E-Vet Clinic - Horse Health Care

Well the Indiana board has issued an Equine Infectious Anemia (EIA) alert. Here is the alert –>

Indiana board issues EIA alert to horse owners

Although Equine Infectious Anemia is a deadly disease, approximately 40% die within one month of contracting this disease, most become carriers of this incurable disease. The law mandates permanent quarantine or euthanasia of these “carriers”. Now I have a problem with this law.

The biggest problem I have with this law is that it has not been proven that a carrier of this disease can actually transmit the disease to other horses! That’s right we do not know after all these years if a horse that has survived EIA actually can cause disease in another horse. According to some research done by a group in Florida there is a 1 in 6 million chance that one infected horse could infect another horse.

Horse neglect has been on the rise for the last few years. The majority of neglect cases are actually ignorance rather than true neglect. Many experts in the Horse Welfare community are of the opinion that it is not the closing of the slaughter plants that have increased the number of neglect cases. Rather the financial status of horse owners and the economy’s effect on their status are causing the problems with the ability to feed, shelter and care for the horses in their care.

So now what do you do if you believe a horse or group of horses are being neglected? Experts say do NOT do 2 things - 1 do not confront the owner and 2 do not feed the horses. I know this may seem contradictory to what is actually best for the horses, but when you read the reasons you will see that you will need to curtail your natural tendencies for the health of the horse.

Check out the reasons here at The Horse - Horse Neglect: What to Do?