Hippotherapy

horses?????

Will a horse actually eat untill their stomach explodes?

Public Comments

1. no horses will stop when they are full
2. Some will continue eating until they collic, but I have never heard of one exploding... You have to watch mini's carefully on grass even... they can founder and collic if they eat too much. Regular size horses are ususally fine on grass, but you have to watch them if they get into feed. They can collic themselves on feed and founder from it as well.
3. They can eat too much of the wrong food and get diseases called "Founder" and "Colic". If horses get too much grain for their bodies to handle, their hooves start to separate from their feet. It's called Founder or Laminitis. This is very bad, it's always fatal. Vets run for the euthanasia solution. Horses weigh a lot so standing on the ruined hooves is agony to them and it will be months (close to a year) of intensive care for the hooves to grow back. Even then, the treatment can damage the horse as well. It is difficult to treat such big animals when they can't stand up by themselves. Colic just means "stomach ache". In horses when they get colic, they want to roll around on the ground to relieve the pain, that causes the intestines to fold up on themselves and "kink", like a garden hose. That cuts off blood circulation, which causes the intestines to die, which causes sepsis and death. This is the number one killer of horses. It's not always fatal. If you catch it early and get vet treatment, many times a horse will live. The problem is that we don't watch horses 24/7. This disease goes from sick to dead in a matter of hours. In dogs it is called "bloat". But you didn't ask about that sorry.
4. I have a horse that won't stop eating grain unless you get him out of it. Thier stomachs don't explode they get colic. The term "colic" means only "pain in the abdomen" or "pain in the belly." There are many causes for such pain, ranging from the mild and inconsequential to the life-threatening or fatal. One of the problems with equine colic is that it can be very difficult in the early stages to distinguish the mild from the potentially fatal. This is why all cases of abdominal pain should be taken seriously right from the onset Once food has been chewed, it passes down the esophagus ("gullet") into the stomach. The horse has a fairly small stomach for its size (8-15 litres), a design well suited to an animal which grazes almost continuously in its natural state. After a period of digestion in the stomach, food passes into the small intestine. This part of the gut is approximately 22 m in length, with a diameter of 7-10 cm, and a capacity of 40-50 litres. The majority of the small intestine hangs from a curtain-like membrane called the mesentery*. The messentery is attached to one point in the middle of the abdomen under the spine. (The small intestine looks like a very long sausage running along the bottom of a thin net curtain, with the top of the curtain all bunched together.) At the junction of the small and large intestines the equine GIT has a large blind-ended* outpouching over 1 m long with a capacity of 25-30 litres. This is the caecum (the horse's version of our appendix). Food passes from the small intestine into the caecum before passing into the large intestine. Together, the caecum and large intestine form the horse's "fermentation chamber," allowing it to gain nutritional support from the complex carbohydrates contained in grasses and other forage. Three to four metres long with a diameter of 20-25 cm along most of its length and a capacity of over 50 litres, the large intestine fills a significant part of the abdomen. Surprisingly, this large unwieldy structure is tethered to the body wall at only two points*: at its beginning (where it joins the small intestine and caecum) and at its end (where it joins the short, narrow* small colon which leads to the anus). With only two immobile points, the large intestine lies in the abdomen in a neatly-arranged double-U formation, one "U" stacked on top of the other. This arrangement entails the food making it around a number of 180° bends* (known as "flexures") in the intestine. There are 2 different types... Impaction and Gas
5. Yes and no.They will stop when they get full.However,if the horse colics and has a bad bout of it I have seen a horse who died because his stomach exploded or ruptured.He was on his way to a very good vet clinic but it was to late.He died at the hospital before he could have surgery. So no,he wouldn't explode while eating since his will stop when he has had enough.But this could lead to a rupture.
6. Kinda sorta...it's called foundering. I had a welsh pony that did this once and it's tricky to cure
7. no they will stop. they can eat until they colic at which point their mind is more on their pain, but they wont eat until their stomach explodes
8. Not exactly but they can die if the eat to much grain. They eat grain and it is to high i starch which breaks down to sugar in the body and they can not vomit so what they eat stays down. It overlaods their systems and it will cause the tissue in their feet to seperate and they can die from it. Lamanitis. Also they can founder which is when the bone in thier feet rotates down through the bottom of the hoof. This is also part of lamanitis.
9. No. Their stomach doesn't explode. Horses can eat grass and most hays all day long, but they will eat grain until they founder and die, or colic and die.
10. Horses don't have a sense of when they get full, in simple terms. If they eat too much feed they can founder, and the vet will have to take a needle or a syringe between the fourth and fifth rib and suck the gas out of them. They can not eat too much grass or hay though.
11. No! lol-