in today's video we're gonna learn all about rabies and horses if you're new
here my name is brandi and this channel is all about horses and my journey with
horsemanship if you want to learn more about horses be sure to hit that
subscribe button now so you don't miss anything today I am here with dr.
Rebecca Vollrath from the Copper Country veterinary clinic and today we're gonna
talk about rabies and horses so can you tell me what is rabies
so rabies is a viral disease in all mammal species including humans horses
dogs cats most people are familiar with it from dogs and cats and it causes
progressive neurologic symptoms and death it's universally fatal there's one
case study of a human that lived through it and that's not even one that we can
count on well I think everybody's seen Old Yeller yep
that's kind of a staple right there umm can mice mice and squirrels rodents are
on the list for not being susceptible to it we don't have two squirrels okay well
that's good okay so what are so if a horse get it first of all how can a
horse get rabies so horses would get rabies or any mammal
will get it from being bitten by a rabid animal and being bitten the virus gets
into their nerves and travels up to their brain before it causes symptoms so
they may have been bit by the rabid animal a long time ago okay
got fit in the back leg it has to travel all the way to the brain port cause the
symptoms okay one symptoms occur when it hits the
brain they will be dead within 10 days and that's the peak transmission times
that's when they can spread exits in their saliva okay and that's why if a
dog bites a human there's a 10-day quarantine because if the dog shows up
neurologic we know that the human has a risk and we need to treat them okay so
it's the same for horses as well within ten days they would okay can you give us
any examples of of course getting rabies so horses are more prone to picking it
up than our dogs and cats because they live outside with those potentially
rather animals 24/7 they're not kept away from them like dogs and cats who
live in our house cats are pretty susceptible because they're the ones
that play with the bats that carry the most rabies Allstate's dogs we we
legally must vaccinate or for human health safety because they are more
likely to bite but horses will pick it up from wildlife outside and the
American Association of equine practitioners or the 880 P recently
posted a video that a horse owner showed of their horse was just grazing in its
pasture and they saw a fox kind of wandering around in their field they
couldn't figure out what it was doing and all a sudden it ran up attacked
their horses back leg bit it and the horse killed it and they submitted it
for testing and it was positive for rabies Wow
so it's that easy so but if the owner hadn't seen that there would have been
no way of knowing it or even no way of knowing so think of how many people have
just horses out in their pastures and different wildlife that comes through
and these horses are at risk for ending up with something like yep and a horse
did test positive in New Jersey this year for rabies
okay so what are the symptoms of rabies there's a lot of different symptoms for
rabies most people think rabies is an aggressive animal coming to attack you
that's not always the case there is a dumb form okay with the disease okay
cattle will get that okay more so and they will act very lethargic to ruling
a lot of the same neurologic symptoms as Triple E which is why we had a test for
both they will head press any neurologic symptoms at all if they're not
vaccinated it's on my rule-out list so if I was concerned about my horse
potentially having rabies what do I do so any horse with neurologic symptoms
the top three things we'll think about is rabies for a human health risk Triple
E and West Nile a lot of the symptoms transfer over so they all look the same
and if a horse is unvaccinated they're most likely you know not vaccinated for
any of them so oftentimes these horses are euthanized and test right away
especially if there's a risk that humans have been affected in any way shape or
form which is why you should always wear gloves when you are handling and
unvaccinated horses mouth especially if you don't know because they are at risk
for transmission okay so unfortunately since most neurologic
horses if we're concerned about any of those three diseases because they're on
vaccinated we oftentimes have to use an eyes them and test them okay and how do
you test them so the rabies sample is the same as Triple E we need a brain
sample from a very specific part of the brain that gets sent off to a very
specific lab that tests for it and any humans that may have had a wound on
their hand and had saliva on them or were bitten have to fill out forms for
safety for their own positions how do we protect our our horses from rabies so
horses can get rabies vaccinations just like our dogs and cats do that are good
for a year and help prevent them from picking up the virus okay and how often
do we have to vaccinate them for rabies I back to Nate for that yearly and
what's the like average cost of a rabies vaccine around eighteen to twenty
dollars okay in Italy definitely well worth it okay
um well I thank you very much that was really great information on rabies I
know I started vaccinating my horses for rabies because the the risk is real and
I don't want my horses to be in danger or anybody else for that matter so thank
you so much for watching if you enjoyed this video please be sure to give it a
like comment below let me know if you've had any issues of rabies in your area or
if you've heard any stories about it I'd really love to to hear your thoughts and
also if you know of anybody who could benefit from watching this video please
be sure to share it with them we really want to get all the information out to
our equine community so thanks so much for watching