Vaccination Basics For Horses

Vaccination used to be simple. You bought a couple of vaccines at the feed store and gave them once a year to your horse. Today there are so many vaccination options that if you still administer vaccines yourself without at least talking to your veterinarian, you might be selling yourself, and your horse, short.
Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

Vaccines are “cheap insurance” to protect your horses from more costly— and potentially deadly—diseases.

Vaccination used to be simple. You bought a couple of vaccines at the feed store and gave them once a year to your horse. Today there are so many vaccination options that if you still administer vaccines yourself without at least talking to your veterinarian, you might be selling yourself, and your horse, short.

"Vaccination is a complicated business," says Paul Lunn, BVSc, MS, PhD, MRCVS, Dipl. ACVIM, who served on the committee that updated the vaccination guidelines released in 2008 by the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP). "There are a lot of considerations in devising vaccination strategies. You need a formula for your horse or your farm, and you will have a heck of a time coming up with that unless you work with your veterinarian."

Mary C. Scollay, DVM, who chaired the vaccination committee and is the equine medical director of the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority, agrees: "Even within the same barn, each horse is unique and has unique needs

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

How much time do you usually spend grooming your horse?
437 votes · 437 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!