Equine Biosecurity While Traveling

Biosecurity is important whether you are at home or away at a show or event. This is a companion article to Biosecurity for Your Home Horse Facilities.

In recent years, there have been numerous outbreaks of infectious/contagious equine diseases at show grounds. Some have been contained on-site. Others were the source of spreading disease to other show facilities or home farms and stables. Unfortunately, horses died or were euthanized due to the disease outbreaks.

There are specific risks while traveling with your horse. The stress of travel lowers an animal’s ability to respond to disease. Also, some show facilities are cleaner than others. How often do you get to the stall you have rented and found it wasn’t cleaned properly, or at all? Disinfection of that stall is often left up to the next tenant.

In this article, we focus specifically on ways to better use biosecurity measures to protect your horses while traveling. These tips also can assist you in preventing the spread of illness from your traveling horses to those at your home facility.

Biosecurity Off the Farm

For horses traveling to and from the farm to clinics, shows, and events, biosecurity practices are particularly important.

In a perfect world, all horse event managers would allow entry only if every horse had a current certificate of veterinary inspection (CVI), a negative Coggins test, appropriate immunizations, and no fever. These tests and procedures don’t guarantee that a horse isn’t incubating a disease at the time of entry. However, these biosecurity measures can go a long way toward minimizing exposure of all horses at a venue by keeping out those that could have a problem.

The thing to keep foremost in mind is that there should be no nose-to-nose contact between your horses and horses from different farms. This concept also applies to touching or handling other people’s horses—just don’t.

Put up signs at your stabling asking that no stranger touch or feed your horses.

In fact, if your horse is going to be stabled in a stall that has been used by others, cleaning and disinfection of walls, water and feeding vessels, and other smooth surfaces can go a long way toward getting rid of secretions and contaminants from the environment. Remove residual feed from the stall and rake everything from the floor. Scrub surfaces to remove as much organic debris as possible using detergents (for example, liquid Tide) that break down organic material.

Don’t pressure wash. This tends to aerosolize bacteria with the possibility of moving it into areas that you can’t see or reach, such as the rafters and ceiling. As much as 90% of bacteria can be eliminated from concrete surfaces with appropriate cleaning techniques. Allow sufficient drying time before the next steps. Otherwise, pathogens might remain on surfaces.

Disinfection

Apply a disinfectant labeled for use against viruses and bacteria. Follow the manufacturer’s directions. This targets the remaining 6-7% of microbes.

Virkon-S is highly acclaimed as a disinfectant against many viruses and bacteria. Accelerated hydrogen peroxide products (Virox) are the gold standard. These contain surfactants, wetting agents, and chelating agents, all of which facilitate penetration.

Virox is fairly broad spectrum. It tends to work better than other products in the presence of light debris and on rougher surfaces while not being corrosive. Contact time should be at least one to five minutes. A list and an explanation of effective disinfectants can be found at the Center for Food Safety & Public Health (cfsph.iastate.edu/Disinfection).

Food and Water While Away

Only use feed and water containers that you brought for your horse. Be careful that hoses used to fill watering vessels haven’t been contaminated in other horses’ water sources. Don’t touch the end of the community horse in your horse’s water. Refrain from filling your horse’s water buckets from tanks used by other horses.

When you dispose of your horse’s water, avoid emptying buckets where drainage might impact other horses. Watering sources contain nasal secretions, saliva, and other potentially communicable material.

As you walk your horse around a property, don’t let him snuffle through leftover piles of hay or spilled grain. These have likely been exposed to other horses’ mouths.

For a daylong event, it is often best to simply tie your horse to your trailer to avoid interaction and contact with other horses. Don’t share tack, blankets, or grooming equipment with anyone else.

When warming up your horse in a common exercise area, avoid direct contact between horses. Don’t tie your horse to a post or any other tie supports that might have had other horses’ noses or mouths contacting them.

Lest we forget other potential infectious disease fomites at public events, wash your hands and don’ tlet your dog roam. It doesn’t hurt to ask management to advise that all dogs be restrained appropriately at a public equine event.

Returning Home

It is important to continually monitor horses once they have returned home from an outside venue. One excellent means of identifying a looming problem is taking twice-daily rectal temperatures. (This is also good while your horse is away at a show.)

Watch for any abnormal clinical signs, such as reduced appetite, listlessness, diarrhea, nasal discharge, cough, or any signs of discomfort or incoordination. Advise your veterinarian of any suspicion of a problem so you can get an early jump on containment.

Clean and disinfect all equipment used away from the farm—i.e., wheelbarrows, rakes, and manure buckets. Keep that equipment in a separate location. You might even store show equipment in the horse trailer so it is ready for the next trip. That also lets you know it is clean and disinfected.

Tack and grooming equipment should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected where possible.

Horse trailers move on and off the property, with horse manure and secretions abundant on the interior surfaces. As an example, influenza virus can remain infective in this kind of dark, cool, moist environment for seven to 10 days. Herpesvirus can remain infective in manure for up to 35 days.

Remove all soiled feed, water, and manure. Dispose of these away from the resident herd, either in dumpsters or in compost piles.

Trailers are best parked away from the resident horses. They should be cleaned and disinfected as often as possible, especially after returning from an off-site location. Spray trailers inside and outside with pesticides to help limit diseases brought in by hitchhiking insect vectors.

Biosecurity Bottom Line

Biosecurity strategies are part of waging a war on equine infectious disease. This is true on your farm or across the country.

These efforts might seem labor intensive. But keeping your herd’s health secure through simple biosecurity steps can save you from great difficulty, added expense, and intensive labor.

The objective of good biosecurity practices is to prevent an infectious disease outbreak in the first place. That way, you can keep your animals as “healthy as a horse.”