The Horse Forum banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Question about horse dissection

2K views 14 replies 7 participants last post by  damnedEvans 
#1 ·
Hello, I want to ask around to see if this is something common in other places too.
Here is a common practice from what I see, and it's very disturbing from my opinion. I understand the utility of horse dissection. It's ok to learn on a real horse if you want to become a vet. But I don't understand why you must kill a sound horse in order to study on him. And why on earth you should to this by sectioning the artery in order to drawn all the blood from the body. This means that the horse is killed by sectioning of the artery and he will bleed until death. Needless to say that they won't do anesthesia. They kill the horse like this because they want to use the body without blood in it (coagulated blood). I don't understand how a bit of blood there can affect the accuracy of the study.

Their recent victim was an Holsteiner gelding, 18 years old, 18 hh. He did dressage when he was younger and recently he was a lesson horse.
He was donated to the Faculty of Veterinary studies by the Barn owner where he was somehow abandoned. He was still sound and healthy. There were adoption request for him but they didn't want to give him. So he was killed.

Do you think that this is normal? Do you know if this is a common practice and this is how it's supposed to be killed animals for dissection?

Horse Mammal Terrestrial animal Mare Horse supplies


Horse Mammal Vertebrate Bridle English riding
 
See less See more
2
#2 ·
Clearing blood from the veins helps to get a clearer understanding of the circulatory system for vet students.

Most the horses donated to schools are usually old, unsound, or sick in some way from my experiences. I haven't heard of sound horses being common practice for veterinary schools, but I'm sure it happens.

From what I understood, most of the horses were humanely euthanized (sp) by a bullet. (The brain can be studied from other horses who may have died by natural causes, etc.)

What veterinary school are you referencing out of curiosity?

I am all for equine dissection and learning from the real thing rather than out of a book. I would also much rather see a horse killed for medical research then abandoned as it helps many more horses in the process. Yes it's sort of sad, but I am not opposed to it.

I've never really heard of bleeding out the horse without anesthesia for these practices though (though draining them of blood is practice).
 
#3 ·
well, this is the only method that they use for draining the blood. As I understood the anesthesia may interfere with the draining of the blood. I don't know for sure about this but I know for sure that they don't use anesthesia in the process. I have a lot of friends there so this is why I know. The horse shelter where I'm volunteering tried to save this horse from death but it was without success. This is very sad because the horse was a real sweetie.
We tried even to talk with the director to make an arrangement with it to give them our dead horses (as a horse shelter is something natural to have cases without hope) . But they don't want this. And we don't want to give them sick animals to be killed in that way. It's better to put them to sleep by lethal injection.
We even tried to make this thing public hoping that this practice will come to an end.
and the faculty is Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Bucharest.

I really understand the necessity of horse dissection. But I don't like their methods. I think that their way of killing the animals it's not humane.
 
#4 ·
Hmm. Things in Romania may be different than what I am used to here. I'm not familiar with any of the practices there. The horses we have worked with at our university (Montana State University -- Bozeman) were usually killed by a bullet. I know there is at least one other member from Romania so maybe she will comment.
 
#5 ·
thats very sad but it is another way to get "rid" of old and unwanted horses. In think it is sad btu i really hope they dont kill them that way. that gelding that was a dressage horse, he could have been anything! he looked like he had a lot of potential in the day. I know i would want tess cut up by a vet student and have her insides taken out :( im not against this as it is basically just the same as sending a horse to the knackers. I am not starting an arguement here so dont judge me on what i said please. thank you.
 
#6 ·
Actually this used to be common in the US too, they did it to dogs regularly. They would drain them slowly of blood so that the students could observe what happens when body systems begin shutting down. The older vets I've spoken with about it said that it was a great way to learn and much more effective than the current methods (books and euthanized animals).
 
#7 ·
You get blood taken from you at a blood drive. Does that hurt? No. I know we don't get all the blood drained out of us, but from my understanding, after a certain amount of blood is drained from you, you pass out. I don't think it's very painful if you ask me.
 
#9 ·
You get blood taken from you at a blood drive. Does that hurt? No. I know we don't get all the blood drained out of us, but from my understanding, after a certain amount of blood is drained from you, you pass out. I don't think it's very painful if you ask me.
No the actual act of losing blood is not painful, but humans do have sensors that when they are losing too much, can send them into panic state..... not always and not never... it happens and is terrifying for them. I am guessing horses do too.
 
#8 ·
Someone at my barn did that as well... the horse got to where he could not even be walked outside of his stall and adjacent pen- he was scared of the world... however, he was donated to CSU veterinary school, where they studied his joints by way of injections for two days (under heavy sedation), then put him down and studied his insides.... this guy was a danger to everything and everyone, so I commend the owner making that choice.
 
#11 ·
#12 ·
People operate at a little higher level mentally than animals so it is possible that a horse would not experience the sort of panic that a person would. I don't know enough about human anatomy to know for sure. I have seen animals killed by having thier throut cut and it is not terribly pretty to watch but it is also not the worst way to go. Most vets care deeply about the welfare of animals or they would be doctors and work on people so I am betting that there was quite a bit of thought that went into killing this horse. Such things are needed for research and teaching. It may not be pretty but if it helps a vet learn to do his/her job then it was worth it.
 
#14 ·
And would the horse really know what's going on? I think it might have a clue, but humans are basically the only ones who fear death right? I'm the type who'd give my body to science if it were ethical to do that to humans and if I had cancer and was gonna die anyway. I'd volunteer to do it.
 
#15 ·
I've seen a horse dying because of bleeding. She was injured and an important vessel in the hoof area was sectioned. The mare died after many hours but the bleeding was not so severe as it is when you are sectioning the neck artery. I know that they are also sectioning something there to make the bleeding slower and to impede the horse to pass down when a certain amount of blood is drained. They do this in order to drain as much blood as needed.

Sure it's not something very traumatic, there are horrible ways of dying like being left to starve or being beaten up until death. But I really think that they should use a more humane method to do this.
I'm really amazed that this is not so unusual as I thought it will be. But I still hope that this practice will change and that they will put their animals down in a more humane way.

Thank you all for your responses.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top