What exactly is muscle wastage?

[Laura2184]

Please can somebody explain and maybe show me a few pictures? I'm slightly worried my horse may have some, I do need to get a back man.

Thanks!

[Sammii819]

Muscle Wastage is when a horse's muscle reduces as with a human, if you work out as a body builder then do nothing for ten weeks the muscle mass will reduce, this occurs in horses that are out of work for some reason ie due to injury, holidayetc, older horses suffer from it when retired or it can be due to illness or worming problems.

[JOJOBA]

Most often when it comes to bad back or saddle seen as a prominent spine, dips behind the withers (should be smooth or convex, not concave), a dip at the base of the neck...
Do you have a pic of your horse?

As well as being due to lost weight muscle wastage can be caused due to pressure from a badly fitting saddle - the rest of the horse may look fine but they will have muscle wastage in the saddle area due to pinching and crushing from the saddle.

xxx

ETA -

This horse is underweight and has bad muscle wastage:
http://www.homeofrestforhorses.co.uk/news/newsitem/archive/2006/jan/images/luckythin.jpg


This is nasty muscle wastage caused by a saddle:
http://www.western-saddler.co.uk/images/musclewastage.jpg

xxx

[Laura2184]

ahh I see. Thank You very much for that, I'll try and get some pics of his back and put them on here so you can see what you think. :)