I'm not a scientist and I'm definitely still learning, but the way I understand it, we have 3 night blind ponies here. Now no horse sees worth a crap, even in the best of conditions. Hence why they are a flight animal and can end up in the next county before they realize that the lawn chair that is 6 feet away from where it was yesterday isn't going to come through the fence and eat them. However, night blind is a whole new ball game.
I've been doing some more research on a fantastic website called The Appaloosa Project on CSNB or Congenital Stationary Night Blindness. It is a condition that is inherited and present at birth, non progressive, and characterized by impaired or absent vision at night. How do I know that we have 3 that are night blind? Well, behavior for one thing. All you have to do is hang out with Charlie or Invy in the barn at night or outside in their dry lot and you know for a fact they can't see a thing. But also knowing that they are homozygous for the Appaloosa color gene, means they have CSNB. You don't have one without the other.
Now homozygous is awesome in a broodmare or stallion. It means that you are guaranteed any foal of theirs will have Appaloosa coloring/characteristics. No dreaded solid colored foals with breeding to a homozygous stallion or with a homozygous mare. However, something to keep in the back of your mind is CSNB. Two copies of the LP (Appaloosa color) gene guarantees that the pony will have CSNB.
If you're wondering how bad it gets for them, the Appaloosa project describes it this way. "As soon as the light level drops below what you can comfortably read a book at, the change for the horse is dramatic. Below this level, a darkened room that still has enough light for you to see and avoid all objects easily is completely black to the horse with CSNB. Likewise, on a moonlit night, when you can still see trees, rocks and ground texture, that Appaloosa with CSNB sees nothing." That's a pretty straight forward answer. I get it, thanks. Nothing - they see nothing.
What does this mean? It means safe fencing. Knowing that they cannot see fencelines, even in the most moonlit of conditions. They need to know and understand where their boundaries are. The other thing is an understanding owner. Just knowing that you could surprise, sneak up on or startle your pony in conditions that wouldn't startle a horse with normal vision. Like a dimly lit barn/stall/trailer or in their pasture early in the morning/late at night. It's always something to keep in the back of your mind.
For us, it is totally worth it. It is worth having secure nighttime pastures or stalls in order to have that guaranteed color on any mare. And, as we are discovering, Pepper is most likely homozygous and night blind as well. She does great in her pasture during the day, but mornings usually find her with destroyed fencelines and grazing where she wasn't intended to be. Hot fence isn't ideal fencing for Pepper. Solid stall walls or round pen panels are more her style. Some ponies it doesn't seem to matter, they are just that chill that they aren't going to be tearing around in the middle of the night. Pepper laughs in the face of chill and rewrote the book on sass. She's all about running just for the joy of running. Fencelines don't hold up to her youthful exuberance.
But who could be angry at this face?
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