Horses Leaving The Farm: What To Do When They Return
.jpg)
The horse population is perpetually at risk for major disease outbreaks. Sometimes we get lucky and nothing happens, sometimes we get regional outbreaks of disease, and rarely we see large national outbreaks (e.g. influenza in Australia). There are many reasons for this risk, and most involve how we manage our horses. Unlike other domestic animals that rarely travel and are not commonly exposed to large numbers of "new" animals on a routine basis, some sectors of the horse population are highly mobile and there are regular chances for disease exposure. Some of these risks are inevitable (e.g. traveling for competition, emergency visits to an equine hospital).
Ideally, every horse that leaves the property for any reason, be it a show or a stay at an equine hospital, should be isolated upon return. Keeping a horse isolated for 1-2 weeks provides time for transmissible infections to be identified, and for elimination of certain infectious diseases that are only shed for a short period of time (e.g. equine influenza). This is most important when there are high-risk horses on the property (e.g. pregnant mares) or when horses are traveling to places with a high risk of exposure to an infectious disease.
Obviously, isolation of all horses upon return is not practical in all situations, such as when horses are leaving for events on a regular basis or when appropriate facilities do not exist. In these situations, you have to accept that you are putting yourself (and the other horses in the barn) at increased risk for infectious diseases. Therefore, other components of a good infection control program are even more critical, such as rapid identification of horses that might have an infection, a sound infection control plan when such horses are detected, a solid preventive medicine program and good general hygiene measures. Good management practices will reduce (but not eliminate) the risk of disease transmission when an unknown carrier gets on the farm.
If isolation of all returning horses is not possible, you should take particular precautions around:
- Horses that have been to events where sick horses are present.
- Horses that have been in contact with horses from sales.
- Horses that have been at an equine hospital (especially one without an infection control program).
Even if you can't (or won't) isolate new arrivals, you can do other things, such as:
- Make sure that new horses are checked carefully on a daily basis (or more often) for signs like fever, loss of appetite, cough, nasal discharge, enlarged lymph nodes and diarrhea. Also, make sure something happens with that information! It's not helpful if someone is checking temperatures but doesn't know what to do if they identify a horse with a fever.
- Keep new horses as far away as possible from resident horses. For example, keep them at the least-used end of the barn, maybe with an empty stall in between them and any other horses. It doesn't replace true isolation but it's better than nothing. In particular, keep new horses away from the highest risk horses, like broodmares.
- If you have to turn out new arrivals, turn them out by themselves or at least always turn them out with the same group horses, so that if they are infectious, a limited number of horses are exposed.
- If you have any doubts about the health of a new horse, get it examined by a veterinarian. Some diseases have narrow windows of time when horses may show signs of infection but not yet be able spread the disease (e.g. horses with strangles will spike a fever before they start to shed the bacterium). Therefore, prompt action is critical. Calling a veterinarian out earlier can help determine the appropriate measures to take and make the difference between one sick horse and one sick farm.
