The horse who cannot lie down - how long before it becomes serious?

[Obsidian_Fire]

This popped into my head last night, in all seriousness. Because my guy injured himself on the 12th (see my post on muscle tear), and he CANNOT lie down.

Yesterday I let him have supervised paddock grazing time. First thing he did was head to his favorite mud hole to roll. (He has attempted to roll in the arena but as soon as he goes down he gets up because it is too painful). I thought perhaps since it was on a slope he’d be able to get down/up easier, but no. Soon as he went down you could see him think ‘uh oh’ and he literally got off the ground with 3 legs.

So it got me to thinking…he is going to be on stall rest/rehab for quite some time. This is a hind limb injury. How long can he not lie down to sleep, without causing both mental and physical repercussions? Is this a recipe for laminitis in the fronts or injury to the other hind?

On the other hand, if the act of getting up is going to cause further injury in the muscle, then he probably should not be doing it.

I have searched around for info on this, I cannot come up with anything pertinent.

Help!

[beowulf]

well, they don’t need to lie down to sleep, but they do better sleeping/obtaining REM that way - IIRC, horses only need about 2.5-3 hours of sleep a day, and they don’t do it all at once. IIRC, they do it in short 10-20m intervals… and most horses do it standing up… meaning you don’t need to be lying down to get a good bit of rest if you’re a horse.

I wouldn’t stress about it. I was involved with the rehab of a BNT’s horse that fractured his shoulder + radius getting cast - he was on stall rest for a year and was rigged to a pulley line in his stall (sounds more dangerous than it is) that prevented him from going down/rolling because if he rolled, he would break the shoulder clean in half. Prior to the injury he was worth a lot of $$$ and was his owner’s heart horse, so they put a lot of money into him just to make sure he made it out okay. He survived and last I checked was doing lower level event stuff… this was years and years ago (2008, maybe?).

My horse got himself two nice fractures in his pelvis and a fractured rib this fall - yeah, he obviously wasn’t lying down any time soon. Actually, last week was one of the first times I saw him roll since October. Your horse will be fine - most mature horses prefer sleeping standing up anyway.

[ecileh]

This is a 2007 article from Equus about sleep deprivation in horses: http://equusmagazine.com/article/horse_sleep_deprived_092308-10689

Right before this article came out, my gelding starting nodding off while I was mounted and buckling his knees like what is described in the first paragraph. At the time, we thought it was neurological, but it turned out that he had a giant tumor in his intestine and hadn’t been lying down to sleep because it hurt too much. That story does not have a happy ending, but I remember reading this article and having a lightbulb go off.

Hope it answers your questions, too.

[beowulf]

I haven’t seen that article, thanks for linking it. I’m sorry about your gelding.

It’s a bit different than what I was taught (re: needing to lie down for REM) but it does raise some interesting points. I wonder how long a horse can go, then? The horse I mentioned above was not able to lie down at all, for almost a year… I took care of him almost exclusively (it was only me and one other WS) and he never had anything I would have said remotely imitated sleep deprivation or REM.

Same with my TB now, that definitely could not lie down due to the fractured pelvis + rib for at least two months…

[BroncoMo]

Years ago my sister had a mare that managed to shatter her hip and broke her pelvis (no idea how, still one of life’s great mysteries to this day). Upon diagnosis it was suggested that she be tied on stall rest for at least 3 months. Obviously we would be closely monitoring for laminitis and other issues, standing wraps were suggested. Sadly we never made it that far. She fell on the way to her stall and went head first in to a gate. Didn’t quite knock herself unconscious but we could not get her up. Put her on a skid and drug to her stall. When she stood up the next morning, a piece of bone punctured her femoral artery and she bled to death quickly. So while we did not get that far in to rehab, it sounded fairly normal to tie horses on stall rest with such injuries, for very long periods of time.

[Princess_Sparkles]

I’ve known some very elderly horses that were not able to get up without help. They would not lie down to sleep because they would have to wait for a human to come along and boost them up again. Some of the larger horses would need to be lifted with the help of a tractor. I can guarantee you these horses didn’t lie down to sleep because we would have found them down in the morning otherwise. None suffered ill-effects from a lack of sleep (ie they didn’t fall asleep in the aisle or anything like that), though obviously these horses had other issues related to advanced age so I suppose some of it could have been related, but there is no way to prove that.

While it isn’t ideal for a horse to be able to get up and down and lie down to sleep if they choose, I don’t think it’s something that is going to severely effect the horse if it isn’t permanent. A lot of horses won’t lie down every day for a nap and will spend the majority of their snoozing time on their feet. Especially if a horse is on stall rest and isn’t exerting a lot, I can’t see it being incredibly detrimental.

[Ceylon_Star]

I know an OTTB who, due to a nasty wound that could not heal if he walked around or laid down, had to be crossties in his stall for the majority of a YEAR. He received extra ulcer prevention/treatment but otherwise did just fine. He has a wicked scar but is back eventing two years later.

[atr]

I had an old mare when I was a kid who would not lie down. She had some arthritis issues. She would sleep leaning against her stall wall, like the horse in Cat Balou… Or she would sit on her water buckets, which was expensive.

Now I know more than I did back then, I would build her a ledge that she could park her ample behind on and get some rest that way.

[Murphy_s_Mom]

There was a horse in our boarding barn back in the late '80s that broke her hip. They made a standing stall inside her box stall and she stood there for months while it healed.

[Cowgirl]

My gelding had a serious injury when he was 19 or so, and could not lie down (broken ribs, etc.). After that, he would NOT lie down to sleep and he also developed a sort of problem that looked like narcolepsy (it wasn’t–I had it checked) where he would sleep standing up, then sort of look like he was collapsing in sleep and catch himself with a front leg. He went on like this for five years. I had metabolic tests done, narcolepsy tests done, etc. and the problem was the locking mechanism in his knee was giving out

Eventually, I had to euthanize at age 24 because he tore the ligaments behind his knee with this repetitive motion of catching himself. There was no way for it to heal (nor was I going to put a 24 year old horse through a year of stall rest) when he would not lie down. Despite this issue, he had a very very happy retirement with pasture turnout during those last 5 years. Anyway, long answer, but IME 5 years.

[joiedevie99]

I’ve known a few horses who were tied to a high-line for 3-6 month periods without any obvious issues.

[Obsidian_Fire]

Thanks everyone for the responses.