What's some of the weirdest ailments or conditions you've seen?

Question

Was wondering what strange or weird ailments and conditions you've seen in horses or things that made you think "what the...?"
I've seen a few strange ones including a foal that had it's head fused around to it's neck (c-section), and a foal born with a hare lip and cleft palate and no eyes. One of the weirdest things I've ever seen though was a mare with vestibular syndrome. She had a foal on her and was perfectly fine but then we started commenting that when ever you led her out to the field with the foal, she was ignorant and had started running over people and barging. She quickly declined and would drool, run in circles and have her head hung on one side. She then turned vicious and I mean vicious. We had to take the foal and put it on a nurse mare and put her out in the covering barn for her and our safety. She displayed symptoms of rabies and we had to check that she had never been out of the UK - finally was diagonosed with Vestibular Syndrome.

Anyway, was wondering what type of weird or strange or rare ailments you've all seen?

While the question was intended to refer to equine conditions, some of you are excelling in finding the freaky :-)

Can - the foal's neck was bent around and it's muzzle was actually fused into the neck - like the skull was embedded in the spine. It was dead.
Vestibular syndrome is rare. It can start from a horse that has flipped over and hit it's poll or a blow to the head or in this horse's case, she had an ear infection which caused pressure to build up which then leads to a hairline fracture . The infection then migrates into the brain causing neurological damage which cannot be reversed. It causes the face to become paralysed etc, horse wobbles, drools - total mess. Took 4 of us to put her to sleep because she was so crazy. We had one of the best vets in England treating her and tried everything to to save her but nothing helped.

MR - I must admit that the tree boy was pretty impressive - I'm going to email that one to people!

Answer 1

Three come to mind -

1. I saw a friends horse step into a gopher/prairie dog hole, and when the horse pulled its foot out of the hole the hoof stayed in the ground. The hoof came off like a boot. The horse actually survived the accident and was used as a riding horse for close to ten more years after that. That didn't make me say "what the...?" rather "Holy .....!"

2. I had an owner of a mini horse bring her pregnant mare into the clinic with a foals hoof dangling out the back end. She lived almost across the street and walked the horse over to the clinic. When we asked how long the horse had been in labor she responded, "It's been about six hours now." The baby was alive - or at least as long as someone was doing chest compressions and giving it oxygen. It died. That was a total "What the....?" type moment.

3. Saw a TB that was born with no tail. I don't mean a short tail, or one that grew no hair - I mean no tail at all. We called him Stubs.

EDIT: Someone elses's story reminded me of one. A horse got a foot through a round steel gate. The kind that is made the same way most new round pens are made. Well the horse strugled and from mid hock to mid pastern it peeled the skin down like a sock. It was actually neat to see because it didn't do a lot of damage to any of the structures underneath. You could see the veins and arteries pulsing, and the tendons moving with every step - totally cool.

Answer 2

I know of a few strange ones -
A puppy born without a rectum
A puppy who's ears fell off a few days after birth ( neither of those survived)
A foal that was born and appeared to be fine but within a couple of days developed a lump on it's head - it turned out that part of it's brain was protruding through a hole in the skull ( that would have been half brother to my horse if it had lived)
And an event horse who developed a tear in the rectal wall that resulted in waste escaping back into the body cavity. It seemed perfectly fine and was in training but the infection drove it insane and one night it dug a huge hole in the corner of the stable ( straight through the hardcore base) and was going berserk so they had to have it shot. The tear was only found at the postmortem.
My girls found a horse dead when they were working at the event yard in summer, it had got caught in the electric fence and run across the field getting more and more tangled in the rope before it collapsed. My daughter said the rope had cut through it's leg to the bone all the way around.
I have a close personal friend who is a chimera ( cojoined twin) I think there are only about 5 in the world.
One that really freaked me out was a cat we had rescued that was pregnant - she had a miscarriage in the middle of our living room and the fetus looked human ! Wish I'd taken picture but I was too busy looking after the cat. at the time.

Answer 3

How about gruesome injuries. Like the time a customer called in, totally calm, and told me that they thought "maybe" they had an emergency. A weanling foal had hit a t post and cut itself. They described the cut as about 3/4" long, but "kinda deep". Went on to say that they "couldn't catch her". So I'm thinking "How bad can it be??" When the docs got out there....OMG....the pics are incredible. They made our "Wall of fame" and 10 years later are still there. The thing had nearly severed her head. Her carotid arteries were pulled and hanging out exposed. You could stand on one side and see day light through the huge pie shaped wedge that was gone from her shoulder to mid neck. Yet they were able to put her back together (over 300 stitches), and even though she did have a scar, she healed just fine. Another one we had didn't have a happy ending. A foal had jumped and landed on a t post. It went in about elbow level at the girth line, proceeded up and back along the ribs to come out just in front of the hip on top of it's back. He did fine for about 10 days, then turned for the worst and wound up dying from massive infection.

Answer 4

I had never heard of Vestibular Syndrome....... What is it??? I tried to look it up on line, but I didn't get much or wasn't sure what I was looking for..... I thank God for not running into much of this medical complications!!!! Thank God I have been lucky!! But I would like to learn more on a lot of things!!! There are soooo many things with the medical part that I just don't know much...... These are some reasons I am thinning the herd..... Makes me sad but I have to. What do you mean fused to it's neck?? I have seen a foal born with a neck that was shorter than my arm. Poor thing had to be put down. There were other things wrong with it, the mare didn't want it. When she was a good mom normally. Good question!!!!! Makes me think!!! & Makes me think I need to do a lot more reading!!!!!! LOL



***** EDIT***** Holy Cow!!!! That would be very weird to see that foal. Good thing it was dead........ Thank you for the info!!! Makes me shake my head at myself dam red neck!! LOL

Answer 5

My two horses.

End of story.


I've seen tetanus in an unvaccinated horse, several full blow west nile horses, equine rabies, and numerous others that usually did not end well....

Oh wait, I remeber one VERY unique case --- these people had a miniature horse that had slipped on an ice patch and fell. We all thought for sure the thing had broken a leg, it was on 3 legs. Later on, I hauled it to a vet and it had xrays taken - turned out the little horse's shoulder was actually dislocated and popped out of the socket.
Because of the size of the horse, the vet was able to put her under anesthesia and actually manually force the shoulder back into place, partly by sitting on her, and some shoving! The horse made a full recovery and was 100% sound a few weeks later. Coolest thing I've ever seen to date for sure.

Answer 6

Good question, getting tired of the same ol'e questions.

What comes to my mind easily was a foal born with wry nose. I felt so bad for the little guy, it was sad. He was put to sleep rather sooner than later. It was bad! Another holy cow was a foal born with a pigs tail. It literally looked like a pigs tail. The tail bone was curled. My vet told me once of a foal born with the brain outside the skull. Glad I didn't see that one. Of course he was put down. Yes, he was alive! I have seen what wire can do to a horse. It got tangled around a friends horses leg and completely sawed it off. He had to be put down but not from blood loss but from legg loss. The wire acted as a turniquet which kept him from bleeding to death.

Answer 7

The worst accident/ injury I've seen was 14 yrs ago. My uncle is an outrider. He was attempting catch a horse that lost it's rider out of the gate. The horse apparently remembered where the path was, however the rail was still up, about the time he pulled up to the horse it attempted to jump the rail and from a dead run basically it just fell on it. It broke and the end went flying up catching his pony in the chest. He went flying over the rail landing on his back inches from one of the spikes the rail gets set on. His ponys' chest was ripped open, unbelievably he scrambled to his feet ran along the rail towards the gate & fell over. The state vet tried to euthanize him but the damage was such that the medicine had no way to get to his heart and he just bled out.
The weirdest condition I've ever seen was on one of those animal cops shows. There was this old grey horse...typical bad condition..extremely ribby/ no hoof care, etc... it had an old injury to its' neck, there was a hole in it. The hole was long and narrow, you could see through its neck, right through the cresty area, it was an old injury and the hair had grown back but YOU COULD SEE THROUGH ITS NECK. I'll never get that picture out of my head.

Answer 8

A foal with a perfectly formed fifth leg extending from the knee. The leg was only about 7 inches long and perfectly formed. It was removed with no ill effects to the foal.

One of my geldings actually caught a cattle disease called lumpy jaw...hard to treat but a great learning experience.

Answer 9

Years ago I leased a young APHA stud, to a another breeder. He come down with the strangles, then purpura followed. Purpura is extremely rare, & excitement or excerise can lead to the BP to dangerously drop. After 10 days of nothing but stall rest & steriods & antibotics the stallion was fine.

Answer 10

Have no horse stories, but here's a few things I've seen...
We had a black Angus calf born with 2 tails. Seemed like it only had one backbone though. He was fine otherwise.
Pigs, well, I've seen lots of weird stuff. No butt-holes (blind anus), a skull on top of a skull- it looked like it was wearing a little helmet, two snouts, lots of extra legs, conjoined pigs, hermaphrodites...
I've got company- gotta go!