Whether it’s a question of infectious, bacterial, or viral diseases, external or internal parasitic diseases, or the general management of breeding or numbers of sport and leisure horses, the quality of boarding must be the primary concern. Before choosing to put your horse on half-board, or even just choosing the right stable for your horses, you need to be sure of the seriousness of the boarding facility itself! We’re going to look at the different criteria that will help you choose the right boarding stable, whether it’s checking the hygiene of the stalls or the knowledge of the staff regarding the different rules of conduct in a boarding stable.
General boarding hygiene
General hygiene is an essential prerequisite for the success of any prevention program, whether medical or sanitary. Given the horse’s susceptibility to its environment, which in most cases is an artificial one, special attention must be paid to boarding hygiene.
Boarding facilities and means of transport
Accommodation must be clean, bright, and well ventilated. Dust in the ambient air is a major factor in the development of respiratory diseases. It’s a good idea to isolate new arrivals (quarantine), and to isolate horses as soon as an infectious disease that is known to be potentially contagious begins to develop or is suspected. Horse transport vans and trucks must be regularly cleaned and disinfected if necessary. Disinsectisation and rat extermination campaigns should be carried out at least once a year.
Boarding tack and grooming equipment
Wherever possible, harnessing, and grooming equipment should be individual and well-maintained, which is not the case in all boarding facilities. It is important to avoid too much promiscuity between the equipment allocated to each horse in a group. For example, the more saddlecloths and saddles are in contact with each other, the greater the risk of contamination, for example when one of the horses has ringworm. The same applies to grooming equipment, especially brushes.
Boarding feed and bedding
Feed and bedding must be stored in good conditions by boarding staff (in a well-ventilated room, protected from dampness, which is conducive to the development of mould, for example). To prevent respiratory infections, feed should not be stored above the stalls, thus polluting the atmosphere with substances that irritate the respiratory tract. The bedding should be cleaned twice a day, to avoid excessive humidity, which is detrimental to the condition of the horse’s feet, especially the forks. Similarly, stall cleaning reduces contamination of the atmosphere by volatile substances produced in horse dung, which can irritate the respiratory tract. For the same reasons of preventing respiratory tract irritation, stall cleaning should always be carried out when taking the horse out.
Boarding paddocks
The number of horses in paddocks and pastures must be kept to a reasonable level, otherwise the level of parasitic contamination and consequently the risk of parasitic infestation of horses staying there will increase significantly. This level of contamination can be determined by taking samples for analysis in a parasitology laboratory. It is also possible to reduce this level by rotating pastures or alternating grazing between horses and other species such as ruminants.
In terms of wound prevention, horses should no longer be allowed to graze on pastures with barbed-wire fences: the wounds caused by barbed-wire fences are often serious, as they are often dilapidated and anfractuous, with significant loss of substance, sometimes requiring lengthy and costly treatment, and sometimes not being treatable at all.
Boarding staff
General hygiene should be the golden rule. Frequent handwashing and the cleaning of boots and shoes are all essential to ensure a correct environment, both in terms of the prevention of certain infectious diseases and the general well-being of the horses. Even the best boarding facility is not immune to unscrupulous employees.
Administration of medication in the guesthouse
All injections must be given after disinfecting the site. This is generally carried out with 70° alcohol, but you should be aware that you need to rub until the cotton is clean, having changed it of course, and that you need to wait about a minute for the alcohol to soak in and antiseptically clean the site.
Control of foaling by the boarding kennel
In this instance, general hygiene principles must be applied, as well as simple rules such as disinfecting the cord after breaking it (using iodized products or other disinfectants) to prevent frequent cord infections. To prevent infectious complications of the mare’s reproductive tract after foaling, it is essential to ensure that the placenta is completely expelled within three to six hours of the foal’s birth.
Abortion
In the event of an abortion, and because the most frequent cause to be feared is rhino-pneumonia (see infectious diseases), the veterinarian should be called in to take the necessary samples to establish the diagnosis, and to give advice on how to avoid contagion of this infection, due in particular to the fact that the virus responsible is quite resistant for a few weeks in the environment of the mare who has had an abortion.
Disease management at the boarding kennel
When a disease specific to horses occurs and is deemed contagious by law, the departmental veterinary authorities organize the application of the sanitary measures provided for by the regulations.
The same applies to epizootic diseases affecting other species, but for which it is known that the horse can carry the pathogen responsible, as in the case of foot-and-mouth disease.
In the case of certain epizootic diseases that are specific to horses and not legally considered contagious, such as influenza, strangles or rhino-pneumonia, specific sanitary prophylactic measures can be introduced. In all cases, affected horses should be isolated, animal movements avoided and, if possible, vaccination pressure stepped up in horses not yet affected. In all cases, in terms of care, sick horses should be treated last. The use of disinfectants, both for personnel and premises, must be reinforced; the installation of foot baths to ensure that pathogens are not spread when leaving the premises may be essential in the case of certain infections (e.g., salmonellosis).
Infectious disease management within the guesthouse
As with the prevention of infectious diseases in humans, veterinarians have a number of vaccines at their disposal to prevent the main infectious diseases affecting horses. However, in France we don’t necessarily have the same vaccines as in other countries, either because the diseases are different, or because legislative reasons prevail.
In France today, we can vaccinate horses against rabies, influenza, rhino-pneumonia, and tetanus. Vaccines contain inactivated (i.e., unable to make the animal sick after injection) constituents of the pathogen, known as antigens; these may be natural antigens or those manufactured in the laboratory using special processes. As these antigens are inactivated, they are mixed with adjuvant substances to increase the desired post-vaccination production of substances that will enable the animal to defend itself against infection by the pathogen in question: these are known as antibodies. As antibodies, when present in pregnant mares, are transmitted through colostrum (the first mammary secretions after the foal’s birth) to the newborn foal, and can persist for several weeks in the latter, the first vaccine injections are given at 4 to 6 months of age, to avoid interference and vaccine failures.
Rabies management at the boarding kennel
Normally, every equine presented to the public must be vaccinated against rabies. Vaccination is carried out from the age of 6 months, with a first injection followed by annual boosters. If the dam is regularly vaccinated, vaccination can be started at 4 months of age, but two injections at four-week intervals are required, followed by an annual booster. If the mare is not vaccinated, primary vaccination with two injections at one-month intervals can be considered as early as 2 months of age.
Tetanus management in the guesthouse
Vaccination against tetanus consists of a primary vaccination (two injections one month apart) followed by a first annual booster, and booster injections every three to five years. Both vaccinations are remarkably effective.
Tetanus is a disease that occurs after a wound has been badly treated or has gone unnoticed. Whenever a horse is injured, special care must be taken, and depending on the horse’s vaccination status (how long ago the last tetanus booster was given), the veterinarian may decide to inject anti-tetanus serum as a preventive measure, as is also done for humans. It would be a serious mistake not to do so in certain cases.
Flu vaccination for boarders
Vaccination against influenza is compulsory for certain categories of horses (racing, competition). It involves two injections one month apart, followed by a first booster at 6 months and annual boosters. It should be stressed that the effectiveness of this vaccination is not always complete, as the pathogen responsible may change and therefore no longer be fully recognized by the antibodies produced after vaccination. However, even if symptoms are observed when a vaccinated horse is infected, they are always much less severe than if the horse were not protected at all.
Vaccination against rhino-pneumonia at boarding stables
Vaccination against rhino-pneumonia is carried out by giving two injections one month apart, followed by annual booster doses. Depending on the epidemiological context of a given population, booster doses can be given more frequently, and booster injections can be given during the mare’s gestation period to prevent abortions (injections in the fifth, seventh and ninth months). In all cases, although this vaccination does not necessarily protect against infection in horses, it does reduce the risk of virus re-excretion in a population, where satisfactory results can be observed if more than 70% of animals are regularly vaccinated.
Vaccination against viral arteritis is prohibited in France, as is that against strangles, which is not carried out there.
There are no vaccines against equine leptospirosis, nor against babesiosis (piroplasmosis).
