SOME people just like things to look clean as in ‘neat and tidy’, perhaps to impress their clients – fair enough! For vets working with performance horses, cleanliness is about the surface appearance being truly reflective of a healthy state underneath and not simply for appearances’ sake.

Vets are borderline obsessed with disease prevention and control, hyper-aware that beneath the surface lie infectious disease-causing organisms (‘pathogens’) that represent a real risk of loss of health, poor welfare and diminished athletic performance. We also recognise that it is increasingly difficult to kill pathogens when we really need to – the drugs we use (antibiotics, anti-parasitics) are simply not as effective as they once were – and thus we need to place more and more emphasis on disease prevention. Where possible, reduce stocking densities and the infective load e.g. by increasing ventilation to reduce exposure to pathogens. Best practice is to keep your horses healthy, avoid the poor performance associated with illness, and rarely need to reach for the drugs cupboard.

Naked eye

The infectious agents we’re talking of here are pathogenic microbes – bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites of a microscopic scale - not visible to the naked eye. We must thus detect and then manage them unseen – this is termed ‘biosecurity’. Pathogens are not to be confused with dirt or with the myriad of harmless microbes (‘germs’) we and our horses share an environment with.

We increasingly recognise the foolishness we once entertained of a sterile approach to life and living. Study the trend in advertising over recent times and you can see the change: once marketed as a disinfectant ‘capable of killing all known germs, stone dead’, now a more focused approach – the (often same!) chemical is instead said to ‘target known disease-causing agents’.

I suggest a step-wise, sequential approach to hygiene in high-risk built environments:

  • Cleaning (power-hose, scrubbing etc.) to remove any heavy load of contaminants.
  • Detergents – keeping the environment clean of organic material such as horse-dung which may harbour pathogens such as tetanus bacteria.
  • Disinfection - as the application of specific pathogen-killing chemicals in a targeted manner - when there is good reason to believe an infectious disease risk exists.
  • Drying and exposure to UV light before re-introducing contact by horses.

    • Immune system

    It is a paradox that our immune system (that is our key protection against the harm caused by pathogens) functions best when subjected to regular but mild challenge. This of course is the core principle underlying vaccination – expose the system to a modified, controlled component of a pathogen; stimulate a mild response now; but most importantly bed in a memory for future times.

    We need to manage our environment to offer controlled exposure to harmless microbes and minimal exposure to pathogenic ones, ensuring our horses are never faced with an overwhelming challenge and thus get ill. Concrete biosecurity measures we can take include:

  • Separating equine stock into different risk categories, for example keeping pregnant mares away from young racehorses, or horses that regularly travel off-farm from those that never do.
  • Quarantining of animals returning from medium to high-risk activities, for example a pony stabled away in shared stables where many were not vaccinated.
  • Isolation and testing when suspicious of infection – as examples, profuse watery scour might indicate Salmonella, a purulent nasal discharge might indicate a Strep infection.
  • Vaccination against common equine infectious diseases such as influenza, herpes virus and strangles.
  • Not sharing equipment where possible between risk groups e.g. grooming brushes and rugs.
  • Regular and thorough cleaning of equipment that must be shared e.g. yard brushes and pitch-forks.
  • Minimising exposure at times of maximum stress, for example, where possible foal outdoors on grass.
  • Paying particular attention to disinfecting high-risk areas such as foaling boxes and foals’ navels.
  • Ensuring feed and fodder are dust and fungus-free and removing these from stable walls, floors and ceilings when horses are not in residence.

    • A balanced approach is necessary in our relations with the environment we all share; we can’t sterilise all around us; non-pathogenic microbes are essential to life, after all. Know the key disease risks, prevent illness where possible; then test and treat in a targeted manner when necessary.