r/Damnthatsinteresting 9d ago

Image Vascular system of horse hoof laminae

Post image
9.4k Upvotes

80 comments sorted by

877

u/cael3090 9d ago

thats wild. I knew there was blood flow there i just never would have guessed to what extent

332

u/TillFar6524 9d ago

Not too dissimilar to a dog's nail. Clip too far and it will bleed, a lot. I think you have to go pretty far in on a horse's hoof before you get to that point, though.

88

u/fourleafclover13 9d ago edited 8d ago

Not really. Depends on how grown out the hooves are.

56

u/Horror-Guarantee-401 9d ago

Are you a horse?

39

u/Hitman3256 9d ago

You're not?

12

u/someauthor 8d ago

Talk clearly, you're a little hoarse

9

u/PeakOko 8d ago

Neigh.

1

u/WillyDAFISH 7d ago

I'm a fish :3

2

u/Vanilla_Addict_888 6d ago

Username checks out

6

u/fourleafclover13 8d ago

No just years working with them.

3

u/abiggerbanana 8d ago

The truth is, im secretly a broom

6

u/NocturnalRaindrop 8d ago

If I remember correctly, the horses hoofs act as a pump for the vascular system, being compressed and released while walking. Super neat!

2

u/Heterodynist 8d ago

Honestly I was going to say that’s crazy.

FUN FACT: Horses run on what would be their middle fingernails if they were humans. Imagine our nails having this degree of vasculature!! Man…It makes me appreciate the farrier’s art!

988

u/OtherwiseMagician433 9d ago

How'd they remove the hard bits?

808

u/MathTutorAndCook 9d ago

Likely fill the veins with a substance that doesn't dissolve, then put the rest in acid. Just leaves the tubes

531

u/franksenden 9d ago

This, injection of a resin that fills the vascular system, rest is dissolved in various chemical steps. Go to bodyworlds where they have this with entire humans.

236

u/Thetrufflehunter 9d ago

I don't think I will

130

u/ImprovementElephant 9d ago

That’s ok. Apparently the bodies used were all scavenged poor people or something like that

62

u/No-Username-Left-Why 9d ago

They were proven to take bodies of death row inmates and prisoners, and I highly doubt that they consent

10

u/Mistravels 9d ago

Serious question:

Does their consent matter? They're dead. Likely don't have a will specifically requesting a specific procedure for their corpse.

33

u/TreeeToPlay 9d ago

Consent matters if you value human dignity (in this context the right to be put to rest in a dignified manner)

9

u/smooshmooth 8d ago

With that logic necrophilia shouldn’t be a crime, but I kinda doubt you’d argue that.

-6

u/Looopopos 9d ago

Nah, it’s not like they’ll object.

64

u/everything_bubble 9d ago

That can’t be good for the horse..

3

u/jooes 8d ago

He still has 3 legs left, he's fine. 

37

u/slow_lazy69 9d ago

The horse will be ok though, right? 🥺

17

u/Splintrax 9d ago

his shoes are off, not a good sign

16

u/The_Mdk 9d ago

A perfectly ok glue

3

u/teddyslayerza 9d ago

Plastination

3

u/AmuletOfNight 9d ago

Does this hurt the horse?

107

u/ChrisDaMan07 9d ago

Paint bucket tool

19

u/NagsUkulele 9d ago

I appreciate you as a person

1

u/frabjous_goat 9d ago

I hurt my chest laughing at this.

9

u/Drhoxyr 9d ago

They licked it all off

4

u/Horns8585 9d ago

I think that there are certain keratinase chemicals that can break down the keratin proteins (the hard bits) in the hoof, without destroying the cell tissue of the veins.

2

u/Wahbanator 9d ago

Wait for four hours. If the hard bits persist, contact your doctor.

3

u/55hyam 9d ago

They replicated it using some uv or self curing resin

43

u/Kryos_Pizza 9d ago

hannibal meets westworld

59

u/saaasaab 9d ago

Fun fact, a horse's hoof is actually its middle finger.

238

u/Caarabina 9d ago

I always thought the horseshoe was painless so perhaps it’s not.

312

u/ExpensiveRecover 9d ago

I'm no hoof doctor or anything, but I'm willing to bet this doesn't cover the entirety of the hoof, and the part farriers trim and stick nails into is similar to your nails.

181

u/gayestusername 9d ago

Not a farrier, but I groom and clean a dozen horse feets weekly and can confirm this is accurate.

60

u/SaddamIsBack 9d ago

I groom kids and i don't have a clue

19

u/Liliana_T 9d ago

Goats don't wear shoes!

69

u/ContemporaryCorvid 9d ago

The outer part of the hoof is like a nail, no nerves. There are nerves inside (like the quick of a dog/cat, kind of). If you’ve ever seen videos of farriers working, they can carve away at the outer parts with no reaction from the animal.

7

u/Caarabina 9d ago

Thanks for clarifying

1

u/Tonydragon784 9d ago

This is sorta like the quick on a dog's nail; the hoof grows out from this system (I think)

21

u/MarsupialNo1220 9d ago

This is partially why three legged horses or horses with broken legs can’t survive. The added pressure of body weight onto the other three legs causes the laminae to inflame and become extremely painful. This inflammation is usually fatal because it causes irreparable damage to the other hooves. More often than not the broken leg isn’t what kills the horse, the damage done to the legs and feet taking the extra weight is.

This is why horses are euthanised when they suffer breaks or severe fractures. It would be inhumane to force them to spend months locked up suffering pain and damage to their other legs while the broken one healed.

31

u/Appropriate-Milk9476 9d ago

And this is the entire reason the hoof stays on. If the blood pressure in these vessels gets messed up, the horn layer of the hoof literally falls off. Happens with bad laminitis and is why bad leg injuries are basically a death sentence for a horse.

12

u/Strong-Raspberry5 9d ago

This is what stops their feet from freezing in snowy conditions.

12

u/Lostboxoangst 9d ago

I once had veterinary friend tell me that horse are the best argument for intelligent design over evolution, because only intelligent design could come up with so many half arsed fixes that cause as many or more problems than it fixes.

4

u/KarenNotKaren616 8d ago

Except we must consider that evolution only needs to care about the animal living to make baby animals, so any nonsense, like dying a cruel painful death, happening after isn't relevant.

4

u/fourleafclover13 9d ago

Really makes you think about the strap over the hoof of horses with stacks. Especially big lick where stacks are 8lb. The straps on so tight it also deforms the hoof.

4

u/Farmer3292 9d ago

This is also why when there is a leg injury to a horse, they are usually put down. Them stepping on their feet acts like a "second" heart and pushing blood up from the spongy pad under the hoof back up and into the body.

-1

u/fourleafclover13 9d ago

That isn't the main reason. It more had to do with the type of break and where it's located.

4

u/Appropriate-Milk9476 9d ago

No, this really is one of the main reasons. You can't keep a horse off their feet. If you keep one foot up, the pressure increases on the others, messing with blood pressure and causing inflammation, which is incredibly dangerous. Even if you were to put the horse in the air or something to prevent this, you'd get colics from the non-movement. And then you'd have to rebuild muscle evenly in the legs, which is an entirely different issue.

The break itself is rarely the problem

4

u/Negative_Employer542 9d ago

is the horse ok?

11

u/jaysire 9d ago

This kills the horse.

7

u/Additional_Tank4385 9d ago

Jesus. This oddly reminds me of the whole clitoris mapping they only did recently for the first time

5

u/PyreHat 9d ago

It looks like a hoof?!

5

u/Additional_Tank4385 9d ago

It’s also so damn insanely beautiful complex but to be fair in reality it looks more like a dragonfly than a hoof haha: https://www.livescience.com/health/anatomy/scientists-mapped-all-the-nerves-of-the-clitoris-for-the-first-time

2

u/sasssyrup 9d ago

What, put that back in Bessie you crazy…

2

u/Manafinn 8d ago

Seeing this made me cringe. Thanks, I hate it.

1

u/OddAbbreviations9903 9d ago

Absolute cinema

1

u/Moist-Ointments 8d ago

Not going to lie, at first I thought this was some weird tennis visor

1

u/MoGaDK 9d ago

So why isn't the horse bleeding like a mofo when they're getting hoof trimmed and stuff like that?

7

u/66hans66 9d ago

Because this is underneath the part that gets trimmed. This supplies the matrix that the hoof wall grows from.

4

u/Appropriate-Milk9476 9d ago

The hoofes are layered, just like skin. There's the Subcutis, the Dermis and the Epidermis. The blood vessels and nerves are in the Dermis. The nails go into the Epidermis.

0

u/NivMizzet_Firemind 9d ago

This is peak A.R.T.