Slight back problem there?
Oct 14 2008
Here’s the ad. It says only that she is selling as a pet. NO! REALLY??? I thought maybe she was going to be an eventer with that back!
This is just freakish. It’s not even the typical roach back. I’m trying to decide whether the back is that way as a result of hind leg/end problems that have rendered this mare crippled behind, or if the back has affected the hind legs. Either way, I’m guessing she was born with it.
My usual question – why are we trying to sell this for $500 on the Internet? Do you really think someone is not going to take your $500 Andalusian mare and NOT think it’s a good idea to breed her? I don’t know the extent of the problem here but she looks awfully uncomfortable, poor mare.
You know, the Internet has been highly educational – I’ve never seen an extreme roach back in real life, in all of these years. Much like the Craigslist personals, the equine internet allows us to see things we never knew existed (and aren’t sure we wanted to know existed!) Roach backs, wry noses, a horse with almost no neck…it’s like the carnival is in town. I’ve never seen any of this stuff happen on the good breeding farms I’ve worked at or around, have you?
Where are these horses coming from, and is it just a crap shoot or what factors increase the odds of getting a foal with a major defect? Vets/vet students? Breeders? Fill me in. How avoidable is this stuff? Does it happen more often than I think and the horses are just quietly euthanized with no one the wiser?
2 comments to “Slight back problem there?”
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I’m studying horses at university, and worked in a large breeding stud last summer. I’d consider the abnormality pictured above to be rather rare. Hard to tell from a picture, but it looks like her pelvis is rotated, causing the spine to arc at the loins, thus curving and lifting the entire spine. I’d expect her to be very stiff in the hindlimbs, with limited ability to extend them properly, and possibly an inability to acheive normal gaits. While Roach back is unusual – not so much in SB horses – I’d consider this a spinal/skeletal abnormality, not simply a roach back. She would have been born with it, and the spine may be fused, of may fuse as she gets older. I’d say this could potentially happen to any horse, but I’d certainly like to see what the Dam looks like! Many people feed supplements during pregnancy to try and avoid structural abnormalities, but there’s just not enough research about it to prove anything.
That mare looks like she has spina bifida. Is that an issue in Andalusians? I know it is in English bull dogs, but have not studied up on the prevalence of this birth defect with genetic connotations in other species.