Act now to combat strangles

With recent strangles outbreaks reported across the country, including a high profile case at Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, more and more vets are recommending that owners include vaccination against strangles in their vaccination schedule to help protect their horses from this highly contagious and seriously debilitating disease.

One training yard, which dreads its horses contracting the disease and has now vaccinated against strangles, is Wrea Green School of Equitation Ltd, near Preston which is run by Chris Pollitt: “Every year we hear about two or three strangles outbreaks in Lancashire.  If we were unlucky enough to get strangles on the yard, not only would it mean weeks of suffering for our horses, but our vet would also advise us to cease trading.  This would mean we’d have no income for several months and our running costs would be even higher due to increased vet bills.

“As we have to get clients through the gates to survive, we have recently had all the horses on our yard vaccinated with the strangles vaccine, Equilis StrepE®.  It is administered into the horse’s lip, which none of the horses on the yard seem to mind, in fact one horse accepted it more willingly than its wormer.  The following day, some horses showed that they had a strong immune response to the vaccine by developing swollen glands, the shivers and snotty noses, but our vet had already informed us that this would happen and they were back to normal after 48 hours.  The horses were fine after the second injection.

“Now we insist that all new horses to the yard are vaccinated and we are proud to have a certificate hanging in reception, to inform our clients’ that our horses are protected.  We can’t understand why owners wouldn’t want to vaccinate their horses against strangles.  It offers everyone additional peace of mind!”

Chris’s vet, Barry Johnson from Oakhill Veterinary Centre, comments: “With high risk groups including horses kept on livery yards, competition yards and riding centres, we are encouraging yard managers and owners, such as Chris who rely on their horses for their main source of income, to vaccinate against strangles.”

For further advice about strangles or your horse’s vaccination schedule, please contact your veterinary surgeon.

Article first published June 2005