Keeping Disease at Bay

Preventing communicable diseases from striking horses should be the goal of every horse owner. Despite our best efforts, however, there are going to be occasions when a communicable malady afflicts one or more horses at a private farm or public stable. When that occurs, efforts must be made to treat the afflicted animals and to prevent the disease from spreading to others on the premises or i

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Preventing communicable diseases from striking horses should be the goal of every horse owner. Despite our best efforts, however, there are going to be occasions when a communicable malady afflicts one or more horses at a private farm or public stable. When that occurs, efforts must be made to treat the afflicted animals and to prevent the disease from spreading to others on the premises or in the vicinity.

Just what preventive steps should be taken depend on the disease being combatted. Preventing the spread of bacterial disease requiring physical contact for transmission, for example, might be quite different from preventing vector-borne or airborne transmission.

In some cases, isolation or quarantine might be the answer, but here, too, the approach will depend on the facilities involved and the space available. The approach taken at a large commercial breeding farm might be far different from that taken at a small facility of an acre or two with one barn and a couple of paddocks. At a large farm, ill horses might be moved to another barn or section of the farm to prevent contact with other horses. At a small facility, there simply might not be room to do this.

Andrew Clark, DVM, state veterinarian for Oregon, says that the word “quarantine” originated in the Middle Ages in Italy. When a ship came into one of the ports–he believes it was Naples–the sailors aboard were confined to the craft for 40 days for fear that they would introduce smallpox or the plague. If no one on the ship showed symptoms of either after 40 days, they were allowed to come ashore. The Italian word to describe that time, he said, was later Anglicized to “quarantine.” Thus, the word quarantine means to curtail movement to prevent the spread of disease

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Les Sellnow was a prolific freelance writer based near Riverton, Wyoming. He specialized in articles on equine research, and operated a ranch where he raised horses and livestock. He authored several fiction and nonfiction books, including Understanding Equine Lameness and Understanding The Young Horse. He died in 2023.

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