Hiding strangles

Hackback said:
I am only going by the FB posts which are out there in the public domain, but I don't believe strangles was confirmed until after the lady left the yard. She did warn everyone at the yard and on social media that there was a nasty respiratory infection on the yard when she left. I think she was right not to mention strangles until after it was confirmed, especially if she does decide to take legal action herself.

I also haven't been able to stop thinking about this poor lady and her lovely young horse. Such a tragedy, made so much worse by the fact it could have been avoided.
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From what I’ve read here they knew what it was and refused to declare it. I’d still have been shouting it on every platform available and calling vets. My horse means more to me than someone else’s pride or ability to compete their horse.
 
There was a post not that long ago about someone thanking a transport company for moving their strangles horse - they'd been totally transparent but again sounds like they were told to move by YO.

Transport company quickly popped on post to say vehicle had been fully disinfected and they'd taken vet advice before accepting the job.

When we had it on the yard I was on the liveries were very conscientious - it was yard management who left a lot to be desired not helped by vets who wanted to gold plate the process (multiple blood tests and GP flushes) for a RS who didn't have the money so decided best course of action was to ignore protocols. To be fair now though they are very good at isolating and blood testing new horses. Lesson learnt!
 
Strangles is only ever 'suspected' until swabs come back. Any responsible YO treats it 'as if' as soon as a vet says that is what they are testing for. That is certainly what happened when Amber was ill. She was IMMEDIATELY isolated and the yard locked down. Exposed horses were identified and also separated. Temps taken of all horses twice a day. Confirmation came 3 days later. If it was not strangles -fine - everyone goes back to normal. But to allow free movement until that point and not to isolate horses is not responsible practice. In Amber's case all directly exposed horses got ill. None of the others. It would defnitely have spread much further without those actions.
 
Ambers Echo said:
Strangles is only ever 'suspected' until swabs come back. Any responsible YO treats it 'as if' as soon as a vet says that is what they are testing for. That is certainly what happened when Amber was ill. She was IMMEDIATELY isolated and the yard locked down. Exposed horses were identified and also separated. Temps taken of all horses twice a day. Confirmation came 3 days later. If it was not strangles -fine - everyone goes back to normal. But to allow free movement until that point and not to isolate horses is not responsible practice. In Amber's case all directly exposed horses got ill. None of the others. It would defnitely have spread much further without those actions.
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I agree with this 100% I was referring to the social media aspect (ie not calling it strangles until it was officially confirmed) not the actions of the yard.
 
Ambers Echo said:
Actually I have deleted the details about the horse who died in the above posts - not becase it's not true but because it's not my story to tell and clearly people re now identifying her. And she is getting FB abuse. I am just so sad and angry.
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Why on earth is she getting abuse?

I was lucky in that mine didn't develop strangles, just had sky high antibodies showing she'd been exposed. An old school friend nursed her incredibly poorly Shetland for months though.
 
I am not going to amplify it but as you can imagine there is some revising of the history going on. Plus 2+2=78 from poeple awaer of half or 1.10th of the story.

Strangles was suspected and we locked down on our yard while a horse who shared a field with Amber (the first horse with symptoms) was at a clinic. Ie that horse was exposed. She chose not to return to the yard but found a field IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE - to go to from the clinic. Her horse did not develop symptoms but she kept her isolated and then did the various tests, paying double livery and vet bills for weeks. To protect the horses at our yard from hers. Not to protect hers from mine! And she got so much abuse from people claiming she'd left a strangles yard when they did not know the actual truth.
 
And there was also abuse about why we had not locked down before the vet came ie when Amber was symptomactic,. That was becuase she did not have symptoms anyone on the yard recogsnied as possible strangles: She had a lump in her jaw. I thought it was a dental issue. I had no idea it could present like that so no-one had an inkling till the vet came and said it could be an abscess relating to strangles. No temp, no nasal discharge etc. The awfulness of SM at that time was horrendous. So I do get why people keep silent . But I would do the right things alongside keeping uiet!
 
Yeah, social media can be ignorant and brutal!

My horse had an abscess on the underside of his head, and I immediately thought strangles, so we took the proper precautions. He had no other symptoms, and it turned out to just be a lymph node abcess of sorts that might've originated from a bug bite or something. I still panicked immensely. He's vaccinated, but if there's suspected strangles, I treat every horse as if they're not vaccinated. Plus, as I mentioned upthread, the vaccination only does so much.
 
A few years ago my friend got a lot of grief on social media from people saying her pony had strangles. They were saying not to ride past her house and calling her all sorts of names. She had moved it home from a field it had been it. It had a horrible nasal discharge but after investigation from the vet it was found to have a sinus tumour and was pts.
 
Ambers Echo said:
And as if that was not bad enough when my friend's horse fell ill and she got angry about the secrecy, the YO kicked her off for making a fuss -effective immediately - making an acutely ill horse homeless and forced to travel/move. Shedd had him from a foal, he'd never lived anywhere else. Who knows whether the additonal stress of travelling and moving made his prognosis worse. Its not my place to name and shame but I bl00dy hope she does. Place should be shut down.
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That is totally disgusting.
 
MuddyMonster said:
I'm sadly not surprised. I just wish it was a reportable disease.
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No you don’t. Whole yards could be culled should DEFRA decide it so. I remember foot and mouth. I never want to witness that ever again.

Yes I agree in regards to the abuse SM causes, SM has its uses however it’s worst aspect is the bullying and abuse that it makes so much easier and people get hounded. Finding out that adults and children killing themselves over things sent to them or posted about them on SM is horrifying and so so unnecessary.
 
Roasted Chestnuts said:
No you don’t. Whole yards could be culled should DEFRA decide it so. I remember foot and mouth. I never want to witness that ever again.
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Just because a disease is notifiable doesn’t mean infected horses would be culled, that’s not how it works.
Foot and Mouth disease led to culling because it would have seriously harmed UK farming if it had become an endemic disease here.
 
TheMule said:
Just because a disease is notifiable doesn’t mean infected horses would be culled, that’s not how it works.
Foot and Mouth disease led to culling because it would have seriously harmed UK farming if it had become an endemic disease here.
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I never said it would I said it would depend on how DEFRA decided it. Considering how much the Government seems to hate the counteyside for anything other than building crap housing or putting solar farms on can you honestly not see them thinking what an easy way to make more land grabs 👀

I mean come on I despise trump as much as the next person but him smacking Starmer across the face with the no estate/inheritance tax for farmers point was damn well satisfying, also to watch that countryside hating weasel squirm. I honestly wouldn’t put it past the government to destroy another part of countryside living that they don’t value.
 
Roasted Chestnuts said:
I never said it would I said it would depend on how DEFRA decided it. Considering how much the Government seems to hate the counteyside for anything other than building crap housing or putting solar farms on can you honestly not see them thinking what an easy way to make more land grabs 👀
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What a bizarre conclusion to draw- you think that making Strangles notifiable will lead to land being used for housing and solar farms? I don’t think a minor horse disease is likely to have much importance to any government, labour or not!

More likely…. making strangles notifiable would ensure that there was a specific protocol that horse owners and vets had to follow to ensure reduction of the spread of the disease, because at the moment it does seem to be too much at the mercy of the individuals involved.
 
TheMule said:
What a bizarre conclusion to draw- you think that making Strangles notifiable will lead to land being used for housing and solar farms? I don’t think a minor horse disease is likely to have much importance to any government, labour or not!

More likely…. making strangles notifiable would ensure that there was a specific protocol that horse owners and vets had to follow to ensure reduction of the spread of the disease, because at the moment it does seem to be too much at the mercy of the individuals involved.
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You have your opinion and have mine 👍🏼 go try to belittle someone else I’ve been around this block too many times to rise to the nonsense 👍🏼 I just always go by the mantra be careful what you wish for. The equestrian industry means nothing to the government so I don’t believe it would take much.

There are already protocols for what to do with strangles. Always have had however greedy/ignorant/ insert your choice of descriptive here YO/owners don’t want to follow them. How making it a noticeable disease would force this I’m not sure considering the fandango with passports and absolutely nobody enforces those rules.
 
MuddyMonster said:
Yes, I do.

I really do want it to be better controlled, for movement of horse's to be better restricted and for people to have to follow set protocols rather than rely on people to actually have a conscience and follow 'best practise'.
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Yep seen strangles first hand also, not new to it. Still wouldn’t want it as notifiable 👍🏼
 
TheMule said:
What a bizarre conclusion to draw- you think that making Strangles notifiable will lead to land being used for housing and solar farms? I don’t think a minor horse disease is likely to have much importance to any government, labour or not!

More likely…. making strangles notifiable would ensure that there was a specific protocol that horse owners and vets had to follow to ensure reduction of the spread of the disease, because at the moment it does seem to be too much at the mercy of the individuals involved.
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And hopefully the specific protocol would be more successful than the foot and mouth etc cos g b is crap at containing disease

I really think strangles is a serious disease not minor so don't want folk reading this thread to underestimate the dangers to individual horses or livelihoods

It's a horrible thing, seen it many times, don't want to argue just make a point to consider

And it would be a good idea to take temperature of any horse bought anywhere, privately or at auction before loading and delivery to a new yard, it takes 1 minute
 
Many years ago when I was a student we were taught to allow low grade strangles to encourage the necessary antibodies in the immune system - horses were turned away and the action of lowering head to graze meant there was very good drainage. I often wonder whether todays outbreaks are a result of over protecting the immune system and where the current infections come from
 
JillA said:
Many years ago when I was a student we were taught to allow low grade strangles to encourage the necessary antibodies in the immune system - horses were turned away and the action of lowering head to graze meant there was very good drainage. I often wonder whether todays outbreaks are a result of over protecting the immune system and where the current infections come from
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Thats; fine if you then check for chondroids at the end of the infectious phase. If you don't then you may well have carriers who may never look ill again but will still infect other horses. At our yard Amber arrived and got ill immediately. She was of course blamed for bringing strangles onto the yard. And this was the 3rd time a new horse got ill and 'brought strangles into the yard'. But this time the YO insisted ALL horses be blood tested and all positve tests scoped. There was a pony who had been there forever with chondriods. He was infecting new horses and then those new horses were the ones seen as the problem. Vet said this was really common.
 
Ambers Echo said:
Thats; fine if you then check for chondroids at the end of the infectious phase. If you don't then you may well have carriers who may never look ill again but will still infect other horses. At our yard Amber arrived and got ill immediately. She was of course blamed for bringing strangles onto the yard. And this was the 3rd time a new horse got ill and 'brought strangles into the yard'. But this time the YO insisted ALL horses be blood tested and all positve tests scoped. There was a pony who had been there forever with chondriods. He was infecting new horses and then those new horses were the ones seen as the problem. Vet said this was really common.
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Thank goodness for a sensible YO who did the right thing (testing all of them and not just blaming the new horse....every time).
 
SEL said:
Strangles does seem to be around in a number of places at the moment - I still follow the awareness FB page.
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There is a lot around the Doncaster area at the moment.

We are still clear of if but we have been told to be extremely cautious about going out. we do not want to bring it back with us.
 
JillA said:
Many years ago when I was a student we were taught to allow low grade strangles to encourage the necessary antibodies in the immune system - horses were turned away and the action of lowering head to graze meant there was very good drainage. I often wonder whether todays outbreaks are a result of over protecting the immune system and where the current infections come from
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I'm not sure what you mean by this- vets don’t routinely prescribe antibiotics for strangles cases but will if the horse starts to struggle. That advice hasn’t changed. The unfortunate truth is that most horses that contract strangles will be fine, but a small % won’t be.
 
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