Your experiences please

[emfen1305]

A few weeks ago a horse on my yard showed strangles symptoms (abscess but no runny nose or temperature) and was isolated and then a few days later her other pony got a snotty nose and also was swabbed positive, so both horses isolated in their stables with the doors closed, cordon set up, yard locked down straight away with foot dips, antibacs everywhere, everyone only managing their own horse. As per vet instructions, we waited 2 weeks and every horse was blood tested. Results came back and my horse is in the "grey area" with a 0.4 reading (with 0.2 being acceptable, but i've also read 0.3). My horse is stabled next door to the first horse who had the abscess but they can't get to each other but I feed all the horses and had been doing until he burst the abscess. There's a couple of us with grey area readings.

We were told we could isolate with doors shut for 14 days and retest to see if its the same or gone down but we didn't want to do that so have opted for guttural pouch wash which is tomorrow. In other people's experiences, does it normally come back positive on the wash if they've been in the grey area or could it be negative on the wash?

 

[Equi]

It either will be or it won't be. If your horse has been that close though its likely to have spread. Just have to ride it out im afraid. At least the yard is implementing the correct protocols.

Do they know where the horse who first had it got it?

 

[emfen1305]

It either will be or it won't be. If your horse has been that close though its likely to have spread. Just have to ride it out im afraid. At least the yard is implementing the correct protocols.

Do they know where the horse who first had it got it?

I've read a lot of around it and seems like only 1/10 who test positive on the bloods actually go on to have a positive swab so was just wondering other people's experiences if they had similar situations or if it is just going to be inevitable that he has it.

No unfortunately, that's why we were all tested to try and find if there's a carrier on the yard

 

[Starzaan]

I have always insisted on clear strangles tests before a horse comes onto my yard, and a reading above 0.2 on either antigen would require a guttural pouch wash to be clear before horses could join me.
On the whole, they come back negative if they’re in that low range.
However, even if he does, if you follow the vets advice, he should be fine. I’ve known a few horses who have had strangled and have come to my yards. They’ve been absolutely fine and recovered well ?

 

[emfen1305]

Thanks. We’ve been temperature checking them all twice a day for a couple of weeks and he’s always either 37.5 or 37.4 so certainly no signs as of yet!

Unfortunately we don’t have a place we can isolate away from the others so the idea of him spending a minimum of 2 weeks in his stable with the top door shut is really worrying me!

 

[SEL]

Thanks. We’ve been temperature checking them all twice a day for a couple of weeks and he’s always either 37.5 or 37.4 so certainly no signs as of yet!

Unfortunately we don’t have a place we can isolate away from the others so the idea of him spending a minimum of 2 weeks in his stable with the top door shut is really worrying me!

How did you get on? Mine had higher readings than yours on blood test but negative on the scope. My other horse never got a positive result on blood tests - we suspect he'd been exposed years before so shrugged it off.

 

[emfen1305]

Clear in the guttural pouches so we know he’s not a carrier, will hopefully get the results today, I really hope so!