How to Measure a Horse's Respiration Rate

Video Transcript

"If your horse appears that it's having some trouble with its breathing or if you're just trying to monitor its fitness level, telling its respiratory rate can be a useful tool. In order to tell your horse's respiratory rate, we're just going to watch its nostrils to see when it breathes out, and we'll count those breathing outs for 15 seconds and multiply that by four. So you'll have to wear a watch and we'll start. So after 15 seconds has gone by, take that amount of breaths she took, multiply that by four, and you have your respiratory rate. You can also check her respiratory rate by just watching her ribcage as it comes out and in. When checking your horse's respiratory rate, it's important to know that anywhere between 10 and 20 is a healthy number."