Vital knowledge — Pulse

Learn how to take your Appaloosa’s pulse rate.

Learning how to take your horse’s vital signs is an important part of basic horse keeping. If your horse is showing symptoms of sickness or distress, you’ll need to take your horse’s vitals and report them to your veterinarian.

The pulse rate is how many times your horse’s heart beats each minute. A healthy horse’s heart beats steadily, strongly and regularly, helping push about nine gallons of blood through its cardiovascular system. A fast pulse rate, when not associated with heavy exercise, is often a sign of serious health problems, including dehydration, blood loss, shock or infection. A slow pulse rate can mean the horse is suffering from low body temperature, heart disease or other issues.

Taking your horse’s pulse

A healthy adult horse’s heart beats 35 to 45 times per minute at rest. Suckling foals have higher resting heart rates of about 70 to 90 beats per minute; yearlings 40 to 70 bpm; and 2-year-olds 40 to 50 bpm. Because pulse rates vary, it’s important to take your horse’s resting pulse rate while he’s healthy to create a baseline for that individual animal. Also, practice taking your horse’s pulse now — it will help prepare you to take it quickly and confidently if an emergency ever arises in the future.

The most common place to take a horse’s pulse rate is under his left-side jaw where the external maxillary artery crosses the lower part of his jawbone. To find the artery, gently palpate the front underside of the jawbone. The artery is approximately the size of a pencil or a large earthworm, and you should be able to gently move it side to side with your fingers.

To calculate your horse’s pulse rate, gently press your index and middle fingers on the artery and count the beats for 15 seconds (use about the same pressure you would to find your own pulse). Remember, an adult horse’s pulse rate is much slower than a human’s, so you won’t feel rapid beating. Instead, a healthy horse’s heart rate should be slow, with as little as one beat every two seconds. Once you’ve counted the beats for 15 seconds, take that number of beats and multiply it by four to get beats per minute.

You can also take your horse’s pulse rate at the radial artery just inside the back of the knee or at the digital artery just below the fetlock. If you have a stethoscope, you can listen for the heartbeat just behind you horse’s left elbow. If you do use a stethoscope, remember that the horse’s heart makes two sounds with each pump. Count each “lub-dub” sound as one beat.

Editor’s note: A special thanks to Michelle Gant and Sensationally Dun for their welcome assistance with photos.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY MICHELLE ANDERSON

Printed in the May 2005 issue of Appaloosa Journal.

Back to Horsekeeping 101

To receive an info-packed Appaloosa Journal each month, subscribe now!