At one time or another, nearly every horse owner is going to have a horse that needs to be quarantined to protect other horses from catching a contagious disease. In addition, having the horse away from other horses is a good strategy to help it recover fully from the disease.
A sick horse that should be quarantined
An effective quarantine meets the basic goal of preventing healthy horses from having contact with an ill horse or a surface that could expose the healthy horse to the disease.
Although few horse owners have the space and resources to move sick or exposed horses to stables away from all horses, making some small changes in housing and turnout of horses can help prevent spread of contagious diseases.
In many cases the owner is the care taker of all the horses on the property and must have contact on a daily basis with all of them, so assigning caretakers who never have contact with the rest of the herd is impossible.
However, all horse owners can be ready with a defined quarantine protocol if a contagious or infectious disease affects their horses.
An effective quarantine meets the basic goal of preventing healthy horses from having contact with an ill horse or a surface that could expose the healthy horse to the disease.
3 tips to help horse owners prevent spread of diseases:
1. Separate ill horse from other horses:
The horse to be isolated should be placed in a stall at the end of the aisle farthest from the door that gets the most traffic with at least one stall empty between the sick and the other horses. Fans can be used to to direct airflow away from the quarantine area and out the back door rather than toward the other stalls.
If horse is well enough for turnout, separation of the ill or exposed horse needs to be maintained at turnout as well as in the barn. Ideally, his turnout area would be down wind, far from the other horses, and would not share a fence with other turnout areas. Temporary fencing to cordon off a section for the quarantined horse may be used but care should be taken to make sure horses cannot have nose-to-nose contact.
Also remember to avoid letting the sick horse drink from shared outdoor water sources.
2. Follow disease prevention horse-care protocols:
If it’s not possible to designate one person to care exclusively for the sick horse, then the person who does the chores needs to finish with all of the healthy horses before moving on to the isolated one.
A sick horse in quarantine should be handled with disposable gloves, protective clothing, hair coverings and separate foot covers or boots which are removed and worn only in the area where the sick horse is being kept. This may be accomplished by keeping a designated set of coveralls, gloves and boots used only when caring for the ill horse.
Keep a separate set of all equipment used to care for the isolated horse including stall-cleaning equipment, buckets, and halters. Remember that pathogens can travel on tractor and wheelbarrow tires as well. That means it may be necessary to scrub down tires and other contaminated surfaces with a bleach solution if they are used near the sick horse. A disinfecting foot bath should be placed outside the area for caretakers use when leaving the sick horse.
In addition, manure from the sick horse should be disposed of away from that of other healthy animals.
3. Prevent spread of contagious horse diseases beyond your property.
Visiting veterinarians and farriers should be informed of the sick horse so they can take precautions to make sure they do not spread the disease to other areas after leaving the property. Casual visitors should be kept away from the area where the sick horse is kept.
Veterinarians stress that movement of horses with contagious diseases or other horses in the same area as a horse with a contagious disease should be carefully considered to prevent spread of disease to other areas and horses. All horses on the property should be considered exposed to the disease and their body temperatures should be monitored daily to make sure they are healthy.