Update on Pigeon Fever

I talked with Dr. Meg a couple of days ago and she gave me this update on the PF outbreak in our area -

There are still new cases of PF. The past few have been in the Salmon Creek area. She has a lot of horses that she is suspicious of but they are not as sick. That’s good news.

For many cases that she has seen, the horses have not been off their property and there have not been any new horses on the property. This being said, she said go ahead and participate in activities. The incubation period is said to be as much as 55 days so even with our recent cold weather, it is possible to continue to see new cases for quite awhile yet. At one place with 5 horses, one horse came down with it and eventually all 5 were effected.

She feels that we will now have PF here to stay. This year may be worse because our population has been naive to this disease although she said one horse had it bad and she sent in a blood test and it didn’t showed that he had developed any anti-bodies against PF.

I asked her if there have been many studies done on PF and she said that UC Davis has done several. One of them was about flies carrying the bacteria. While it is active in the area, flies have it but when it simmers down, they don’t so they do move the bacteria around but they do not carry it like mosquitoes carry West Nile. The stuff is in the ground and certain conditions make it become active.

There is still strangles at Whipple Creek stables but the last cast was lanced on October 2nd so it seems to be under control. With strangles, 70% of the infected horses become immune for life.

Ridgefield Equine Clinic is going to put on a Winter Lecture Series. The first one, on November 15th, will be on infectious diseases. They will also cover "How to winterize your horse". The January 17th lecture will focus on artificial insemination and the February 21st lecture will be “Foaling 101”. (Of course!) All the lectures will be from 9AM to 11AM.

Pigeon Fever update and Strangles Report

After reading the comments to my blog “Good News on Pigeon Fever” about new cases of PF and hearing some stuff about it in the last few days myself, I called and checked with some vets on Tuesday, Oct 7th for an update on PF in our area and on the Strangles cases that I have been hearing about.

I wanted to get some kind of handle on the actual number of cases. I know that I can talk to 12 different people and they can all say they know of a horse that has ‘whatever’ and it can sound like there are 12 horses with ‘whatever’. Or those 12 people can be hearing about the one horse that actually has ‘whatever’. Sort of like the old game telegraph but in a horsey form.

Apparently we had a lull in action regarding PF but no more.

I talked with Dr. Brinton of Ridgefield Equine Clinic and they have more new cases of Pigeon Fever. I had heard that there are 30 cases in the area and she confirmed that there are “at least” 30 cases in the county now.

Dr. Brinton said that not using our horses is not necessarily going to keep them healthy. It is carried by flies and they will be around until it gets cold. Good fly control is still the best defense. If you are going to haul them anywhere be sure to fly spray them real good, spray the trailer and your truck. Do everything you can to not move flies around the county. Also continue to check for swelling or edemas especially on the midline and the chest. That is were the lesions have been on all her cases. She also said that she had the first fatality on Friday night.

The doctor checked into a study down at UC Davis on this and they found that when there were active cases of PF in the area, the flies had the organism on them but once the cases had cleared up, the flies were clean. So it is carried by flies and then goes into the ground or something. Guess this will be something that we are going to have to be dealing with year after year until more research is done.

Amazia Veterinary Service reported 2 new cases of PF and another possible but no strangles.

Dr. Lee’s office said that they had done a survey two weeks ago of the cases in the county. There were 6 cases in the Camas/Washougal area, 2 in La Center, 2 in Hockinson, 2 in Ridgefield and 2 in Battle Ground. The current report is that they have no new cases.

Two different vets did confirmation that Whipple Creek Stables has at least one case of Strangles and has been put under quarantine.