A “virus” went through our barn last year at this time – symptoms were fever, not eating/drinking, and some horses did display mild colic symptoms – there was no diarrhea and no coughing or respiratory symptoms. 5 of the 6 horses at the barn got sick but recovered after about a week.
Now here we are again, same time of year and it’s like deja vu. One of the horses got sick with the same symptoms and after much discussion, owner and vet decided to run the test for Salmonella. Horse comes back very low positive (I’m told if the test was 3 points different it would’ve been a negative). A second horse in the barn (his neighbor) falls ill with the same symptoms and sadly had to be put down with complications from his illness. He was not tested for Salmonella but assumed to have the same.
We’re all waiting and hoping and praying this doesn’t continue to spread to the other horses in the barn now. BO is working with our vets and doing everything possible to isolate the sick areas and limit any spread of illness to other horses.
Our vets have been very honest with us in letting us know that they don’t know of any other farms that have dealt with Salmonella and are at a bit of a loss here, having only seen Salmonella cases in the vet hospitals during their vet school days. They are researching and working to find answers for us and ways to move forward.
My BO (bless her!) as well as all of us boarders are so devastated and concerned about how we move forward. Vets have discussed the desire to test all of the horses in the barn once we get past this a bit to see if one of our horses is a carrier and is shedding the bacteria. A few of the horses do come and go from the farm for trail rides/clinics/etc but based on the timing and nature of the outings in conjunction with the timeline of the illnesses, we feel that the illness is actually originating from within our own barn and perhaps the stress from the trips is just making the horses more susceptible. It’s a small farm so although BO does have the ability to separate horses from each other, all of the pastures have potentially been “contaminated” at this point, especially assuming last year’s “virus” was also a Salmonella outbreak.
We’re at a loss though – how is this happening? BO runs a clean barn and is a responsible horsewoman. I understand that Salmonella is just “out there” in the environment and that horses are probably exposed to it all the time. I grew up at a very large boarding/lesson/show barn that had literally hundreds if not thousands of horses passing through there during the 20ish years I was there. We trailered to other farms to show. I’ve kept my horse at the state fairgrounds countless times in stall where strange & no doubt, stressed horses have stayed… We’ve NEVER experienced anything like this or heard of anyone else experiencing this. We don’t know what this means for us moving forward – for our own barn activities and in our future interactions with the area horse community.
I thought I’d come to the COTH community to see if others have been through this before and could share their experiences. Where do we go from here?
