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Blindness in Miniature Horses
Blindness can be caused from a variety of issues including infection, disease and foreign objects.
In the wild, a "seeing eye" horse may take-over to guide the injured horse. According to One rescued horse helps another, this is a natural instinct for horses:
Physically rescuing Pet was only the first step of the rescue. Mary Terry knows that often a horse will not adjust to being blind and its physical health will deteriorate, sometimes quickly. She turned to Jess, a wild mustang, for help. Now, three months later, it's obvious the choice worked.
"She's adjusted, thanks to Jess." Terry says.
Jess is another rescued animal. Terry adopted the wild mustang through a Bureau of Land Management program. "Wild" seems an exaggeration in this instance, however, because Jess is so gentle and docile that little children are safe on her back, she says.
"Because Jess is so docile we thought the mix might work," Terry says.
It has. Jess has become Pet's seeing-eye horse.
Miniature horse and ponies also have this natural instinct to guide their blind companions. In this link, the author notes that Taffy, a 14-year-olf pony, naturally acted as the seeing-eye horse for a blind herdmate.
In an article titled Seeing Eye Horses, the author notes that horses can also guide blind people.
Here we review some common causes of blindness in horses.
Injury infections - Orion Light Vant Huttenest, on of the most famous miniature horse in USA history is totally blind. His groom in northern California claims that Orion was blinded by untreated scratches to his eyes, caused by sharp objects (sharp-leafed grasses, twigs) that injured his eye causing an infection that left him sightless.
Internal infections - Uveitis & Endophthalmitis are manifested as "Moon Blindness" where by the eye become totally white and occluded. Here is a page with great photographs of this condition:
On this page, you can clearly see why it is called Moon Blindness. Valliant became blind after stepping on a nail and developed a Uveitus bacterial infection:
"The bacteria traveled to his eyes from the abscesses on his neck. Valiant’s eyes clouded over within days. He was extremely ill with very high temperatures for many weeks and he had extremely painful, hot, weeping eyes for many, many months. Valiant had to be cared for around the clock.
We had to religiously administer the many medications precisely on time, record his temperature, give comments about his condition then initial the record sheet. For the first three months IV medications, eyedrops and ointments were administered hourly. This schedule continued for over nine months gradually increasing the time between meds to every two, four, six, eight, twelve hours to eventually once a day. "
As an interesting side note, Valliant has been a successful dressage horse while completely blind, competing and winning championships without the aid of vision:
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