Checking the Vitals: Is My Horse Sick? How Sick?

Being familiar with your horse’s normal resting temperature, pulse, and respiration rates (TPR) help you recognize when things are abnormal. The TPR vitals help you determine “how abnormal.”
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Being familiar with your horse’s normal resting temperature, pulse, and respiration rates (TPR) help you recognize when things are abnormal. The TPR vitals help you determine “how abnormal.” Remember, vitals taken after the horse has been worked will be elevated and a 20-30 minute recovery time is recommended for a return to normal values and an assessment of fitness. Not unlike when we started this series of articles with a “vitals” overview, we now have enough information to be either dangerous or have gained a respect for the level of the stewardship that goes with caring for a horse.

Unless obvious clinical signs are present such as coughing, nasal discharge, colicky behavior, etc., it can be difficult to know if your horse is sick. However, a complete change in your horse’s attitude can be an indicator of illness. Routine assessment of vital signs will help you identify objective numbers which will help you recognize when you horse is sick, and in many instances, how sick.

Let’s develop some clinical scenarios that help you communicate with your veterinarian. We’ll use the same clinical complaint of “not eating” for each situation. If your horse lives outside all day long, you may not know if your horse is eating unless you take grain to the pasture or bring your horse up to the barn and separate him from the herd to eat. For this particular set of scenarios lets say you bring horses into the barn every evening to eat grain, separating them all so that each one receives a set quantity of feed in a stall. You notice that one of your horses has not touched his feed and so you take his vitals:

Scenario A:

Horse displays a lack of obvious distress. Temperature 100.6ºF, heart rate 48 beats per minute, respiratory rate 12 breaths per minute, and mucus membranes look normal with a normal capillary refill time (1-2 seconds). Intestinal sounds are present. You relay this information to your veterinarian who instructs you to take the feed away and take vitals again in one hour. You do this and the values are unchanged except the heart rate is now 40 beats per minute, there is manure in the stall, and the horse is nickering for feed. You report to your veterinarian, return the horse to his normal routine, monitor his vitals, and feed intake closely for the next few days, and everyone has a good nights’ sleep

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Written by:

Doug Byars, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, is Director of the medicine clinic at Hagyard-Davidson-McGee equine practice in Lexington, Ky.

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