Rotavirus in Foals

“But we’ve never had rotavirus in our foals.” Read on and consider yourself lucky if your foals have never had rotavirus and you have breezed through the past foaling seasons sans diarrhea.
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“But we’ve never had rotavirus in our foals.” Read on and consider yourself lucky if your foals have never had rotavirus and you have breezed through the past foaling seasons sans diarrhea. With the increasing transportation of horses comes the increasing risk of any infectious disease occurring on your farm. As you will see, once you have rotavirus, you’ve obtained the “gift” that keeps on giving! Consider these real situations:

  • A farm manager has 36 foals which need to be medicated, monitored, and washed several times a day because of rotavirus diarrhea. Five foals are on IV fluids; two need to be hospitalized. Forty more foals are at-risk.
  • A small animal veterinarian owns one mare and foal on five acres in Arkansas. At two weeks of age, the foal breaks with diarrhea. Diagnosis: rotavirus.
  • A Standardbred farm in Italy has 70% of its 130 foals develop rotavirus diarrhea after not having a problem with foal diarrhea for at least 10 years.

The foaling season should be a time of anticipation, hard work, and fun at seeing healthy foals running in the fields with their dams. Spring also can bring months of sheer drudgery, disappointment, and despair if a disease outbreak hits the farm, especially if it is caused by rotavirus.

The enemy rotavirus is a round RNA virus that can infect most any mammalian species, including humans (see photos page 58). Under natural circumstances, the virus is species-specific, meaning that only foals get the horse strain of rotavirus; calves get the bovine form of rotavirus; and children (especially under two years of age) are affected by human rotavirus. The vast majority of rotaviral diarrhea is caused by Group A rotaviruses; however, other groups of rotaviruses (B-G) have been described in species besides horses.

Rotaviral diarrhea is a worldwide disease, with outbreaks occurring in most major horse breeding areas, including England, Ireland, France, Japan, and Australia. Foals are exposed to the disease by a fecal-oral route, meaning they ingest fecally contaminated material, or lick surfaces that are contaminated with manure. If a foal ingests enough contaminated material, it usually develops diarrhea in 12-24 hours

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Written by:

Roberta Dwyer, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVPM, is an equine extension veterinarian and professor at the University of Kentucky, in Lexington, where she also serves as director of the preveterinary advising program. She specializes in veterinary preventative medicine.

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