Guest 67Mopar Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 I think I have have found our culprit! Note how the attacker breaches security using stealth, and misdirection... Bo, never had a chance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frap10 Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 He just wanted to get on and ride. Though I react the same way when my cats surprise me while napping. One is a 25lb Maine ****. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest insanity42 Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 Hello 67Mopar, ...Plus, it would have to be a substantial wound to completely drain the horse of blood...From this http://sanilaccountynews.mihomepaper.com/news/2015-06-10/News/Horse_wasnt_attacked_by_animal.htmlarticle: "The owners took the horse to a veterinary clinic in Saginaw where it was euthanized." The above statement from the Sanilac County News and yours (which I quoted) are not consistent. Bleeding out usually means losing enough blood to go into shock due to low or complete loss of blood pressure. An animal that size (1200 lbs.) will still have plenty of blood in it system but not enough to offset death from blood loss. Saying the horse was completely drained of blood I don't think is accurate since the horse was apparently alive when I arrived at the vet's. Correct. Death by exsanguination in people usually occurs at a loss of one-half to two-thirds the volume of blood. Even losing one-third the volume is quite serious. Being completely drained of blood is not needed for serious complications or death to occur. The wound may have been such that suturing wasn't viable and with a great deal of blood loss, euthanization was the recourse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painthorse Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 Wish I could see a pic of the wound. In reality it only takes a puncture to an artery to bleed profusely. "IF" the horse was left for several hours with even a small puncture it will continue to bleed out. Link to anatomy of hind leg https://en.wikivet.net/Limb_Vasculature_-_Horse_Anatomy Someone above posted about the possibility of the horse injuring itself, that could be true also. Several years ago I had a yearling boarded at a stable and had him in the turn out. There was only supposed to be one horse out there at a time. Another horse owner "thought it would be cute" to turn their older horse out with my baby and it chased my little guy and in a fright he must have nicked the inside of his front leg with his own hoof and nicked an artery. "The blood was shooting out" and would gush with every heart beat". Several of us took turns holding pressure on it until the vet arrived. Horses can do some strange stuff to themselves when in a panic. I am including a pic of a well healed wound from back in 2006. This was a mystery wound. My entire paddock is done in no-climb fence and topped with hot wire. No barbed wire, protruding nails, no trees with pointed limbs, no garbage, etc. This wound was grisly and completely unexpected. It was a "clean gaping slash" down into the muscle" total freak out time for us. Healed better than ever expected. This horse is 16.1 hands tall. The location, height, horizontal slash that's not ragged, has always been questionable on how it happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hiflier Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 Hello Painthorse, That's quite the scar. It's hard to imagine what the would must've looked loked and if it was my horse I'd be in high panic mode. I was looking at your fencing and couldn't help but think wire cut from your horse perhaps doing a hasty 180? Like a rope burn maybe? I'm sure you've already compared the height lines of the fence when the question of how the injury was inflicted. The only other thing I can think of is if the young one was walking perpendicular behind the older horse which kicked back and had the hoove glance the hind quarter of the colt. If the young one was shorter the kick wouldn't need to be a high one. Just thinking out loud here. It would be curious to know over the course of say a year how many horses sustain mysterious injuries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painthorse Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 @Hiflier, I was there when my yearling got hurt, I had just seen the other owner close the gate after turning her horse out with my colt and couldn't do a darn thing as the older horse chased mine, no kicking. The older horse just wanted to play but my guy got scared and freaked out. The pic of the horse that was slashed and the fencing, that is no-climb fence and a cable below the hot wire, there are no barbs or anything that is sharp on that type of wire. "that's the odd part." The other odd part is that his rump height, level of injury, did not match up to anything in there. Hence the mystery. There are many mystery injuries with horses. The ones that are kept stabled or in managed areas like mine that are kept in safe quarters that owners take special concern to be sure that there is nothing sharp, protruding, etc. and then have an injury that is questionable. The one that stands out the most to me was when I kept my horses stabled at Lazy Acres in Coconut Creek Florida back in the late 70's. A paddock neighbor showed up the same time in the morning to feed and screamed for me. Her big paint horse had a GAPING wound on the side of his neck the size of a grape fruit. There was NO hanging hide left just a gaping hole down into the muscle. I stayed with her and waited for the vet. The vet was "stunned" and actually took pictures. The wound could not be sutured. He did sew in a drain right into the muscle to help heal it from the inside out. After he was finished with the horse all 3 of us walked her stall and the paddock area and found nothing that could have caused the wound. Also, no hair or hide that was missing from the horse's neck was found. MAYBE a week prior to the horse being injured, one of the boarders said they saw a panther. I moved my horse's to another stable the following month. Also, not a mystery but what a canine can do......At another stable a blacksmith was shodding a horse and the pit bull dog that he had had for years and was "always with him" jumped out of the bed of the truck and walked up to the horse <nothing unusual he was raised with horses> Jumped up and latched on to the horse where the bottom of the jaws meet the under throat and the horse died right there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JiggyPotamus Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 When I think of a slash or cut wound from an animal I immediately think of claws. Assuming the wound was fairly large, and it would have to be relatively significant to cause death through blood loss, there are not very many animals capable of such a feat. A horse is a large animal, and that fact alone eliminates the majority of forest critters. I do not know much about bears, but I do know they have claws, and that these claws are fairly dangerous to flesh, whether belonging to a human or a horse. Whether or not the horse had been partially eaten, (were it totally eaten there probably wouldn't be enough evidence to pinpoint the exact cause of death), should also tell us something. A big cat would probably only attack a horse to eat it. I do know that big cats have attacked various animals without eating them, but because of the size of the prey, I feel that a large cat would not waste the energy necessary to kill a horse unless it was for food. I assume that a bear would be more likely to attack without the intent of consuming the prey, but I find it unusual that a bear would deliver only a single blow. Assuming that any other potential wounds weren't overlooked, I would say that a single slash mark is also unlikely to be a bear. Those are the only two animals I can think of that are capable of doing this to a horse. Perhaps I am overlooking or forgetting a dangerous forest animal, but again, we are talking about animals capable of creating slash-like wounds. Personally, I feel that a human is a much more likely culprit than anything. Granted of course that there are very important details that I do not have, details which would aid in pinpointing the culprit. As far as bigfoot, I do not subscribe to the hypothesis that they have claws. I believe they have hands and nails just like we do, although their nails might be slightly different, but in no way constitute "claws." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bipedalist Posted October 3, 2015 BFF Patron Share Posted October 3, 2015 (edited) I think I have have found our culprit! Note how the attacker breaches security using stealth, and misdirection... Bo, never had a chance! The cat thought he was a monkey and thought the horse was a dog....... and saw the oppotunity to swipe a cowboy hat and fulfill his fantasy! Edited October 3, 2015 by bipedalist Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 4, 2015 Share Posted October 4, 2015 I'd like to see a picture of the wound, but my guess is it was a self inflicted accidental wound. I've seen horses kept in pasture with farm implements all over the place, a real danger zone, and never once get hurt. I've also seen horses in a dang near padded stall injure themselves so badly it required vet attention. They certainly do sustain mystery injuries. From the sounds of the location of the injury, it does not sound consistent with where predators would attack. There is also not a lot of vital muscle in the areas, mostly tendons and ligaments. Per the articles above - it was just above the hoof on a rear leg and was partially severed. I suspect fencing or some other obect in the 4 acre pasture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 67Mopar Posted October 4, 2015 Share Posted October 4, 2015 Would the vet not know the difference between animal attack and self-inflicted? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockape Posted October 4, 2015 Share Posted October 4, 2015 Not necessarily. Depends on the wound. With no associated punctures or claw marks one ragged or clean cut is not definitive evidence of how the wound occurred. You could take an educated guess in most cases, but not all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painthorse Posted October 4, 2015 Share Posted October 4, 2015 ^ Yup, I agree. After an injury you always try to practice eliminating the cause of injury. Most times you find it, sometimes you don't. The horse in the article in reference to the location of the wound could also have possibly been caused by a jagged rock(just saying because the terrain is not known). My big horse the one in the pic with the slash scar cut himself open on the rear hoof area and was bleeding like a stuck pig. When he walked to the gate there was a puddle of blood the size of a dinner plate where his hoof was and a blood trail back into his stall. Culprit was a cement block footer that he clipped himself on when he bolted out of his stall when I took the mare out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painthorse Posted October 4, 2015 Share Posted October 4, 2015 ^ Yup, I agree. After an injury you always try to practice eliminating the cause of injury. Most times you find it, sometimes you don't. The horse in the article in reference to the location of the wound could also have possibly been caused by a jagged rock(just saying because the terrain is not known). My big horse the one in the pic with the slash scar cut himself open on the rear hoof area and was bleeding like a stuck pig. When he walked to the gate there was a puddle of blood the size of a dinner plate where his hoof was and a blood trail back into his stall. Culprit was a cement block footer that he clipped himself on when he bolted out of his stall when I took the mare out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ChasingRabbits Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 I have a question. Do horse owners insure their horses? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Painthorse Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 ^Some people do, I did when I was showing heavy and could prove their value by show records. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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