Equine disease prevention

• • Regularly monitor your horse’s normal temperature. An increase could indicate illness. This is particularly important after attending an event or when moving to a new yard.
  • Keep your horse’s vaccinations up to date:
  • As a minimum, equine influenza and tetanus are recommended (although not contagious, tetanus is a life-threatening disease for horses)
  • Vaccination against Equine Herpes Virus (EHV) can help prevent both respiratory disease and abortion caused by EHV-1 and/or EHV-4 and is especially recommended for horses under the age of five as they may be particularly susceptible to respiratory disease
  • A strangles vaccine is also available
  • Speak to your vet for further details and advice.
  • Have a testing-led deworming programme in place and seek support from your vet to help develop a plan that best suits your horse and your yard.

• Each field should have a separate water source to decrease the risk of disease between groups or individuals at the yard. For example, the strangles bacteria can survive in water for a few weeks. 
• Make sure all boundary fences are secure, especially where the neighbouring premises keep horses. To prevent nose to nose contact over neighbouring fences, use well-spaced double fencing. 
• If handling horses other than your own, wash your hands before and afterwards.  
• Non-resident horses visiting a yard should be kept away from resident horses e.g. external visitors hiring an arena.

Direct contact is when you or your horse touches another horse. For example, when horses touch noses.

Indirect contact is when equipment that may be contaminated is shared between horses. For example, tack and grooming equipment.

• Have separate grooming equipment for each horse, and clean regularly.
• Thoroughly clean feed bowls and water buckets at least on a weekly basis². A correctly diluted disinfectant can also be used for a deep clean.
• Disinfect your boots and change outer clothing after visiting other yards.
• Regularly clean tack, rugs and vehicles used to transport horses. 

• Make sure all yard attendees and visitors are informed of your biosecurity procedures and explain the importance of following your yard protocols 
• Routinely monitor that all biosecurity procedures are being followed 
• Reassess any biosecurity protocols yearly or following a disease outbreak to highlight any new areas of risk 

Request a free disease prevention poster for your yard – contact welfare@bhs.org.uk or call 02476 840517. 

Use enrichment to provide mental stimulation, providing more natural behaviours for the horse and enhancing their wellbeing. This can include feed enrichment like hay balls, which encourages foraging and extends time spent eating.

When in quarantine, the horse’s interactions with others will be temporarily restricted. Make sure, where possible, that they’re still able to see other horses.

Ideally carried out prior to arrival (or once at the yard), tests are available to help detect a horse silently carrying strangles.

As a minimum, a parasite risk assessment should be carried out to determine if the new arrival may need treatment before being turned out to pasture. See the CANTER Guidelines for more information on this approach.

Designate an area away from the other horses and provide a separate water supply. If space is limited, use well-spaced double-electric fencing as a minimum to prevent nose to nose contact.

Wash hands and disinfect boots when you’ve attended to the  horse(s) with one of DEFRA’s approved list of disinfectants. 

It may also be beneficial to wear protective overalls that can be removed after handling horses in quarantine.

It’s recommended that all new horses are up to date with equine influenza and tetanus vaccines (tetanus is not contagious, but is extremely likely to be fatal). Seek veterinary advice for unvaccinated horses, those whose vaccinations have lapsed and vaccinations available for other diseases. 

To prevent any spread of disease via contaminated muck, keep the quarantine muck heap separate. This also includes bedding that may appear clean, but the horse has been in contact with.

A horse’s healthy temperature should be between 37.5-38.5°C.  An increase or decrease in temperature can indicate that your horse is unwell. Monitor each horse closely and take their temperature daily to help spot potential problems early.

While this is the recommended health temperature range, it’s important to know what’s normal for your horse as this can vary between individuals ⁴. Knowing what your horse’s healthy normal is, will be essential for spotting potential health issues early.