Eli5: Why are horses who break their legs so often euthanized?
In: 3613
Horses are the wrong combination of size and brain for going easy on injuries. They have four legs but they’re *heavy,* and like to use all four. A dog or a cat with a leg injury will *try* to keep weight off it and the weight they shift to the other limbs isn’t a big deal.
Humans have more weight to shift but we also have crutches and walking boots. And we understand what and why pain and “don’t do that in two hours either.”
Deer are dumb as rocks but can run three legged because they don’t weigh more than people do and can already absorb running force at higher loads than people. They’re still not likely to recover, but the size helps.
Horses are heavy and are not good at not using an injured limb. What’s worse is that pain makes them want to run, rather than how dogs and cats often hide pain by being lazy. That size also makes them expensive, difficult and dangerous to immobilize, treat and care for.
So a broken horse leg is unlikely to heal and likely to develop serious complications like infection and healing out of shape.
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