And how can you shorten this period? Asking for a friend…
Seriously? It will be locked down until all the horses are healthy. It will take as long as it takes, as potentially new horses will become infected. You can’t speed it up.
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Would depend on the state they are in, I’d assume, because it may not be ‘reportable’ in all 50, but I could be wrong. Not sure there’s anyone really enforcing barn closure due to it. Perhaps if the horse(s) in question were quarantined away from other horses and biosecurity measures were in force then maybe they could shorten the period, but since they shed bacteria for up to 6 weeks, I don’t think you can really do much, ethically.
So 6 weeks is a normal lockdown? I heard months.
My assumption was/is 6 weeks after last known symptoms are gone from all horses on property. At least that is what I was told by a vet in NC is best practice.
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When I was a kid and we had a strangles outbreak (probably ‘89 or ‘90), the protocol was 6 months!
But the standard I learned in the 21st century is 6 weeks after horses’ symptoms resolve.
One way to prevent that, albeit not helpful after the fact, is to require vaccination.
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Years ago we had a strangles outbreak at a barn with 60+ horses. We hoped to resolve it sooner by taking every single horse’s temperature each morning (my job). The thought was that we could catch that a horse was sick before it showed symptoms, and both look after it and separate it from the other horses. Only one staff person looked after infected horses with a proper change of clothes. It must have helped as we had very few horses develop symptoms, and I think we were done finding new infections after two weeks. I think we stayed “locked down” for only two weeks after the last of the infected horses was healed, but this barn was well able to separate the infected horses into a separate section of the barn, so that may have helped too.
I boarded at a barn that had sent a horse of theirs off for training at a barn that lit up with a strangles outbreak shortly after their horse arrived. Their horse never showed symptoms while there, and they brought her home 30 days after the last strangles symptom seen on the property.
…and then that horse got sick, and strangles ripped through their property 
So keeping locked down for more than 30 days after the last day of symptoms seems prudent!
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Last year, Sept '20, our area was evacuated due to fires. When we returned home, somebody brought strangles with them. It went thru the entire farm, one or 2 horses at at time. My horse was one of the last to get it. Consider this… it was late Sept/early Oct when the first horse showed signs. It was not until February that mine (again, one of the last) was clear enough to consider leaving the property. That was FIVE months, from the first horse.
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Had this happen at my barn a few years ago. You have to do at least 30 days after the last horse with symptoms is no longer symptomatic. At our barn, we didn’t have any way to separate sick horses, so it just kept spreading from one pasture to the next over several months.
If you can take temps twice a day and separate any sick horses, you have a chance of keeping it from spreading. But by separating horses, you need to have completely separate areas, equipment, even clothes. I would take care of my older horse who did not catch it, then change shoes, go to a rubbermaid container kept outside the barn and put on another pair of boots, and then take care of my young horse who was sick. I would not re-enter the barn with healthy horses at all. None of my clothes went back to the barn until they were washed.
All together, I think my barn had active strangles from July-January.
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Hearing all these experiences, that 6 month quarantine we had to do when I was a kid isn’t sounding so far fetched in today’s world.
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And quarantine newly arrived horses.
To me it sounds smart.
I lost my last horse to EHV/M
It was horrific.
And we had a state mandated quarantine after he died. That lasted three months, and we got lucky that it hadn’t spread.
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@CindyCRNA, what is your friend concerned about?
It can be a long wait if new horses keep getting symptoms.
I suppose if your friend could find a place to take their horse where the horse would be living alone, they could probably remove their horse and wait out a shorter quarantine time.
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Depends on how it is handled. The quarantine could be lifted shortly after every horse on the premises tested negative via PCR.
Here’s the ACVIM’s consensus statement on Strep. equi control and management.
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What Ghazzu just said. Symptom-free is meaningless, as a healthy horse can be carrying the Strep deep in their gutteral pouch. That’s how “healthy” barns magically have an outbreak
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Possible more active testing of guteral (sp?) pouches IF the one horse ends up testing positive and running it’s course. The horse is currently at the vets . He had a tooth pulled and 10 days later, an abscess formed on the lower jaw and now there are a string of abscesses down the neck. IMO, abscesses do that and can certainly run down the neck. We’ve all seen shoulder wounds develop abscesses down the leg. I don’t think it is strangles but wondered what protocols were. The sick horse is at the vets. No other horses are sick.
So if a healthy horse has a positive swab of the gutteral pouch, can they undergo treatment to eradicate it?
Yes.
Really really bad cases will get abscesses in places besides the neck such as inside the body cavity. We had it go through a barn I was boarding at many years ago twice when other boarders were showing a lot and it was in the region. Well, it was in the region once and the second time was kind of a mystery but one horse has been recently transported and again, heavy horse show schedules. The veterinarians were really good about flushing the guttural pouches. Most of the horses were vaccinated and many caught it anyway. The vaccinations helped the horses not get so sick. My two did not but I never used the wash racks to groom, just rinse and I groomed in the stalls, still do. I bought hand sanitizer and placed it outside my stalls plus flat plastic containers with a water and bleach mixture for staff to step in when entering and exiting the stall. I also bought vinyl gloves for staff to use. I think most everyone else ended up doing the same. We all bought individual thermometers for our horses and kept them outside the stalls as well and staff and owners checked temperatures twice a day. Most of us stopped hand grazing for a while as well. None of us felt clear until the last horse was cleared just glad everyone’s horses got well. Later, one of my horses had successful emergency surgery for a guttural pouch mycosis hemorrhage and everyone panicked, thinking it was contagious. The barn owner had to step in and calm everyone down. Can’t say I blamed anyone, not after the strangles. Good luck to your friend. It takes what it takes, unfortunately. Flush the guttural pouches.
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