sure dan­ger signal.

Thrush is a disease that affects horses' hooves. It is the rotting of the 'frog' (that small horn of hoof-flesh shaped like triangle, with its base at the back of the horse's hoof where the horseshoe is open) and is caused by poor sanitation, or lack of proper hygiene. That is why it is important to keep your pet's stall clean and to use the hoof pick often to make sure his hooves are in good condition.

If your horse has thrush, you will notice, first of all, that there is a nasty odor coming from his hooves. On in­specting them, you'll see that there is a definite softening of the frog. The rotted area should be cut out care­fully by your blacksmith, and you should apply thrush medicine as di­rected on the container to cure him of this unpleasant disease.

Lameness can be caused by both thrush and founder, so if you discover that your horse is lame, check to see if either of these diseases is at the root of the problem.

To find out if your horse is lame, trot him a few yards and watch his feet and legs. The leg which the horse favors and puts the least weight on is the lame one. If the horse is lame in one of his front legs, he will nod or duck his head when the sound, or healthy, foot touches the ground. If he is lame in a rear leg, he will nod when the lame foot hits the ground.

Now, assuming that you've looked to see if your horse has laminitis or thrush and that you've found he has neither of these, the next thing you must do is to see whether he has a stone in one hoof—or perhaps even nails or a piece of glass. If he does, remove the matter with your hoof pick and then apply a poultice, or wet bandage, to the hoof. This means simply that you wrap the hoof in a clean, heavy bandage and keep it damp with water. Also feel the hoof to see if it is very hot. If so, apply poultices until the fever goes down.

Yellow oxide of mercury will clear up weepiness caused by a minor infection

If the horse's lameness does not seem to be caused by some trouble with his hoof, then feel along the horse's leg to see if he has a fevered ankle or tendon. If you feel heat in the horse's leg, apply a poultice to that area and bind it on (see p. 66), being sure to wrap the bandage tight enough to hold the poultice in place but not so tight as to stop circulation to the foot and lower leg. If, within two days, the condition does not im­prove, call your veterinarian.

Lameness may be caused by a mis­placed nail in the shoe. If your horse has been shod within three days be­fore becoming lame, you'll do well to remove the shoe on the lame leg.

Alpha Queen warily eyes salve to be applied to nostrils for a runny nose

Sometimes you may find that your horse has an eye that is weepy, or an eyelid that is swollen or half-closed. This condition may be caused by a temporary infection, in which case all you need do is apply yellow oxide of mercury around the eye (see p. 68) and the condition should clear up. If after four or five days your horse still has a running eye, you should get the veterinarian to take a look at him.

Strangles, or distemper, is a highly contagious illness which affects the horse's throat. It usually occurs when a Western horse is brought into the barn. Western horses are more frequently exposed to streptococcus (a form of bacteria which causes the sickness) because they are not stabled and eat rough grasses on the open range. Should your horse catch stran­gles, he will not eat and—in fact— will barely be able to swallow. He will run a high temperature, have swell­ings in his throat area, and will have a discharge of puss from the nostrils.

This disease can be fatal and it can also cause permanent damage to your horse's respiratory (or breathing) sys­tem, so, as soon as you discover that your horse has strangles, alert the doctor. Keep the horse completely isolated—in quarantine—from other horses all during his illness and for two weeks after the last symptoms have disappeared.

Let us suppose that your horse may have cut himself or gotten some sort of surface wound. You should wash the wound in soap and warm water, dry the wound gently and apply gall lotion or sulpha powder to the cut. If possible, the wound should be band­aged with gauze, then wrapped in an outer bandage and dressed (or changed) daily.

However, if the wound is a punc­ture type of wound—say, from a nail—and not simply a surface wound, you should have the vet give your pet a tetanus shot. Your doctor will then tell you how best to handle the treat­ment of the particular wound.

Now you know a little about some of the commoner illnesses that strike horses and what to do if your horse is hurt or falls sick. This chapter gives you no more than necessary First Aid information. The important thing to remember is that the best care for a sick horse is trained care. That is why you must never hesitate to call the vet if you find your horse is ill and you are not sure of just what the trouble is. Always remember that, if your horse becomes sick, you are the one who has to take charge until the vet arrives. Your horse is like a big baby: he will be frightened and may resist treatment. If you have to be stern, if you have to use a twitch (see p. 52) to make the horse stand still, or hit him to get him up in case of colic, don't be afraid to do so. In the end, both you and your horse will be glad you took whatever measures were needed to insure his recovery. Keep in mind at all times that your horse's life is actually in your hands. It is up to you to see that he does not overeat and become sick from colic. It is up to you to see that, when you ex­ercise your horse, you use good judg­ment, common sense and kindness. A horse will run himself literally into the ground if you ask him to. He may not stop until he falls dead from exhaus­tion. So be sure to give him rest peri­ods when you exercise him. The best rule to follow when you ride a horse is to walk him the first fifteen min­utes after leaving the barn and the last fifteen minutes before returning to it. If you give a little thought to your pet's welfare, you'll have a long, happy life together.

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