much better thanks to his owners icing him down every couple hours and the meds he needed ALL night long and day long. So they called the previous owners of this horse and they mentioned that "Oh yeah I forgot to tell you he's foundered before from vaccines. Sorry." UGH! So the whole thing, maybe, could have been avoided. So here are some springtime vaccine tips!!!
- KNOW your horse! His history, his vet records as much info as you can squeeze out of the previous owners!
- Check on them before you go to bed the day you have given them the shot. Or have someone check on your horse for you... Being a tiny bit lethargic is OK the day of the shot, but that's IT!
- I personally NEVER EVER give 3, 5 or 7 way shots... Because if there is a reaction you can NOT tell what could have caused it... All mine are done separately. Yes a bit more costly, but worth it. I have had a horse react to a 5 way shot and it scared the tar out of me.
- If you are not sure call a VET!!!!!!!!!! Do not guess on dosage amounts or where and how to give shot. That is DANGEROUS.
- Your horse needs to be healthy when you give them any vaccines. Just like us getting a flu shot. We know they make us a little tired, but if we already don't feel well the shot is going to make us feel way worse, not better.
All in all just be careful, do your homework and keep those babies safe and healthy!!!!!!!
6 comments:
That would be an important bit of information to pass on to a new owner. Ya think!? Good lord.
Is the horse going to be okay?
I give 5 ways. But with new horses that I don't have the vet records on...we do individual shots, and space them out.
Before Strangles was offered in the nasal form, I almost lost a horse to strangles vaccine. I didn't give it for years. To anything.
The ones I see the most reaction to are the rhino vaccines. Seems like if there is going to be a reaction it's the rhino.
My old Arab was always 'sick' for a day or two after shots. Glassy eyed, low grade fever. Wormers were hard on him too. Funny. He was only on antibiotics twice in his life. Seriously healthy little beast, but shots kicked his butt. (EPM got him at 22).
Good advice. I got to call my vet again, I called him over a month ago and his office said he would call and I'm still waiting...
And even when you've done everything right and taken everything into consideration you can still almost lose your horse.
Elmo had a violent reaction to the flu/rhino vaccine and it started to eat away his flesh. We almost lost him twice and he was in the vet clinic getting debrided 4 times a day for over a week... then I had to do it. Took him almost a full year to recover and get the wound (which was 14" wide by 12" long) healed up.
Very scary. If I hadn't have checked on him that night, he would have been dead in the morning.
36 & Single
Yikes! Thanks for the info, previous owner jerks! I'm lucky, all of my horses handle vaccines fine, but I've known of a few who didn't. The scary thing is that if they react that violently to the vaccine, what would the actual disease do to them?
I'm with you that Kestrel. When the WNV first came out, I had all my horses done. I had people in my face, acting like I'd lost my mind, that I was taking such a risk.
One woman, especially vocal about it half yelled at me, "You don't even know what the side effects of it could be." I looked at her for a moment, said very deliberately, "No, you're right I don't, but I do know what the side effects of West Nile are."
End of conversation. She really had nothing left to say.
I stopped giving more than one vaccine at a time. Our vet clinic continues to state that multiple shots are not a problem. It is for my one of my horses. A few hours after his last 3 way he was so stiff he couldn't get his head down to eat, had hives all over him, and his feet were hot. Stood him in mud for hours and he came out of the situation with no permanent damage. Figured we were lucky.
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