04/08/2026
So as you may or may not be aware I have several different yards as well as the home horses and lots of different grazing in different places. I do this so that should there be an illness it doesn’t spread through the entire herd. It’s proactive and sensible. I have 3 quarantine yards, one for brand new arrivals for me to assess, one for poorly horses (often more arrivals that are rescued cobs and I already know are ill) and an exit quarantine yard where horses that are leaving say to shows, stud, sold horses heading to new owners and or abroad stay as a form of quarantine so they leave guaranteed clean. What I have noticed coming back into horses after a long break of more than a decade and a half is how much has changed.
Worm resistance, antibiotic resistance, different ways of doing things, new kinds of tack etc, but what this post is really about is to talk about a poorly horse I am nursing on my poorly quarantine yard right now. A rescue gypsy cob, started with white nasal discharge and a cough. Didn’t present as strangles or equine flu, cough went but temperature remained appetite normal, worm count came back high redworm so dealt with that, and what I am presenting with is typical of neglected starved foals not wormed, from non wormed parents, and weaned too soon from filles far too young to be mothers. Antibiotics prescribed didn’t work, 1 month later into the treatment I insisted on nasal swabs and a culture and sensitivity test which found this strictly quarantined new arrival has not strangles or equine flu but E-Coli, Streptococcus AND Staphylococcus infections in it’s lungs, multi bacterial pneumonia that was missed by someone else and left untreated until I stepped in and I also suspect an abscess in the lungs. I am nursing him myself and confident he will survive, we know what antibiotic will kill what he has, and I’ve managed to open his airways and get his temperature down, but this post is to highlight, do not ASSUME when a horse is ill it is flu, do not ASSUME it is strangles and just leave it or give pen and strep which won’t touch this infection the horse mentioned about has. Don’t assume they will just get over it. I clean myself thoroughly when I move between my different yards set up to protect my own horses, but I’m sick of seeing the same s**t done to horses by other people, foals weaned too soon, kept in s**tty dirty conditions, starved, not wormed, lice etc etc and young horses suffering UNNECESSARILY due to their basic needs not being met, and now vets not being called to treat sick animals or people trying to get hold of drugs and treat horses incorrectly as they don’t know what the infection is they are just guessing. One day there will be no wormers that work and no antibiotics that will work against the huge resistance we have for both due to people using them the wrong way that it keeps me awake at night. Simple things like cleaning your buckets, disinfecting your horseboxes and trailers, stop stabling them in squalor, stop putting yearlings in foal!!! If you aren’t prepared to do a worm count or have the vet out to treat your ill horse then bow out and don’t have horses. This neglect and cruelty is preventable. This quarantined c**t will recover I believe, but the point is he shouldn’t have had to suffer and been lucky enough to only have an intervention as I happened to see him and stepped in. I insisted on the nasal swabs and culture being done as the first lot of antibiotics were not working and I know how fast foals can go downhill. Had I not done this he would be dead now. If you don’t have the basic levels of horse husbandry or don’t care, then you don’t deserve horses to own them or bring them into the world to be doomed. He will make a spectacular cob once recovered and rehabilitated which is when I benefit from helping them. I’m just sick of as the decades go by what you look like on a horse and if your stuff matches and is colour coordinated is more important than having high equine management and handling skills. - Gemma Brookes
