Maggie and Strangles

by Mary Winkler
(Wyoming)

Maggie is a 14-1 hand quarter/appy cross, bay and 15 years old. I bought her off a hunter one beautiful autumn day while I was riding up in the mountains.

One afternoon, as Maggie was being tacked up, the rider noticed a small lump in Maggie's gullet. She brought it to my attention. As I was examining it I also noticed that Maggie looked a bit listless.
I decided to take her temperature.
Her temperature was at 103 degrees.
We returned her to a stall that was isolated from all the others. I prepared a little tasty bran mash for her but was disappointed that she was uninterested in food . I called the vet and gave him Maggie's symptoms, temperature and a description of the swollen lymph nodes. The vet arrived and took a culture from the back of Maggie's throat. Meanwhile we went about a very systematic disinfecting of waterers, buckets, stalls, and everything else that was possible. This we did with a lot of Clorox and Lysol. We also systematically checked all the other horses for any signs of illness. That evening it was confirmed that the strangles bacteria was present. The next day the barn was in an uproar. Everyone was panicked that their horse was going to contract this very contagious disease. We only had 2 horses under 4 years old and they had been vaccinated for Strangles. The fear with the others was more the lay off time and the inability to travel anywhere with them ...as the vet explained. But early detection, isolation, and proper steps for prevention of contamination proved worthwhile. None of the other horses were contaminated and Maggie recovered completely within 8 weeks. She was tested again to make sure that no signs of the bacteria remained.