Surgery and Radiology Section

RESTRAINING OF HORSE

Horses are basically divided into 4 psychological categories

• Well mannered horse – Good training and proper handling.
• Unbroken horse – Little (or) no training (or) handling and is easily frightened.
• Ill mannered horse–Unfavourable exposure to the people, poorly trained.
• Rough horse–Good training and proper training but still ferociously resist restraint for even simple procedure.

The method of restraint depends on

• Animal’s temperament
• Age.
• Size.
• Procedure to be performed.
• Available equipment, help and drugs.
• Duration of procedure
• Amount of pain (or) anxiety likely to be produced.
  • In general one should apply the least restraint, possible initially while judging the animal’s reaction as a procedure progress.
  • The general methods of physical restraint include halter and lead, skin twitch, ear hold, and nose (or) lip twitch other methods such as raising a limb , the tail hold and breeding hobbles, are useful in certain circumstances.

Halters and Leads

• The halter and lead is used to exert control just as a rider uses and bits.
• The assistant should usually stand on the same side of the horse as the operator, to prevent the animals from wheeling into or kicking the operators.
• The horse should be led from the left (or) near side, the same side on which it is usually caught, bridled, saddled and mounted.
• If the horse does not follow willingly, it should be urged from the behind by another person and not pulled by the halter.
• If the horse does not move, it may be blind folded and led (or) sacked for short distances.
• Halters are leather (or) nylon (or) cotton rope braided construct.
• It is used with a chain shank for special restraint of spiritual horses. The chains can be used over the muscles, under the jaw, through the mouth and over the gingiva.

Skin twitch (View video)

• Skin twitch is the method of grasping a roll of skin over the shoulders with both the hands.
• This method is especially useful on horses prone to strike with the front feet.
• It can also be used in neck as neck twitch.

View video for skin twitch

Ear hold

View video for ear hold

View video for ear twitch 

• Horses those do not respond to halter (or) skin twitch restraint ,may respond  to ear hold.
• In this method the left ear is firmly grasped with the right hand close to the animals scalp.
• A slight pressure should be applied. The elbow should be on the animal’s left mandible.
• Constant application of ear hold may result in fallen ear (or) head shy horses.
•  Prolonged application of rope (or) chain twitch  may cause permanent injury.

Lip twitch

View video for lip twitch

View video for twitch

• Widely used restraint device. It distracts the horse's  attention and provides restraint.
• The twitch consists of a loop of chain (or) rope fixed to the end of the wooden handle about 30 inches long.
• The twitching is accomplished by grasping the upper lip between the tips of the thumb and finger.
• The twitch loops is applied over the lip and tightened by twisting the handle.
• The twitch should be held at its end so the handler will not loose control of the twitch if the horse pulls back (or) strikes.

War bridle

• War bridle is a rope gag is used to restrain a horse.