strangles | Horse Racing Free Tips

If a horse is bought at a sale or an auction and his vaccination history is unknown, what is the best approach for administering routine shots? Should he be given boosters, assuming he has been vaccinated previously? Or should he be given shots as if he has no vaccination history at all? Do titers need to be pulled to see what, if any, diseases he is immune to? These are all important questions that can greatly affect a horse's health and safety.

It's best to treat a horse with no vaccination history as if he has never received any vaccines, administering both shots and their routine boosters, reports EQUUS magazine. Administering additional doses of most vaccines is not harmful, with one exception: The strangles vaccine.

In rare instances, horses that have had strangles before, or those that have been repeatedly vaccinated for strangles, may develop a potentially serious complication if administered the vaccine again: purpura hemorrhagica. This abnormal reaction is when the blood vessels of the head, legs and abdomen swell.

Owners of horses with unknown vaccination history would be wise to draw a titer to see if the horse has antibodies to the organism that causes strangles before administering the vaccine.

Read more at EQUUS magazine.

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Horse owners and veterinarians are being asked to complete a short survey on strangles produced by Penn Vet's New Bolton Center.

Strangles became a nationally monitored disease in 2017; this means that each state can have varying rules and regulations on how or if strangles is reported. Some states require that veterinarians notify the state if they have a suspected strangles case (notifiable), while other states only receive confirmed laboratory results (monitoring only). Still other states require that the state veterinarian be notified; the state vet can then put official quarantines and biosecurity measures in place (actionable).

Since so many states operate in different manners, there is no comprehensive database to show the prevalence and distribution of strangles in the United States. Additionally, there is no consensus as to if the disease should be notifiable or actionable, partially because of how difficult it can be to determine if a horse is free from disease.

This study was created to determine if horse owners and veterinarians want equine strangles to be a notifiable and/or actionable disease. Penn Vet is asking for responses to the survey, even if people haven't seen the disease. The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete.

Learn more and take the survey here.

The post Help Needed: Penn Vet Strangles Survey Explores Reporting Preferences appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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