HORSE TIPS

Cases of Streptococcus equi subspecies equi were on the rise throughout 2022, according to data collected through the Equine Respiratory Biosurveillance Program.2 Learn more about the potential causes in this recently released study,3 and help protect your patients by sharing the following strangles-related reminders with your clients.

Combating an uptick in strangles

Strangles is affecting more and more horses, according to ongoing data collected through the Equine Respiratory Biosurveillance Program. Strangles can impact any horse at any time of year, but data points to seasonal and situational increases. Keep these key facts in mind:3

• Quarter horses were more likely to test positive for strangles than other breeds

• Middle-aged horses (the median age was 8) are more commonly impacted

• Competition and ranch and farm horses were more likely to test positive than horses used for other activities

• Strangles is more common in the spring and winter, though positive cases were reported in all four seasons

• Nasal discharge, fever and lethargy were the most common clinical signs reported, which may look similar to the signs of other upper respiratory infections

• Diagnosis is an important step to ensure treatment plans and biosecurity measures are appropriate and effective

• Isolation of horses with strangles remains the best method to prevent disease spread

This installment of Ron’s Campfire is an original piece written by Ron McDaniel, National Equine Sales Director for Merck Animal Health.

The only other job I’ve held before my career of selling vaccines and medicine to veterinarians was that of a feed salesman. This was back in the early ‘80s and I was selling hog feed that was “amino acid balanced.” I would stand up at producer meetings and extol the virtues of my high-powered feed, how it would improve feed conversion and average daily gain. After one of those meetings, a farmer came up to me and, hoping to make a sale, I explained to him that we could shave a week to 10 days off the time it would take to get his hogs to market. He looked squarely at me and said, “What’s time to a hog.”

I recently attended a funeral, a celebration of life, for a fine young man in our community who passed away from a heart condition he lived with all of the 20 years he spent on this earth. Our families have been friends for years, so we had the privilege of watching this young man grow up. He loved horses and roping. It would not be unusual to see him and a group of young men in the grocery store parking lot after hours roping the dummy under the lights. As folks shared memories, this gathering of teenagers roping the dummy was often mentioned. After the funeral, someone I hadn’t seen for a few years came up and said hello. He was a young man with a job in town now, but the last time I’d seen him, he was a teenage boy who lived with his mother out in the country across the road from us.

After briefly catching up, he looked me square in the eye, and with a hint of some emotion said, “I want to thank you for teaching me how to rope the dummy years ago when I used to come over to your house. Because of that, I got to hang out with the guys in town, roping the dummy and making friends.”

That had quite an impact on me. Driving home I recalled a similar situation years before that. A couple in our rural community had a son just a year older than my boy. They lived about a mile from us, which is no distance at all. Our boys played together and were both in the 4-H Youth Shooting Sports. Sadly, his mother was diagnosed with cancer and less than a year later, she passed.

At her funeral service, her husband came up to me and said, “Ron, I wanted to thank you for taking my son squirrel hunting and helping him bag and clean his first squirrels.”

Two unrelated scenarios and yet two individuals, processing their grief expressed thanks for random actions that cost me nothing but time.

That hog that has no idea that he’s even going to market, let alone when he’s going to market. And even though I know my days are numbered, I don’t know when I’ll be called to my heavenly home. Best use my time wisely.

Besides, what’s time to a hog or an old cowboy.

This Old Horse, a Hastings, Minnesota-based provider of rescue, retirement and recovery support for older and special-needs horses through their farms and foster network, is among 223 nonprofit horse care facilities to receive complimentary vaccines and microchips through the Unwanted Horse Veterinary Relief Campaign (UHVRC).

There are no greater stories to be told than those of the practicing equine veterinarian. Pull a chair up to Ron’s Campfire to read some of the best from equine veterinarians who not only have scientifically gifted minds, but also are talented writersand storytellers.

If you have a story or blog you’d like to share, we’d love to feature it. Please email Ron McDaniel to learn more or to submit contributions.

The longstanding partnership between Merck Animal Health and the AAEP provided 7,000 of the company’s HomeAgain® TempScan® Microchips and 7,000 doses of both Prestige® 5 + WNV and EquiRab® to help protect horses against Eastern and Western equine encephalomyelitis, equine rhinopneumonitis (EHV-1 and EHV-4), West Nile virus, equine influenza, tetanus and rabies. Since inception of the UHVRC in 2008, Merck Animal Health has generously provided more than 53,000 doses of core vaccines valued at over $1 million.

“On any given day, we support more than 200 horses in our facilities, all of them requiring regular vaccination as part of their ongoing health maintenance,” said Nancy Turner, founder and president of This Old Horse. “Microchipping plays a big role in our safety net program to assure that any of ‘our’ horses placed in adoptive homes can always find their way back home if their circumstances change. The generous award of vaccines and microchips will reduce our health and safety expenses for each horse, enabling the savings to be reallocated to help horses in other ways.”

The annual application deadline is Feb. 1.

Learn more at aaep.org/horse-owners/unwanted-horseveterinary-relief-campaign.

Bunny, a 27-year-old American Paint Horse who was a successful show horse and broodmare until her retirement, is among the equine residents at This Old Horse to benefit from Merck Animal Health vaccines and microchips through the UHVRC.