Shared Water at Rides & STRANGLES

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

debbie zanot darkcat5@yahoo.com
Thought I would jump in on the Strangles topic. The second
year we had the Elk Valley Ride a man asked if he could put his
horse in our barn as he was staying in a hotel. Dumb me said
yes. I had a mare, and my friends two geldings in that pasture.
The mare I gave to a friend who picked her up at the ride. He
was taking her for a brood mare and had like 20 horses at his farm mainly brood mares and babies.(eeeek)
A week later when I was going to trailer my friends horses home 
I noticed the one gelding wasn't wanting his grain. RED ALERT!
We hauled friends horses (in our horse trailer) home and told him to watch this horse closely and to take his temp. We hauled our horses home the next day. I went to check his horse and the
glands were huge and I knew what it was. All of his horses got the strangles, what a mess. None of our horses got them even tho they were exposed to the sick one. I was horrified about the mare I had given away but fortunately she never got them and I know she never had them because I raised her.
My conclusion to the matter was the horse I let stay in the barn at the ride had strangles and was still infectious, because my friend's horses were not exposed to other horses until then.
Because of that incident which could have been really HORRIBLE
We have a "Dipping Only" policy for our main water tanks at the ride. In other words bucket only in the tank no horse saliva.
That may not stop infections spreading but is relieves the paranoia from the nitmare of what occured. 
I never have been comfortable with letting my horse drink out of
tubs with other horses at rides but it is a necessary evil and my vet said our horses probably didn't get strangles that time
because they have been exposed to all kinds of diseases traveling
like they do and have immunity, which probably explains why the mare I gave away didn't get sick because she lived with the endurance horses.
The old thought on strangles was let it run its course that a healthy horse will get over it, which was what my friend did after getting five different opinions.