Lyme Disease Prevention

[HunterMarc]

Looking to hear ideas for those who have dealt with Lymes Disease with horses and how they have prevented it. This past fall (October) my horse was diagnosed and treated and have re-tested again in December to confirm but also plan to re-test every spring and fall.

My horse that was treated is in a dry paddock. 2 of the 4 sides do have grass on the other side, otherwise it is sandy dry paddock. I do spray him with Tri-Tech 14 fly repellent, wears a fly sheet, fly mask and fly boots. I don’t believe the sheet, mask or boots prevent ticks but that is more for flies. I often will ride out in a field for a cool down which has tall grass about 6-8 incessantly tall which is where I believe he probably picked up the tic.

I have thought about getting dog flea/tic collars for putting around the pasterns of all four legs as I have seen this before. Also, probably would not hurt to spray the legs down before I head out for a cool down even though I already spray with fly spray before I ride. But, what else can I do to help prevent this again.

Edited to add that I have used Equi-Spot in the past. When done, I have never seen a tic on him for the two weeks. He is sensitive and he doesn’t really care for it when I apply it.
I also typically do a “tic check” every day where I run my hands all over his body, legs, mouth ears, groin, tail etc. If I do find a tic, I remove it with a tweezers.

It is also to my understand that since he has been exposed to lyme, that on he will always test low positive on a wider scale because he has the antibodies. I have also hear that the lyme vaccines is not very effective. AND because he has had it in the past, its pointless to get the vaccine… or so I have been told by a vet.

Thanks!

[Simkie]

Do you pull ticks off him regularly? It’s possible that he has a chronic type of infection, rather than regular reinfection, and if that’s the case, keeping ticks off of him won’t really help

I feed garlic spring to fall and do find it very effective for ticks–I nearly never see one on my horses. It does carry a low risk of Heinz body anemia, but the air dried garlic is supposed to be less likely to cause that. I order from Springtime.

[skipollo]

I’ve heard of people using EquiSpot to help prevent ticks from attaching, but I’ve never actually tried it so I don’t have first-hand experience with it.

Some people also use the dog vaccine for Lyme. I’ve also never done it as my horse already has chronic Lyme, but if he didn’t have it currently, I would 100% look into getting the vaccine because Lyme is such a bear to deal with.

[wildlifer]

Permethrin is the chemical that repels ticks, so make sure that is in all your repellent products. I have tried the treated pastern band wraps before, they did nothing for us.

I am using equispot again this year (it is Permethrin), I haven’t used it in a while, but did have some success in reducing numbers with it in the past.

Check your horse frequently & always remove ticks manually. Never use anything to try to make them let go on their own (like ointments) - this actually increases risk of disease transmission as the tick either vomits everything it’s carrying or it burrows in deeper. Same for removing them from yourself.

[NaturallyHappy]

:eek: I did not realize ticks vomit. No pun intended, but that is nauseating. Years ago, I worked in a Medical Center and found a tick behind my earlobe. I went to the ER to get one of my pals to pull it off. One of the doctors asked me to wait so all of the residents could see what a tick on a person looks like. They took it off w Neosporin. Gives me the willies after reading this!

[phantomhorse]

Ours are vaccinated with the dog vaccine yearly in the spring. I fly spray before every ride using a product with permethrin (I exclusively ride outdoors). I also use equi-spot or the dog product Vectra topically. After rides, I hose them down weather permitting and carefully go over them to look for ticks.

Before using the spot on products, some rides I was finding as many as 60 ticks per horse after the ride, so keep tweezers, rubbing alcohol, and a small dish in the tack room to drop the ticks into to kill them after removal.

If your horses are at home, fowl (especially guineas) are great tick eaters if left to free range.

[walkinthewalk]

@Simkie

Do you pull ticks off him regularly? It’s possible that he has a chronic type of infection, rather than regular reinfection, and if that’s the case, keeping ticks off of him won’t really help

I feed garlic spring to fall and do find it very effective for ticks–I nearly never see one on my horses. It does carry a low risk of Heinz body anemia, but the air dried garlic is supposed to be less likely to cause that. I order from Springtime.

^^^.This - picking the ticks off regularly. My horses are home so they get checked once daily during the “quiet” season, twice daily when I start seeing dead ones on my dogs — dead because they stay on Advantix II. Our winters don’t get cold enough to drive the ticks deep into the ground —- cold does not kill ticks, they just burrow deeper into the ground:(

I second seasonal feeding of garlic. I found it to be 80% effective when I fed it.

But it has to be processed garlic powder, NOT raw garlic. It’s the allicin (sp?) in the raw garlic that may cause anemia. I don’t, however, recommend feeding it to horses with any sort of ulcer issues.

but, with the OP’s horse already having Lymes, it may be a “darned if you do and darned if you don’t”, and feed it anyway.

[B_and_B]

I use Equi-spot or Freedom, the horses Hate having it applied but it doesn’t appear to cause a skin reaction (even on the uber-sensitive paint) on them, though do not put a used tube in a pant’s pocket if you have sensitive skin. Been there, done that, bad t-shirt. It is the only thing that seems to truly work, assuming it is applied regularly and correctly.
I was using the dog vaccine as well for them, but I don’t think my new vet will do that, have to see.
All that being said! I had a horse for many years who had been treated several times for Lymes. Every titer always came back sky high. We settled on treating with doxy only when he was symptomatic and ignoring the test results. I’ve heard from a number of vets that at least in my area of southern New England, essentially every horse will test positive for Lymes so treatment only makes sense when based on symptoms not test results.

[walktrot]

My gelding had Lyme (no “s”) in 2010. He was on doxy for 6 weeks and cured. I think a lot of people stop using it too soon. The live spirochetes will burrow into the tissues and remerge and re-infect. I have used EquiSpot and I use Endure fly spray because it contains pyrethrin.

You shouldn’t remove them with fingernails. I use a TickEase tool which has really good tweezerfs on one end and a slotted spoon on the other. I also got a Tick Check tool because it isn’t as sharp as the TickEase. I found a tick on an eyelid one day. Fortunately it had bitten so it was easy to remove.

Cornell has a test for Lyme that can determine if it is acute or chronic. Some horses can get a few months of protection with the canine vaccine but the antibodies aren’t that strong.

[HunterMarc]

@walktrot

My gelding had Lyme (no “s”) in 2010. He was on doxy for 6 weeks and cured. I think a lot of people stop using it too soon. The live spirochetes will burrow into the tissues and remerge and re-infect. I have used EquiSpot and I use Endure fly spray because it contains pyrethrin.

You shouldn’t remove them with fingernails. I use a TickEase tool which has really good tweezerfs on one end and a slotted spoon on the other. I also got a Tick Check tool because it isn’t as sharp as the TickEase. I found a tick on an eyelid one day. Fortunately it had bitten so it was easy to remove.

Cornell has a test for Lyme that can determine if it is acute or chronic. Some horses can get a few months of protection with the canine vaccine but the antibodies aren’t that strong.

I did 8 weeks of Doxy as when the 4 weeks came up I still felt that he was not 100%, better but not enough to be finished. Cornell is where the tests have been getting sent to. Just did another test the other day and making it part of our spring and fall routine.

[HunterMarc]

@phantomhorse

Ours are vaccinated with the dog vaccine yearly in the spring. I fly spray before every ride using a product with permethrin (I exclusively ride outdoors). I also use equi-spot or the dog product Vectra topically. After rides, I hose them down weather permitting and carefully go over them to look for ticks.

Before using the spot on products, some rides I was finding as many as 60 ticks per horse after the ride, so keep tweezers, rubbing alcohol, and a small dish in the tack room to drop the ticks into to kill them after removal.

If your horses are at home, fowl (especially guineas) are great tick eaters if left to free range.

Wish I could do the fowl, not my property though!

[FjordBCRF]

I’ve just gone down the rabbit hole on ticks. We have a lot more ticks around here now than we did 10 or 20 years ago :(. In the past couple weeks, I’ve pulled 5 off Charlie. I check him every day so I think I’ve gotten them early. It dawned on me last night as I was scouring the internet for products, that my stinking fly spray I’ve been using all summer deals with them and since the flies have started to slow down, I’ve not been using it and I suspect that is why I’m seeing more on him. I just ordered another gallon to have on hand through the fall and am going to start applying that now for ticks regularly. I do second the Tick Ease tool! I got one of those and it helps a lot yoinking them out.

I’ve not had to have any bloodwork done to date, is this something I should be doing annually like dogs or just keeping an eye for symptoms? I did ask the vet when he was out for fall rounds last week about this and he said just to keep an eye out and remove any I see. Time for my 50 questions…Are there any telltale signs of lyme to look for in horses? What is the reality if they are symptomatic and have to go through treatment? Do they respond well to treatment?

[Simkie]

@Fjordboycharlie

I’ve not had to have any bloodwork done to date, is this something I should be doing annually like dogs or just keeping an eye for symptoms? I did ask the vet when he was out for fall rounds last week about this and he said just to keep an eye out and remove any I see. Time for my 50 questions…Are there any telltale signs of lyme to look for in horses? What is the reality if they are symptomatic and have to go through treatment? Do they respond well to treatment?

I’m newish to tick-ville and had a lot of these same questions when we moved here nearly 4 years ago. A lot of people only test if they see symptoms–subtle, shifting lameness or all over body pain (don’t touch me!!!) are two big ones. I tested last year without seeing those things because I was just having a hellish time with cellulitis and someone here said Lyme could be a contributor…and 3 of my four horses were positive “enough” to treat, and one was REEAAAALLLLLLY positive. Like, highest titer the vet had seen in a long time, positive. She was also the one with all the cellulitis.

So now I test yearly. I had to treat the one super positive horse from last year again this year–her titer had come down, but it was still high. And then I had another two pop with a mystery tick fever thing, so they also went on 30 days of mino. (It’s maybe worth noting that I nearly NEVER see ticks on my horses. But the ones that are most likely to transmit disease are SO small.)

Lyme is tough because there just don’t seem to be many hard and fast rules or answers. Testing isn’t cheap, and neither is treating. But If you have a lot of Lyme in your area, it might make sense to test yearly. Most seem to advise doing it in the fall.

[Posting_Trot]

I’d get your vet to vaccinate the horse with the dog vaccine. Most vets will do it.

It’s also best if the horse is in a pasture that is regularly mowed, as that tends to keep the numbers of ticks down.

Ticks will be anywhere that mice are. So if there’s an old stone wall around, or if you have mice in the barn, they probably have some ticks on them, and some of those ticks may be carrying Lyme.

You can put cotton balls out that have been soaked in permethrin; mice will take the balls and put them in their nests and the permethrin will kill the ticks. If you have mice in the tack room, you can also put out cotton balls soaked in peppermint oil as that tends to repel mice.

Check the horse daily if you can for ticks. Look under the jaw and in the groin area in particular.

Lyme is difficult to diagnose because it tends to mimic other diseases. Look for changes in behavior (a horse may become lethargic or hyper); increased sensitivity to touching or brushing; mild lameness that seems to be on-again-off-again, or that seems to shift limbs; loss of weight and the coat becoming duller; the development of a generally depressed attitude.

In areas where Lyme has become endemic, you should insist on a Lyme test for basically anything that seems to be off, along with other diagnostics.

[FjordBCRF]

I grew up in the country and my dad was forever collecting toilet paper rolls for this haha. Charlie’s pasture is 30 acres and it does get mowed and brushhogged, but there are still woodsy areas so I don’t know how much can be done on that end. Even still, the grass gets high enough that I’m sure it’s great for ticks.

I’ve heard mixed results with the Lyme vaccine for dogs and that it seems to have a decent amount of reactions some being fatal. I’ve not vaccinated my dogs with it and would be leery of dosing my horse without actual equine test data…is there anything being trialed on that end?

I’m pretty much resigned to checking daily and removing any I find 😞. I started applying my fly spray again daily and that seems to be helping. I didn’t realize it worked on ticks as well and hadn’t been using it since it’s cooled off and the flies aren’t insufferable anymore.

[TheMoo]

The vaccine and I use ultra shield in the black bottle. There really is no prevention. It’s also not the end of the world. It can be expensive to treat but always pull a titer if your horse is off in attitude or literally off. I grew up in Lyme central. I’ve had it twice, one horse had it. Everyone was fine after the fact. It’s a matter of recognizing the signs. The most consistent one was my horse just not being herself. If your concerned pull blood. It’s really not a big deal.

Not directed at you OP but I’ve known about and have been dealing with Lyme for the last 30 years so it’s weird that people still freak out.

[FjordBCRF]

@TheMoo

The vaccine and I use ultra shield in the black bottle. There really is no prevention. It’s also not the end of the world. It can be expensive to treat but always pull a titer if your horse is off in attitude or literally off. I grew up in Lyme central. I’ve had it twice, one horse had it. Everyone was fine after the fact. It’s a matter of recognizing the signs. The most consistent one was my horse just not being herself. If your concerned pull blood. It’s really not a big deal.

Not directed at you OP but I’ve known about and have been dealing with Lyme for the last 30 years so it’s weird that people still freak out.

This is what I needed to hear. I do not believe my area is considered HIGH Lyme though there are confirmed cases throughout the state, in my county and surrounding counties. Historically, the tick population has not been nearly as high as it is now so that has been a shift since my childhood. Because it’s not a big deal that we hear about locally so much, I think it’s one of those things that there is more fear around. I can’t say I know anyone or their dog/cat/horse that has had it and had to be treated then recovered just fine. Hearing that it IS treatable and not a huge deal in that sense makes me feel a bit better.

I know there are a lot of Aussie’s on the forum…my dad sent me this https://twitter.com/QldPolice/status/1316939331987124224 and said people in Austraila probably don’t worry so much about ticks :lol:. She was SO CALM!

[Posting_Trot]

I can tell you from personal experience why people freak out.

My previous horse was diagnosed three to four times with Lyme disease, and in part, because that first diagnosis was almost a year after the onset of symptoms, she did have long-term effects. These included occasional stiffness (even though her x-rays and a bone scan were pretty clean for arthritis). In her later years she had problems with edema in hind legs which seemed to be associated with either reinfection with Lyme or a flare up of an unresolved Lyme infection. As it turns out, the bacteria that cause Lyme are very hard to completely kill, particularly in some individuals, particularly in cases where the animal may have been infected for some time before treatment.

My husband has also been diagnosed twice with Lyme disease. Both times he was treated relatively soon after the onset of symptoms, although the second time, his doctor had to be talked into testing him. I think it’s possible that he’s had some long-term issues that came from the Lyme infection, but that’s very hard to parse out.

The biggest downside in using the dog vaccine in horses is that its effectiveness in horses has not been widely tested, and it seems to provide only short-term (6 months) of effectiveness:
https://equusmagazine.com/horse-care/protect-against-lyme.

There was a human vaccine for Lyme disease, but it was discontinued, largely because of anti-vaxxer activism:
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lyme-disease-vaccine-history-effectiveness

[Simkie]

@Fjordboycharlie

I’ve heard mixed results with the Lyme vaccine for dogs and that it seems to have a decent amount of reactions some being fatal.

FWIW, it’s my understanding that the lyme vaccines in use right now do not have this risk like the the early lyme vaccine (which, wow, I recall coming out when my summer job was working for a small animal vet, so would have been…25 years ago???)

I vaccinate my dog yearly for Lyme. It’s not fool proof, but the company will pay your bills if your dog DOES get lyme.

I’ve had lyme myself, and it sucks a WHOLE LOT. I don’t want that for anyone :no: Wish we still had the human vaccine available!!

I probably should have vaccinated my horses when we moved here–they were all lyme naive. Bummer…hindsight

[walktrot]

Since the Cornell test should distinguish acute from chronic it would be worth doing the testing. Our vet, who has retired, was reluctant to use the dog vaccine but would if the owner insisted on it.

My BO has an amazing eye, probably better than most vets. She called me at work one day that the vet was there and she was having my gelding tested for Lyme. She noticed the subtle signs of lameness that wander randomly from leg to leg. At the time the geldings were turned out within view of the living room windows. That was the only hint. It was 10 years ago when the SNAP test (another dog product) was often used to prescreen. She skipped that step, had the blood drawn, and of course she was correct.

I never found a tick to pull. But I did become much more careful about doing tick checks. It helps that he is a sabino Paint with massive amounts of white.