Strangles

[CupcakeTough]

Unfortunately, there seems to be cases of strangles going around my area. My farm is private- just my horses and I haven’t been trailering out this year for any clinics or shows. So, I’m probably fine. But I’ve been following the other cases and I’m interested in the protocol and thought I’d get a discussion going.

One barn is under full quarantine. Horses are being separated that are showing symptoms. They’re running tests on all horses every week to see if any are testing positive. No horses are going in or out of the facility.

One barn has separated those with strangles, those who have been exposed, and those that are in the clear. They are still having lessons, but have canceled all clinics.

Another barn is private as well, they are on quarantine but aren’t separating horses. The vet said to let it run its course through the herd and treat as needed. I should note that the horses are receiving antibiotics and having any abscesses drained.

I know 2 of the vets and respect them both. How would you go about treating strangles- would you “let it run its course” or would you carefully separate horses? And why?

I’ve (fortunately) never had to deal with strangles, but I’m genuinely curious.

[ActNatural]

Sometimes separating the sick horses is a losing battle. It’s so easily spread. Despite having completely separate feeders and workers, doing bleach washes for shoes after leaving a stall, and several other measures, it spread. It’s really not really a huge and scary deal other than being a huge pain in the rear time and money wise. It’s basically like the flu; bad for the very young, very old, or immune compromised horses.

[Simkie]

All I know is this:

When strangles spread through my boarding barn because a filly was brought home from the training barn 3+ weeks after the last sick horse was cleared, my vet pretty much refused to come out to look at my horse with a 100% normal presentation, lest she contaminate herself, and advised that I use banamine to manage any fever and to not touch the damned abscess. And to by no means use any sort of antibiotic, as bastard strangles is a hell of a lot worse than straight up strangles.

It really wasn’t a big deal, just gross.

But I’d really not be keen on bringing my well horse to a barn with an active strangles outbreak, and if it was necessary, I’d make damned sure that any horse I brought was well vaccinated with the IN vax.

The worst bit about our outbreak was not the horses that got the disease–which was gross but manageable–but the horse that got purpura. He was far more painful, and far more dire than any of the gooey snotty abscessy horses. And the dex he needed to get though it cost him his eyeball.

[trubandloki]

I think separating or not depends quite a bit on the facility. A large facility with the ability to move all sick or possibly sick horses to one area is smart. A small facility with only one small barn and adjoining turn out areas really has no good way to separate out the sick horse and there is not very many places that are going to let you ship in a horse with strangles to do a proper quarantine.

[HiJumpGrrl]

My horse got very, very sick and spent 7 days at the vet school with guttural pouch empyema due to strangles last year after a sick pony came and was put in his stall. the “no big deal, usually runs its course” illness hit my healthy, not immune-compromised 6yo horse to the tune of $7k. It also precipitated Head Shaking Syndrome (because, you know, nerves run through that guttural pouch including the trigeminal nerve), which ultimately made me retire him.

on my farm, they tried to separate the exposed and symptomatic. None of the foals appeared symptomatic, and there were tiny babies. Most of my horse’s barn-mates got it (although nobody swabbed positive at time of infection, they all have positive titres this year–that PCR swab is useless unless you get guttural pouch puss or submandibular puss; all kinds of false negatives with nasal sample). The barn did not quarantine, because it’s not mandated in NC, and some traveled to shows in the midst of the illness (with negative nasal swabs that likely meant nothing).

I have never vaccinated for strangles before, but you bet your butt I’m doing it every year from now on with my new horse. Too many horses in and out of my barn, I go to too many shows where other horses could be sick, etc. The efficacy of the strangles vaccine was in question for many years, but it looks like the intranasal live vaccine prevents upwards of 70% of infections, and limits the severity of the rest. And what do you know, a barn down the street has an outbreak now, so it appears to have been a prudent decision.

[Simkie]

@HiJumpGrrl

I have never vaccinated for strangles before, but you bet your butt I’m doing it every year from now on with my new horse. Too many horses in and out of my barn, I go to too many shows where other horses could be sick, etc. The efficacy of the strangles vaccine was in question for many years, but it looks like the intranasal live vaccine prevents upwards of 70% of infections, and limits the severity of the rest. And what do you know, a barn down the street has an outbreak now, so it appears to have been a prudent decision.

Regarding the IN vaccine–one of my horses had been vaccinated with it yearly, but we’d lapsed several years. During that strangles outbreak I described above she lived in the field with my SERIOUSLY gross, gooey horse (didn’t find out about it until she was WELL exposed, no reason to stress either by separating them) and only got a snotty nose. So even without a current vax, it really did lessen the severity. I really appreciated it at that moment!

[walktrot]

Strangles went through our barn quite a few years ago, when there were about 40 horses on the premises. The BO vaccinated most of her horses and required it of boarders also. Those who did get it didn’t have a very bad case, mostly snotty noses and lack of energy, except for a few youngsters who hadn’t been vaccincated yet. According to the vet the outbreak could have been a lot worse, so even though the vaccine is not 100% effective (and no vaccines are) it did help cut down on the misery. Once they have it or are exposed you don’t vaccinate anymore. I was fortunate in that my gelding showed no signs whatsoever. We did continue the quarantine for a couple of weeks after the last symptoms were seen.

[walktrot]

Strangles went through our barn quite a few years ago, when there were about 40 horses on the premises. The BO vaccinated most of her horses and required it of boarders also. Those who did get it didn’t have a very bad case, mostly snotty noses and lack of energy, except for a few youngsters who hadn’t been vaccinated yet. According to the vet the outbreak could have been a lot worse, so even though the vaccine is not 100% effective (and no vaccines are) it did help cut down on the misery. Once they have it or are exposed you don’t vaccinate anymore. I was fortunate in that my gelding showed no signs whatsoever. We did continue the quarantine for a couple of weeks after the last symptoms were seen.

[ecileh]

We had an outbreak a few years ago and tried the separation plan, but it failed, ultimately. It was never clear to me whether it failed because we caught it too late to make a difference, or because it’s just not a reasonable thing to do on a smallish horse property with the same barn workers responsible for the whole property.

The vet instructed us to hot pack and drain abscesses if they burst on their own, but not to try to lance or otherwise open them ourselves. There was a lot of bleach, a lot of HOT water and lye soap for hands, and a lot of nasty, nasty pus. One abscess burst on my hand and left me with a “chemical burn” from how caustic it was.

We did not lose any horses and it did not go through the whole barn–amazingly enough. It was not a tragic experience, but it was a messy, stressful one and it did prevent the BO from going to much of the show circuit she usually attends, so there was money lost.

As an aside and possible coincidence, both myself and the barn manager did most of the heath care on the sick horses and we both got horrible throat/tonsil/adenoid infections. We joke that we’ve both had strangles now, so we’re good to go if there is another outbreak.

[btswass]

When I was a kid I went to a two week riding camp that had a strangles outbreak. I was supposed to bring my pony and couldn’t because of it. They separated the infected horses and it seemed to halt the spread.

On a somewhat off note my boy picked up strep last month. Fortunately it wasn’t strangles just a mild form of strep that quickly went away with antibiotics. I ride to the barn down the road to use their indoor but none of their horses were sick. How could he have picked it up if not from another horse?

[candyappy]

You are better off to let it run it’s course, if possible. When my 2 had it I was wanting to treat but my vet advised against it . My 2 came through it better than I did, but when you run the risk of them getting " bastard strangles" later on, it is best to try and hang on without antibiotics.

[AKB]

I would get antibody titers checked to see if your horse has antibodies. If he has high titers, he should be protected and should not be given the vaccine. If he has a negative titer, and has not been recently exposed, I give the intranasal vaccine. There is a position paper on strangles (strep equi) that I found to be helpful.

http://www.wormsandgermsblog.com/files/2006/11/J-Vet-Intern-Med-2005-Sweeney.pdf

[CupcakeTough]

Very interesting everyone! Reading people’s responses made me even more curious and I started reading some articles on line. I found a pretty comprehensive one http://www.thehorse.com/articles/34919/strangles-dispelling-the-myths that addresses “myths” and talks about bastard strangled and antibiotics. However, the article is a few years old… thoughts?

I do feel lucky to never have had to deal with strangles, but this year’s outbreaks have definitely got me thinking! I normally show, lesson, and clinic quite a bit, but took this year off. I’ll definitely be doing intranasal vaccinations from here on out. Sounds like there’s a pretty big difference in efficacy!

[fivehorses]

I had 2 years of vet administered IN strangles vac administered and it did not protect my horses from contracting strangles, which turned into bastard strangles. So, don’t bank that your horse is 100% protected.

[Buglet1]

We have 30+ horses at our barn. We had a new mare come in from a respectable breeding facility. She had a clean health certificate and looked totally normal upon arrival. A few days after she arrived, we noticed that she wasn’t feeling right and had a slightly snotty nose. We immediately removed her from the barn and placed in a quarantine paddock. 90% of the horses in the barn had been vaccinated for strangles. The mare ended up with a terrible case of strangles. She had fevers of 105 and banamine would only help for a few hours. She had abscess’ under her chin and on the sides of her face. We had our normal barn workers take care of the rest of the horses and only I was permitted to take care of the sick mare. I kept a bin with gloves, boots, and overalls down by her paddock and well as a bin for her grain. I also had a pan that i would fill with bleach/water to rinse my boots off. Luckily not a single other horse got sick. Not sure if it was due to the vaccine or good quarantine measures but we were very lucky. Turned out that she had been shipped out for someone to try a few days before we bought her and she was shipped in a trailer that was contaminated.

[twelvegates]

@AKB

I would get antibody titers checked to see if your horse has antibodies. If he has high titers, he should be protected and should not be given the vaccine. If he has a negative titer, and has not been recently exposed, I give the intranasal vaccine. There is a position paper on strangles (strep equi) that I found to be helpful.

http://www.wormsandgermsblog.com/files/2006/11/J-Vet-Intern-Med-2005-Sweeney.pdf

^this^

[mfleming13]

I had a mare with strangles and the vet did suggest we attempt to not touch the sick horses and then go touch a healthy horse, but enough of the horses contracted it and the facility was so small that quarantine really was not an option. It came into the barn when a perfectly healthy pony came in, he had a runny nose a few days later and passed it on to the mare next to him. She then had a runny nose, but nothing was thought of it and things continued as normal. Two weeks later, all the horses that came in contact with the new pony and the mare had a case of strangles. We did not give antibiotics, we did soak the abscesses with hot packs and gave banamine for fevers. We did not have to use any dex or anything of that sort.

My poor mare also somehow managed to nearly cut her eyelid off (with no damage to her eye, thankfully) while she was sick and confined to her stall. Poor horse, 103 degree fevers and she had to get her eyelid stitched back on!

[2Below]

There’s Strangles going around in a barn close to me (big barn for the area, 40+ horses). They have been quarantining every affected horse and any that were near the original horse early on. It seems like they get to the end of a 3 week quarantine and another pops symptoms. This has been going on since Mid December. The vet is giving antibiotics and lancing absesses, which surprised me because I thought that wasn’t recommended. Over a year ago I sold a pony to a family who is about 4 hours away, they also have Strangles going through their barn. The owner called me the other day to ask if pony had ever had the vax, which he hadn’t in the time I owned him. The pony could have been vaccinated prior to my having him and so far he shows no symptoms, despite sharing a waterer with an infected horse. I have a private barn and typically haven’t given the vax, but reading others experiences makes me rethink it.