Strangles
August 4, 2011
Should your horse be vaccinated against strangles?
From AQHA Corporate Partner Pfizer Animal Health
Strangles is a highly contagious disease that localizes in a horse’s lymph nodes in the upper respiratory tract. Journal photo.
Show season is in full swing, and many owners are traveling with their American Quarter Horses to events across the country. Keeping horses healthy when traveling can present some challenges. Contagious diseases, such as strangles, can have severe consequences on a facility or surrounding area, according to a press release from AQHA Corporate Partner Pfizer Animal Health.
Strangles, caused by the bacterium Streptococcus equi, is a highly contagious disease that localizes in a horse’s lymph nodes in the upper respiratory tract. The disease obtained its name from the strangling breathing sounds made by affected horses, caused by enlarged lymph nodes in the throat. Strangles may also be referred to as distemper.
Horses with strangles will usually first show signs of high fever, poor appetite and depression. Horses will excrete a thin, watery discharge from their nostrils, which will quickly turn thick and yellow. The horse’s upper respiratory lymph nodes can become enlarged and may abscess, most noticeably the ones at the throat latch area and between the jawbones.
Once a horse is exposed to the bacteria, it can begin to show symptoms in two to six days. If left untreated, it can often develop abscessed lymph nodes within one to two weeks after the onset of the illness. The abscessed lymph nodes can rupture and drain, and the drainage is highly contagious. Most horses will recover, but approximately 10 percent of untreated horses may die, usually from a secondary pneumonia.
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Strangles can affect horses of any age but most commonly infects those between weanling and 5 years of age. The disease is usually acquired after exposure to another horse that is shedding the Streptococcus equi bacteria, either during or after its own bout with the illness. Infectious horses can spread the bacteria even when they are no longer showing signs of the disease. Around 20 percent of horses remain contagious for four to six weeks after all symptoms vanish.
Direct contact between horses is the most common way that strangles is spread. However, it can also be spread by contaminated equipment. Proper biosecurity practices are necessary to help reduce the spread of disease from contaminated equipment such as shared buckets, stalls, tack, halters and lead ropes. Be sure to follow proper sanitation and disinfection techniques and follow label directions. There are a number of commercially available disinfectants, such as ROCCAL D Plus or NOLVASAN Solution, that are effective for killing bacteria. Before disinfecting, remove all excess debris or dirt from the item and wash with a detergent such as laundry or dish soap. Follow this washing by dipping the item in disinfectant. Disinfection can be completed on items such as nylon halters, bits, lip chains, grooming equipment, shovels, pitchforks and even shoes. Be sure to rinse the disinfectant off completely, using clean water two to three times before using the item.
Vaccination can help in the prevention of strangles. Although vaccinated horses may still contract the disease, they tend to experience a less severe illness. Horses cannot contract strangles from the vaccine itself.
Pfizer Animal Health offers PINNACLE IN, an intranasal Streptococcus equi vaccine. The modified-live intranasal vaccine has shown to stimulate a high level of immunity against the disease. The vaccine must reach the pharyngeal and lingual tonsils in sufficient numbers to help trigger a protective response. Therefore, accurate vaccination delivery by a veterinarian is critical to vaccine efficacy.
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According to the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the incidence of strangles varies regionally, as well as from farm to farm. Therefore, it is listed in AAEP’s guidelines as a “risk-based” disease. Risk-based vaccinations differ from core vaccinations in that they help protect against diseases that are endemic to a region and that have potential public health significance. Core diseases include eastern equine encephalitis, western equine encephalitis, rabies and tetanus. Due to these variations, it is important to consult a veterinarian when developing a vaccination program.
If you suspect that a horse has strangles, notify a veterinarian to confirm the disease. The sooner a positive diagnosis is reached, the sooner the horse can be isolated and treated.
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18 Comments on “Strangles”
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August 4th, 2011 at 8:20 am
If horse has already had strangles, is the horse immuned to getting strangles again? If so, does the immunity last a lifetime or does the horse need to be immunized after a certain time period?
August 4th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
my answer is yes my horse had it at 4months of age and some one told me that he will never get it again. so i never vaccinated for it now he is 7yrs old and i moved him to a new stables and they require it so i asked my vet about it and she said yes so i would vaccinate for it
August 4th, 2011 at 4:59 pm
If you have ever seen a horse with strangles, you would do the vaccination! I have seen and treated one, and it is so much easier just to prevent rather than react. It is a cheap vaccination and very easy to give. So be proactive and not reactive!
August 4th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Most horses will develop immunity to strangles after infection, with that immunity lasting at least five years. However, the idea that “once a horse has had strangles, it never will get it again” is incorrect. Vaccination will not guarantee prevention of the disease, but it may lessen severity and duration.
August 4th, 2011 at 6:09 pm
Terri’s right on the ball. I’ve seen colts with strangles and although it’s common and treatable, it’s DISGUSTING. I worked with a colt who got strangles, was cured and kept getting them again and again. So no, your horse is not immune to it after the first case. I think the reason it seems so is because as the horse gets older, ideally their immune system would be stronger. That same colt was ruined by his multiple case of strangles, not physically, but emotionally. He was already a skittish colt, because his mother was also that way.
After the multiple shots and draining and vets, he ran away everytime anyone walked into the stall…or anywhere close. He was hard to work with and a depressing case. His breeder is a good friend of mine; I bought my horse from her, and help out with the foals. One day she asked me to work with him, because her niece was more pushy and not as gentle and paitent…I was only in 8th or 9th grade. Never-the-less, I did. I took a long time to get him comfortable enough to walk up to her in the pasture. But he turned out OK.
I don’t know if my horse was ever vaccinated, but if I ever had a youngen I would definitely vaccinate. Their immune system isn’t as strong and they are very vunerable.
August 4th, 2011 at 7:50 pm
I vaccinate my horse against strangles every year without fail. We show a lot, and (being a military family) move frequently. I’ve never had an issue with an adverse reaction to the strangles vaccine, BUT my vet did say that the strangles vaccine (and we give the Pinnacle IN) must be the last vaccine given when doing multiple vaccines – spring shots. This reduces the likelihood of having an adverse reaction to the vaccine itself. I agree with the above posts – it’s a cheap vaccine, and the disease is bad enough and contagious enough to outweigh most risks.
August 4th, 2011 at 8:26 pm
I vaccinated one of my horses for stangles two years in a row and each time she coliced from the internasal application. The first year the vet did not believe me, the second year he stayed and waited and sure enough it happened. I have been leary of the stangles vaccination since then.
August 5th, 2011 at 8:43 pm
My 2 horses were vaccinated for strangles. A new horse came into my barn last year and I believe she was a shedder of strangles. I knew nothing about this terrible virus.They became infected in the fall (Oct) and had 5 mild outbreaks till May with this troublesome disease. It was mild as the vet said but it was still abcesses bursting.We tried all sorts of things thru the vets assistance..
It finally appears to be cleared up now in July. The summer is very hot and dry now,( 30- 37 celcius) I believe that this was finally the cure as the winter and spring were so wet and the virus loves that enviroment. I believe the vacination limited it to a more mild case but now I am very lery to vaccinate ever again as my 2 cases went on so long ..I believe it lives in your wet soil forever …stable and pasture…until it gets so hot and it finally dries out. I live in eastern Canada and it was a soaking wet winter & spring.
We finally tested the suspected carrier 3 times( costly) and she was negative but we should of done the test from day one, at least we could of treated her first. No one ever suggested it to me.
My 2 horses never went anywhere and there was limited people always in and out of the barn. We are so puzzled still why it went on so long…? They still have a very small hard swell lump on the jowl and I hope it never comes back as I treated them all winter with hot water epsom salts daily, Furison and DMSO . It was – 30 Celcius and it was not fun! I hpoe they do not suffer any after effects as it went on so long. One good thig was they had no runny noses or fevers though.
August 10th, 2011 at 12:12 am
As a healthcare professional, my motto for both myself & my horses in regards to vaccines has been ‘if they make it, I’ll take it’.
However, after my best gelding had a horrible reaction, I will not give IN strangles vaccine ever again. My horse had a scratch in his throat, near one of his cartilage ‘flappers’. The scratch was caused by either NG tubing at a vet clinic, him eating the end of a lead rope, or eating a rough native SW plant. Add a live bacterium to that & presto, instant infection that required 2 scopings and 3 months of oral antibiotics and ‘throat spray’. An unintended side effect of the throat spray (DMSO, furacin & steroids)was laminitis (in Phoenix, AZ in 110′s in August). Yes, the poor guy pulled through & is now serviceably sound, but I never want to see a horse suffer like that again. Whether your horse gets strangles or has a bad reaction, Streptococcus is a nasty bacterium either way.
August 11th, 2011 at 11:32 am
I was married to an equine veterinarian and believe whole hartedly in the vaccine. I have seen many strangles cases and they are NEVER pretty. They do recurr in horses – back in the day they were called Bastard Strangles. And they can occur in any part of the body on the 2nd occurance forward. Many times we saw them in the lymph nodes in the legs due to the owner not completing the treatment but just treated until the signs had resolved. As with all infections, treatment must be continued until a while after the clinical signs are gone. So vaccinate, even the horse in Phoenix got sick because of a secondary reason – not because of the vaccine itself. You really can’t blame a disease on something caused by a physical break in protection.
August 30th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
I asked our Vet not to vaccinate our two young stud colts a few yrs back due to my broken ribs. I know this sounds funny but in case they came down with a dose of strangles I would not phisically be able to inject them with antibiotics needed for their recovery. The vet vaccinated them anyway against my wishes (weather she forgot or just didn’t feel they would get strangles I don’t know). Needless to say about 7 days after the Vacs one of the colts had strangles. I called the vet she said he had rhionitis…whatever!!! And prescribed antibiotics top dressed on his feed. He got a little better. After the antibiotics were done the strangles came back with a vengeance, nearly costing the colts life. The vet insisted she didn’t vaccinate for strangles. I insisted on a culture which was about $500 but I was totally right. The strangles came directly from the vaccination, the encapsulated form. The vet ate that $4000.00 bill. That yr there were large numbers of vaccinations causing strangles.
September 9th, 2011 at 9:40 pm
I had all my horses vaccinated 2 weeks ago. One was a 4 month old filly. She now has strangles.. a large lump under her jaw. The vet said she must have gotten it from the vaccine. None of my horses have been off my farm and no visitors. My adult horses have always gotten the vaccine .. now that it is cooler we want to go on small trips with my horses.. I am keeping the mare and the baby in a seperate pasture, no contact with the other horses. At what point would it be ok to travel with my healthy horses?
September 22nd, 2011 at 2:10 pm
NO NO NO NO….on the vaccinations……My 4 year old colt was exposed this past March while at the trainers and got this NASTY crap. After many lenghty calls with our vet (who specializes in horses) said NO WAY not b4 they got it or after. It was a 2 month process to get him healed up twice daily epson salted hot/warm water compresses (after hoseing all the open sores with cold water )and then finished up with a paste put on the sores made out of white table sugar and iodine. The vet did vaccinate for Tetnus and he was isolated for 4 months (2 months after all the sores were healed up. The vaccination is NO gaurentee that they won’t get it and the ones our vet had vaccinated that got it had all 4 legs swell badly, all the way down which in turn caused other issues…….
We made the decision to bring him home from the trainers after finding out he had it. After the 4 month isolation we sanitized EVERYTHING. The barn, round pen (each and every rail), ALL the tack, brushed, buckets, water tubs even if we never used them on/with him. The other horses were kept over 500 feet away from the barn that he was isolated in. Our vigilance paid off!!!!! He was reunited with his mother and the rest of the heard in July (after he was given a SCRUBBING bath over every inch of his body) and no one else got it!!!!! One good thing that came out if it was that he and I now have a WONDERFUL one on one bond.
September 29th, 2011 at 8:01 am
well my horse is 4 years old and got the strangles. she recovered but now we have a colt that has the strangles he is about 7 weeks old but not the son of the 4 year old is their anything i can do to help him out?? he still plays around jumps and everything but it looks horrible
December 27th, 2011 at 2:49 pm
My 12 yr old QH was vaccinated for strangles, without my concent, last spring with a nazzle vaccine. He jumped from the vet and the vaccine was sprayed over his face and jaw. A few days later he developed watery fluids on his jaw, and spots on his forehead which becme crusty. For the rest of the year he suffered off and on with hives which also became crusty. We’ve tried everything to find the cause of the hives; changed feed, bedding etc. Could the vaccine which was sprayed on him have caused something since he had no problems before the vaccine and we’ve had nothing but problems since?
April 10th, 2012 at 9:20 am
Just went to our vet for the annual spring tuneup. I asked about strangles vaccine and he said no way unless we do a blood test first. Too many adverse reactions. We have a three year old and two older horses.
June 28th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
I would vaccinate, however just because you have vaccinated your horse does not mean he/she won’t get strangles. It lies dormant in the immune system (same as with any virus in people) and if that gets broken down for any reason then the horse can contract strangles. I have had several horses that had been vaccinated for it and still gotten it.
November 16th, 2012 at 9:53 am
why would antibiotic tx be given for a VIRUS???!!! this kills off all the good bacteria & makes the horse MORE likely to get sec infections.
so what tx would you be sure to complete to make sure it doesnt linger in the horse? the only thing u can do 4 a virus is tret symptoms & boost immunity!!!