Heat stress in horses: a literature review

Abstract

Healthy adult horses can balance accumulation and dissipation of body heat to maintain their body temperature between 37.5 and 38.5 °C, when they are in their thermoneutral zone (5 to 25 °C). However, under some circumstances, such as following strenuous exercise under hot, or hot and humid conditions, the accumulation of body heat exceeds dissipation and horses can suffer from heat stress. Prolonged or severe heat stress can lead to anhidrosis, heat stroke, or brain damage in the horse. To ameliorate the negative effects of high heat load in the body, early detection of heat stress and immediate human intervention is required to reduce the horse's elevated body temperature in a timely manner. Body temperature measurement and deviations from the normal range are used to detect heat stress. Rectal temperature is the most commonly used method to monitor body temperature in horses, but other body temperature monitoring technologies, percutaneous thermal sensing microchips or infrared thermometry, are currently being studied for routine monitoring of the body temperature of horses as a more practical alternative. When heat stress is detected, horses can be cooled down by cool water application, air movement over the horse (e.g., fans), or a combination of these. The early detection of heat stress and the use of the most effective cooling methods is important to improve the welfare of heat stressed horses.

Keywords: Body temperature measurement; Cool-down strategy; Heat stress; Horse.

Fig. 1

Physical heat transfer in exercising horses. Blue colour = heat dissipation; orange colour = heat accumulation. This image was adapted from open source ‘Adobe stock images’ and modified by Hyungsuk Kang

Fig. 2

Neuroendocrine and physiological responses to heat stress. Arrows in the boxes — ‘↑’, increasing; ‘↓’, decreasing. The images were adapted from Hyungsuk Kang and open source ‘Adobe stock images’