I have talked several times with the owner. Gently, of course. The mare is barely eating and has lost hundreds of pounds in a few weeks. She stands in one corner of her paddock and doesn’t move. She isn’t engaging with her owner when she used to be very social. She will occasionally perk up in the evening and her owner says she gets hopeful, but by the next day, she is back to her new “normal”, lethargic, depressed, standing and staring off into space. I told her it’s a kind thing to do to let her go quietly, peacefully, before she goes down and it’s an emergency or pain from one of the abcess bursting. This morning she said she is leaning towards letting her go. She is going to do the 10 day of antibiotics so she feels she tried, and then if she isn’t picking upeating, or energy, she is going to have her euthanized. I understand it is a hard decision, so I have been gentle but truthful with her.
Her vet called the barn owner back, said the abcesses should be walled off, and thus not infectious. He said it is not reportable to the state vet.
My vet called me back this morning, and said sort of the same thing, not reportable unless nasal discharge/respiratory symptoms/active case. Not infectious UNLESS the abcess bursts. In which case, the horse will go down and literally die, and then the area she is in WILL have the active disease. He said that in this case, prognosis is extremely poor, you couldn’t pay him to open her up (she is probably riddled with it, and surgery would most likely not have a good result and most likely the decision to euth would be made on the table), and that she should be euthanized in a remote part of the property, and be buried and NOT opened up for an autopsy etc.
Then, my friend who boards there, her vet gave some different information. She said that she WOULD keep our horses from direct contact as a precaution (which we are doing right now, I closed the pasture gate for the pasture that borders this mare’s pasture), and that legally it SHOULD be reported and we should be put on quarantine, and that most likely the state vet would make the owner euth to protect the spread if she were to rupture spontaneously.
UGH. So I don’t know what to believe, there really isn’t a ton of information on bastardized strangles that I can find, but I do believe my vet’s information because I know he is a good vet, one of the best in the area, and has never steered me wrong.
This boarder also has 2 other horses which are pastured with this mare, one of which is stalled in the front barn (not my barn but where some other boarders keep their horses as well), so it worries me if the mare ruptures…and this horse picks it up and brings it to the other boarder’s horses in the front barn, who are pastured in different pastures with different horses throughout the farm, effectively possibly spreading through the whole farm.
And, myself as well as another boarder routinely leave the farm for schooling, trail riding, as well as I have my mare’s first show coming up in August. Now I am not so sure I should do any of that until this is resolved
