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MARCH 2007 • VOLUME 19 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
Did you know that nasal tissue has a tremendous supply to its vascular system to easily allow engorgement.
What the vets won't tell you…. How to suffocate your horse.
Mother Nature is amazing and sometimes we really do need to understand her overall design. When we look at the horse with his head down and his nose to the ground grazing, have you ever wondered how he manages to pump blood all the way along the length of the head, the length of the neck all the way up and back to the heart?
Well, didn't I mention that Mother Nature is pretty dang amazing!?
So it appears that yes, there can be a problem with the horse's nose down to the ground like this. The bloody flows easily down the very long neck and head, assisted by gravity. The nasal tissue fills with blood, becomes engorged, and can (or should we say could) obstruct the horse's breathing, since after all he is an obligate nasal breather.
When we say he is an obligate nasal breather it means that he cannot breathe through his mouth. The horse can only breathe through his nose. Thus any obstruction in the nasal passageways becomes a very serious concern.
But Mother Nature has a solution. Knowing that the horse would have his nose down on the ground while he was grazing, she smartly designed two extra little hearts literally built into his cheek masseter muscles. So every time that the horse chews this mechanism helps pump blood back up to the heart.
Smart mother nature.
A THEORY TO CHEW ON
Robert Cook
A sick horse that is standing still, not eating, and hanging its head, quickly develops a serious degree of venous congestion (stagnation of blood) in the nasal cavity. This engorgement can rapidly progress to the point that breathing itself becomes difficult. As the horse is an obligate nose-breathing animal, obstruction of its only airway can be life threatening. When the muzzle is held in a low position at times when the horse is not grazing, the heart on its own seems to have insufficient strength to pump venous blood from the head back to the chest, against the force of gravity.
So the question arises as to how the healthy horse in the wild surmounts this problem when it spends at least 16 hours of every 24 with its muzzle at grass level?
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