Equine Joint Care Basics - How to Take Care of Your Horse's Joints

It can be difficult to perfectly balance a horse's good health with its owner's equine needs, but when it comes to a horse's joints, overwork and trauma can lead to a horse's lameness and inability to perform any work at all. A disease called degenerative joint disease is found commonly among older horses and is a result of wear and tear, trauma, and the fact that domestic horses live longer than their wild brothers.

This is a condition that befalls most horse during their lifetime unless the horse is largely let alone to pasture and is never ridden. While a horse certainly is a wonderful mode of conveyance, the horse's body did not develop and evolve with a large amount of weight on top in mind. With this in mind, joint care should be an important aspect of your horse overall health care.

Degenerative joint disease is the name given to the condition that arises and progresses as a horse's joint becomes worn. The membrane within the joint is slowly worn and inflamed to where it no longer produces the fluids found in a joint regularly or in sufficient quantities. The limited amount of fluid causes the cartilage of the joint to thin and possibly even tear which will be painful for your horse. A horse with untreated degenerative joint disease will likely experience lameness.

The first sign of joint problems is puffiness around the joint areas. Unless you are looking for this, you are unlikely to notice it, and a horse that exhibits no other symptoms might still be on the path towards serious joint disability.

More overt and obvious symptoms involve clear pain in the joint areas, and your horse may be very reluctant to do work. At this stage, the horse will have obvious puffiness around the joints. You may note that your horse movements and gait seems to be stiff when you first brought her out and that they improve as she warms up. If you notice that maneuvers that usually would have been easily performed are now very difficult or your horse refuses to do them, this may also be a sign that degenerative joint disease has indeed set in.

You should bring your horse in for a checkup immediately if you suspect that it is developing degenerative joint disease. A flex test will be carry out on the joints. Afterward you will likely be asked to lead your horse to walk around briefly which will give your vet a chance to get a look at the horse's gait. At this point the vet will tell you what he or she thinks and your horse may require x-rays.

There are a couple of options to help manage your horse's joint problem. After working, you may choose to spray down your horse's joints with cold water. This simple exercise will help to reduce the swelling in the area. You might also consider limiting your horse to activities that do not stress the affected joints.

Last but not least, your veterinarian can administer injections, made out of your horse's own blood, that go directly into the joint to help mitigate the pain and inflammation.