Mysterious illness at barn fevers any ideas?

[sascha]

@Relative_Ease

Odd that the Excede seemed to work even though the infection was viral, not bacterial.

I had the $$$$$ $wab (the one that makes the human’s eyes water watching how far up around eyeball level it goes) done on my horse 2 years ago when she came down with a fever and a bit of snot. EHV-2, adenovirus, and Strep Zoo I’m not sure Strep Zoo is looked for in all FUO panels? She recovered just fine from the viruses, but the strep zoo was a bitch to get rid of. Note if your horse goes down the rabbit hole of “how much money can be spent on rads and drugs and sensitivity panels before the right drug is found” Excenel (ceftiofur like Excede) seemed to work really well for the first few flare ups. We changed drugs a few times before a long treatment of Uniprim killed it off sufficiently that we haven’t had a relapse to snot in almost 9 months. Joe SMZs did nada. No, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, I’m just happy we took a flyer and it worked.

However that year of messing around with a sick horse really beat me down and I still check her snot holes every day for any sign of anything that shouldn’t be there - just waiting for the other shoe to drop … again.

FWIW, no other horse in a large and fairly busy and open barn got sick and it was basically too late to try to quarantine by the time we realized it could be an issue - every other horse in her wing had already had direct nose-to-nose contact with her either through stall bars or in turnout.

[Peggy]

@Mardi1

@Relative_Ease

ETA Part II: Cornell FOU panel revealed EHV-4 - the respiratory herpes virus (non-neurologic).

May I ask when this was ?
I did a search on https://www.equinediseasecc.org/ for a recent case of EHV-4 in California and nothing came back. The default search dates were April 20-July 19, 2023.

I highly doubt it’s reportable. It’s not considered a big deal.

Equine%20Herpesvirus_0.pdf

[Mardi1]

@Peggy

I highly doubt it’s reportable. It’s not considered a big deal.

In California, the state’s Department of Food and Ag lists Equine Herpesvirus-1 and 4
as reportable within 30 days of discovery. The person who posted that her horse tested positive for it
said she was located in California.

ca_reportable_disease_list_poster.pdf

[Peggy]

Maybe cases of diseases that fall into that “monitored conditions” column aren’t listed on the disease reporting websites? Listing something that occurred thirty days ago isn’t going to be super helpful to the general population; maybe they want them reported so they have a trail if there’s some sort of an outbreak? I don’t know. I’m still hypothesizing. I don’t recall seeing a case of EHV-4 reported on the disease database site, but it’s not like I’m on there checking for it on a regular basis, or even an irregular basis.

Though I see that strangles is in that same column of monitored conditions and I think I’ve seen California strangles cases on the disease reporting site. Again working off memory here.Though I also know of instances where there were strangles cases at a barn and it never appeared on the site; however, those were more than a few years ago.

[Relative_Ease]

@sascha

I had the $$$$$ $wab (the one that makes the human’s eyes water watching how far up around eyeball level it goes) done on my horse 2 years ago when she came down with a fever and a bit of snot. EHV-2, adenovirus, and Strep Zoo I’m not sure Strep Zoo is looked for in all FUO panels? She recovered just fine from the viruses, but the strep zoo was a bitch to get rid of.
[…]
However that year of messing around with a sick horse really beat me down and I still check her snot holes every day for any sign of anything that shouldn’t be there - just waiting for the other shoe to drop … again.

Yikes, thank you for the heads up on the Strep Zoo. What were the continuing symptoms of that after you eliminated the viruses? My horse seems sensitive to everything (I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop too).

[Relative_Ease]

@Peggy

Maybe cases of diseases that fall into that “monitored conditions” column aren’t listed on the disease reporting websites? Listing something that occurred thirty days ago isn’t going to be super helpful to the general population; maybe they want them reported so they have a trail if there’s some sort of an outbreak? I don’t know. I’m still hypothesizing. I don’t recall seeing a case of EHV-4 reported on the disease database site, but it’s not like I’m on there checking for it on a regular basis, or even an irregular basis.

That’s what I’m thinking - it’s reported to CDFA but CDFA either doesn’t report it to the disease websites or the disease websites don’t publish it. FWIW it was in Kern County at a small private home barn and they voluntarily quarantined their 4 other horses on his second day of fever, before we knew what it was, so none of the horses went off property (and none of them came down with any symptoms being monitored multiple times a day including temp checks). And yeah by the time we got the results from the FOU back it was almost 3 weeks after the sample was taken and he was already treated and recovered and back to work.

[sascha]

@Relative_Ease

Yikes, thank you for the heads up on the Strep Zoo. What were the continuing symptoms of that after you eliminated the viruses? My horse seems sensitive to everything (I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop too).

Snottiness, minor nose bleeds, lethargy and exercise intolerance would reappear every month or three after what seemed like we had everything cleared up. She’d return to work, seem to be holding her own and then signs would gradually reappear - is that a bit of snot? is she breathing harder than yesterday from the same amount of work? That was hard because she is also diagnosed with asthma and is “allergic to life” so unless there was actual snot I could not get more ABX from her vets even though my gut was screaming that it was the same shit back again and we hadn’t hit it hard enough for long enough yet.

One thing I did learn to watch for was the amount of dirt I cleaned out of her nostrils every evening. She is a dirt eater who goes out on poor pasture (I am ok with that!) in an agricultural area that can get very dusty so it was tough to judge whether it was extra dust stuck to normal amounts of nose condensation or whether it was layers of snot covered in dirt that had built up over the day. Since she’s been good for several months I have now learned how much dirt is normal for her - not much! Maybe a little more than Joe Horse without allergies, but not much.

[Roni4444]

A few weeks ago my 8 yo gelding came down with a 103 fever, no interest in grain, ate some hay, lethargic but no other symptoms and blood work didn’t show much. Banamine reduced fever but went up as soon as it wore off. Vet didn’t know what it might be. None of the other horses developed a fever.

I was aware he had a cracked tooth that was just x-rays a few weeks ago and determined as not a problem, but I called another dentist and he determined that the root did abscess and had an infection. It was close to the sinuses but thankfully no sinus infection yet. He usually doesn’t see a fever associated with this type of tooth issue, but extracting the tooth and SMZs have cleared up the fever and he’s himself again. The bloodwork we had redone the same day the dentist came did indicate an inflammation. While it was quite a procedure to get the molar out, I am so thankful it wasn’t anything worse

[ladipus]

A few weeks ago I had an odd illness run through my private barn in Pa …started with one horse coughing then got thick yellowish nasal discharge …never had a fever …then about a week later his pasture mate got same exact symptoms…cough , nasal discharge-no fever, and then about a week after that another horse at the same end of the aisle /neighboring stall but different pasture got same exact …I was able to manage it with Zyrtec and steaming hay until it passed …I called my vet and she said she had dealt with same thing in a couple other farms …her take was just a possible cold/flu or maybe a combination from the recent air quality due to those wildfires and such ?? None of our horses had been anywhere and were all up to date with vaccines …it seems to be behind us now for
The most part …except the one gelding who does also have heaves /asthma is still coughing occasionally.