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Even if your horse never goes to a show, infectious disease can sneak into his stable. He may be infected when a new horse arrives at the barn or when another horse goes off the property and returns carrying disease. Visitors may carry disease onto the property on shoes or clothing.
How great is the danger? That depends on many factors, including the number of horses on the farm, the amount of contact they have with each other and outsiders, their health and vaccination status and nitty-gritty details of management, from how manure is handled to how (and how often) water buckets are cleaned. To get a sense of how your horse's living situation measures up, use Equine Guelph's Biosecurity Risk Calculator (www.equineguelph.ca/Tools/biosecurity_2011.php
), an online quiz that scores your facility and points out where and how you can improve.
"There are simple, easy ways to reduce risk," says Dr. Traub-Dargatz, "and there are more complex procedures that can reduce risk further but may impact the way the facility is managed." For example:
- Stable horses who travel often apart from those who stay home—show horses separate from broodmares, for example.
- Isolate new horses for at least three weeks (see "Biosecurity Basics" below). Monitor temperatures and watch for signs of illness, such as diarrhea, cough or nasal discharge.
- Limit contact between visitors and horses. Depending on your situation, the rules can range from no petting or feeding to no visitors at all in the barn.
- Wash hands before and after handling all horses.
- Control rodents and insects, which can spread disease.
- Call your veterinarian promptly when a horse develops a fever or shows other signs of being sick. The sooner you identify the problem and isolate the horse, the less time the disease has to spread to other horses in the barn or to other horse facilities.
- Work with your veterinarian to make sure your horse gets the recommended vaccinations at the recommended times, which will depend on where he lives and what he does.
- Have a biosecurity plan in place before an outbreak occurs, so you know how and where horses will be isolated and what procedures will be followed. "Coming up with a plan as a situation develops is difficult," Dr. Traub-Dargatz says.
|If infectious disease breaks out at your barn, work with your veterinarian to determine the cause and limit the spread. Specifics of control vary by disease because different disease-causing agents spread in different ways and can linger in the environment for varying times. (AAEP has disease-control guidelines on its website, www.aaep.org.) Here are steps that apply to most diseases that spread horse to horse.
- Isolate the sick horse. Move him to a separate barn or a stall as far from other horses as possible, if you can, and make the isolation area off-limits to everyone except essential caregivers. Keep out anyone—even dogs and cats—who could track germs through your barn.
- If you can't isolate the sick horse, let him stay in his stall but limit his contact to essential caregivers. Don't move neighboring horses; they have probably already been exposed and could spread the disease.
- Feed, muck and care for the sick horse last (or dedicate staff to his care) to reduce the risk of spreading infection. Use separate equipment for him or disinfect equipment after use. Compost his used bedding and manure in a separate pile, and don't spread it on areas where horses are kept.
- Keep a pair of coveralls, some old boots and a box of disposable latex gloves nearby to wear -exclusively when working with him. Put a disinfectant foot bath or foot mat outside the stall door to step in when you're done. Wash your hands thoroughly and follow with hand-sanitizing gel with at least 61 percent alcohol.
- Turn out the sick horse (if he's well enough) in a separate paddock. Don't let him share water or have contact with other horses. For some diseases it's enough to avoid nose-to-nose contact; for flu, which spreads via airborne droplets, keep the sick horse at least 150 feet from other horses.
- Cancel show 