17/01/2024
Sharing again as I have seen a lot of pictures and videos recently where horses, young and old, are holding their tails to one side.
I saw this in my mare and all though not lame she did have an o***y tumour on the side she was holding her tail to.
Please use his as an indicator that the horse is showing something is not right and listen to them.
**Asymmetric tails – best not to ignore them**
Crooked tail carriage (CTC), where a horse holds its tail asymmetrically, is a common, yet poorly understood condition. Recent publications have however pointed to lameness and/or pain being a key predisposing risk factor (Hibbs, Jarvis and Dyson 2021 and Dyson et al., 2018).
In a dedicated study to this condition which examined 520 lame horses and 170 non lame horses, CTC was observed to be common in lame horses (33.5%), particularly those with hindlimb lameness, compared to non-lame horses (5.3%) (Hibbs, Jarvis and Dyson 2021). Although more horses with CTC held their tail to the left, there was no association between the tail holding and the predominant lame limb (Hibbs, Jarvis and Dyson 2021).
The presence of CTC was also strongly associated with pain in the sacroiliac joint region (SIJR) and/or thoracolumbar epaxial muscle tension, but not with saddle slip, reduced thoracolumbar range of movement (ROM) or thoracolumbar epaxial muscle pain (Hibbs, Jarvis and Dyson 2021).
These findings support earlier research which also concluded that lame horses were more likely to hold their tail to one side than non-lame horses and that this condition be a good “marker” for helping to objectively identify pain (Dyson et al 2018).
References
Hibbs, K.C., Jarvis, G.E. and Dyson, S.J. (2021), Crooked tail carriage in horses: Increased prevalence in lame horses and those with thoracolumbar epaxial muscle tension or sacroiliac joint region pain. Equine Vet Educ, 33: 368-375. https://doi.org/10.1111/eve.13316
Dyson, S., Berger, J., Ellis, A.D. and Mullard, J. (2018), Development of an ethogram for a pain scoring system in ridden horses and its application to determine the presence of musculoskeletal pain. Journal of Vet Behaviour, 23: 47-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2017.10.008
