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Here are some interesting
facts about a horse's body.
- Horse's hooves grow
at a rate of about 1cm per month.
- The forelock on a horse's
head helps to keep flys out of the eyes.
- Horse's legs are built
so that they can sleep standing up, but to get a good rest they
need to lying down.
- Each leg has a small
spot that looks like a scar called a 'chestnut'.
- Horse's knee caps are
not done fusing until they are about 3 1/2 years old. That's why
many young racehorses are injured.
- Mares come in to heat
around age 1, but usually can't be safely bred until 4.
- Stallions are mature
and can breed around 2 or 3 years of age.
- A horse's heart weighs
about 10 pounds.
- A horse's back cannot
bend, it remains stiff when the horse moves. That's why it's hard
for horses to get up after rolling or resting.
- The teeth take up more
room in a horse's head than its brain does.
- Horses can see color.
- Horses can see in two
directions at once.
- Horses have two blind
spots where they cannot see- directly in front of them, and directly
behind them.
- Human hair and fingernails
are made from the same protein as horse hooves.
- Horses have 36-42 teeth,
with females usually having 36 and stallions and geldings having
40-42. "Canine teeth", remains of fighting teeth, are present
on some horses, usually males, in either 1 or 2 pairs. "Wolf teeth"
can be present in males or females, and sometimes have to be pulled
because they cause pain.
- Most breeds of horses
have 18 ribs, 6 lumbar bones, and 18 tail vertebrae. Arabians
have 17 ribs, 5 lumbar bones, and 16 tail vertebrae.
- A full grown horse that
weighs about 1,000 pounds contains approximately 13.2 gallons
of blood.
- Horses have about 175
bones in their body.
- Horses make 8 basic
sounds- snort, squeal, greeting nicker, courtship nicker, maternal
nicker, neigh, roar, blow.
- It is almost impossible
for a horse to vomit-- if they do, their stomachs usually rupture
soon after.
- It takes a horse 60
days to double it's birth rate.
- A horse focuses its
eye by changing the angle of its head, not by changing the shape
of the lens of the eye, as humans do.
- While horses graze,
they keep a look out for predators.
- A racehorse averages
a weight loss of between 15 and 25 pounds during a race.
- Adult electric eels
5 feet to 7 feet long produce enough electricity – 600 volts –
to stun a horse.
- A horse weighing around
1000 lbs. voids from 1 1/2 to 8 1/2 quarts of urine daily.
- A horse's gestation
period is 11 months, but can be anywhere from 10-12 months long.
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