# Would you buy a horse with melanomas?



## hamlette (Jul 15, 2013)

I recently looked at a 13 yr old gray with at least two melanomas. Would you still buy a horse if you knew he had them?


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## Cowgirls Boots (Apr 6, 2011)

No help here but, my friend bought her gelding 6 years ago as a "10 year old". She got him and soon after realized he had lumps on his lips. BO told her it was bit sores. Come to find out her "10 year old" was checked out by the vet and was really in his late 20s with melanomas. Vet told her "if nothing else kills him, this will". 6 years later he's still going strong. And she rode him up until this year. He has to be up in his 30s we suspect now. His sheath and butt are covered in tumors and periodically they will busy open and she has to keep them clean and drain them.
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## Roperchick (Feb 1, 2010)

We had a grey Arab gelding that lived with melanomas for 15+ yrs.

Best kids horse I've ever had but it was also big vet bills to remove them and treat tgem when they flared up to had.

(His case was huge skin cancer right along his girth line and on his sheath so it did interfere if they grew too much) 

And it is what eventually killed him.
Is this helpful? I don't know. That was pretty much worst case

How severe is this horses case?

If it doesn't interfere with them eating, having a saddle and it isn't causing other major health problems I don't see a big problem with it


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

Since most gray horses will end up with melanomas at some point in their life, I wouldn't immediately rule a horse out due to them if he fit my program in every other way.

Personally, I will never own another gray horse just so I can avoid dealing with them (I have a gray now that's had 2 removed in the past and has 5 more that need surgery to be removed).


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## Cowgirls Boots (Apr 6, 2011)

My friend has never had them removed but they're so bad around his butt and you can't stick your hand up his sheath because its covered in tumors. He's also got them on his lips but they never seem to bother him unless they burst and she needs to drain it and keep it clean. Sorry I'm not much help. I own a 12 yr old grey who doesn't have any. 
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## Cherie (Dec 16, 2010)

Most grays with melanomas die of something else. We have always just left them alone unless they interfered with a girth. Some have gotten huge but they were on horses way up in their 20s or 30s, usually around their rectum or sheath.


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## hamlette (Jul 15, 2013)

Thanks for your input! I haven't found any serious ones but I wasn't exactly looking for them, either. My last horse was gray and had small ones everywhere but died of other causes. I'll mention it at the PPE and see what the vet says too.


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## hamlette (Jul 15, 2013)

What's the average cost of surgery?


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## Roperchick (Feb 1, 2010)

Oh goodness. Iccant even remember what we paid. We tried surgery, burning and chemo on him but iit was like 10 years ago.

Hopefully somebody else can give you numbers.


Good luck and keep us updated if you can!


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

Of course, it will greatly depend on your individual vet as far as cost goes. When I got the 2 taken off of Dobe a few years ago, the total bill, including antibiotic and tetanus booster, was just shy of $200.


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## mc90 (May 21, 2013)

Check the horse's tail for sure. I had a 6 year old grey TB that had his tail covered in tumors as well as others on his body. The vet said that many times the tumors start on the tail and spread from there. 
I would personally not buy a horse that knowingly had melanomas. I just prefer the easy to care for type. If he is a fitting horse for you and you are willing to treat the melanomas then I say go for it.
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## Cherie (Dec 16, 2010)

Very few melanomas need any treating at all. Many Vets feel that the more you mess with any of them, the more they spread. I would be leery of a 5 or 6 year old that had a bunch of them because a very small number of horses have a very aggressive form of them, but all others, I would just ignore.


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## Cowgirls Boots (Apr 6, 2011)

The vet wanted to do chemo on my friends gelding and she said no way. He's a golden oldie now at 30+ but he's doing just fine with the tumors.
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## Joe4d (Sep 1, 2011)

i wouldnt, they killed my grey, had one on his tail, was told same thing, no biggy leave em alone, later he got one ( undiagnosed) inside the throat that grew quick and sealed off his esophagus and killed him due to dehydration and organ failure. went from strong healthy horse to dead in a week. wasnt till the end we figured it out.


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## hamlette (Jul 15, 2013)

UPDATE: So the PPE went great EXCEPT for one smallish melanoma on his rectum. The vet didn't address it until the end of the exam, and by that point I had already fallen in love. Seller says it's been there for about a year and has not grown. The horse is about 13. I am conflicted... I still want him, but am worried about possible malignant internal melanomas in the future. HELP!!


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## Trinity3205 (Dec 21, 2010)

Its a risk, but a small one overall. Some horses will get problematic ones but many many many more live with them NP and die of something unrelated in old age.


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## Cherie (Dec 16, 2010)

It is probably less than 1% that metastasize and cause major complications or death. I have never had one kill a horse and I have owned several hundred gray horses. We have about 25 or 30 of them now and only one has a small melanoma on the underside of her tail. 

Oddly enough, the few people I know that have lost horses to melanomas lost their one and only gray horse. Sometimes the odds just do not work out for an individual, but the overall numbers are still very low.


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

I have no data or even experience to back this up, it's more of one of my own little musings, but I wonder if maybe the horses that end up having to be put down due to melanomas are the ones that develop them early.

Of course, that scares me badly as mine got his first 2 taken off at 7 and now he's got 5 more that need to go (all different spots all over his body...he's a weird one :?). He's only 11 and he's my boy. I hate the thought of losing him when he's still young.


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

I have owned 3 grays.....two I still have right now.

My first gray, and Arabian gelding, died of colic at age 24. He had no external melanomas at all, that I could find, and I tend to go over my horses with a fine toothed comb. I don't know what he actually died of as he was never necropsied(sp?) but he had off and on colic here and there until finally he got a bad spell and didn't recover and I had to have him put down. I suspect he had an entrolith or something similar, but it could have been cancer for all I know. Still, nothing showed up on the outside of him.

My current grays are a 19 yr old Foxtrotter mare and her 3 yr old son. After owning her for 3 years I finally discovered two tiny melanomas on her. One under her tail and one between her thighs. They are both very tiny and while I will keep an eye on them I am not worried about them. 

Hopefully the 3 year old will not have any signs of them until he is in his teens as well.

I guess I feel like a lot of others do. If a horse is very young and has them I might worry more. But a horse in his teens I would likely not worry too much about it. But that's just me. I figure if the horse is wonderful otherwise, I can overlook some small lumps and bumps because we are all going to die of something. I had a Paint horse with skin cancer that died at age 30+ of unrelated causes. Grays aren't the only ones that can have cancer related issues.


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