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Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment

Home > Weeds, Pests & Diseases > Animal Diseases > Horse Diseases

Horse Welfare and Diseases


Hendra virus – The risk of Hendra virus in Tasmania is very low because we do not have flying foxes (the natural host of the Hendra virus) in Tasmania. If you are bringing a horse in from (or back from) Queensland or northern New South Wales, the risk of bringing this disease in with your horse is also low. However, as a precaution, you should follow the normal recommended biosecurity practice of keeping a close eye on your horse for a couple of weeks after it arrives and contact your vet if you see any signs suggesting Hendra virus (or any other exotic disease). Further reading: Hendra Virus overview (Qld Department Primary Industries)


Horse welfare - Guidelines covering issues such as diet, exercise, housing, foot and dental care and other routine husbandry practices, training and transport, have been endorsed by the Tasmanian Government. Horse owners and people thinking about becoming a horse owner are encouraged to download these guidelines.

Horse Flu – The last of the EI-related restrictions was lifted on 1 July 2008. However, there are many important lessons to be learned from the outbreak. They include:

  • Have at least some basic biosecurity measures on your property – in particular anyone handling your horse should wash their hands and clean their equipment before doing so;
  • If taking your horse to an event, you must ensure your horse is healthy;
  • Encourage the organisers of events to collect and hold basic tracing information (at least owners’ names and addresses and contact details, the horse’s identification and its location after the event). This information would be most helpful if a disease were detected after the event.

DPI Victoria has produced an excellent checklist to help owners do a basic horse health check . It explains how you can check the vital signs and what you will find with a normal, healthy horse. You are encouraged to check your horse regularly and contact your vet if you come across anything that is not normal.

What are we worried about?
What are List A and List B diseases?
How can we avoid bringing in disease?
What do you do if it happens?
Biosecurity for Horse Events
The Law
Further Information
Important Phone Numbers		Colour photograph showing two foals at play - jumping in air.

We have a colour poster that summarises the following important information. Why not download it and put it up in your office or stable as a handy reference?

Download Horse Disease as a PDF  Horse Disease
(PDF: 63 KB / 1 page)
 
This is a Portable Document Format (PDF) file and requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader. The Reader is easy to download and is free of charge.

What are we worried about?

Colour photograph of two horses, mother and foal in a paddock.Our primary concern, from a biosecurity point of view, is to prevent the spread of infectious diseases that could seriously affect parts of the horse industry – breeding, racing, other equine sports and the recreational horse community. There are three broad categories of the more serious infectious diseases :

List A diseases are those that are exotic (ie not present in Tasmania).

List B diseases are those that we know do occur or have recently occurred in Tasmania or mainland Australia, usually in particular districts, and that warrant close monitoring or control. For example, Equine herpes 1 exists on the mainland but is rarely diagnosed in Tasmania.

New or unknown diseases are when animals are dying or are obviously very sick but do not fit the criteria for a known disease. An example of this is an unknown disease that was causing the death of horses (and the death of a horse trainer) in Brisbane in the early 1990s. It turned out to be a new disease and has been called Hendravirus.

What are List A and B diseases?

Each Australian State publishes lists of Notifiable Animal Diseases commonly called List A and List B diseases. These diseases have specific laws regarding reporting obligations and quarantining measures: List A's (eg. exotic) are more stringent than List B's (eg. endemic or already present but we need to know about them).

The diseases on the lists are those which by their infectiousness and/or effects warrant a Government response to protect the industry or species involved. Your vet has been issued with the Lists.
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How can we avoid bringing in disease?

Records
Identifying individual horses and recording their movements is basic to controlling disease both at home and abroad. Do you know what other horses your horse has been in contact with over the past fortnight? Do you know how you make sure you know?

It all comes down to recording routines. Of course records aren't much use if they aren't accurate – but there is nothing like an infectious disease to test that.

Colour photograph of a row of cars and horsefloats in a paddock.A simple diary for the single horse owner is a start. Horse transporters would have more extensive records – that's their business as it is for the trainer and spelling farm operator.

Sick horses
When is a sick horse sick? Infectious diseases produce a whole range of signs in their host - from the odd cough to weight loss, abortion, weak foals to sudden death.

Is 'a bit of a virus' grounds for not competing or moving to the stud? YES!

While the inconvenience is annoying and, of course, you will miss that 'once in a lifetime opportunity', why risk your horse and everyone else's? Any abnormality (not just coughs and colds) should be thoroughly checked out before a horse is moved.

Sick horses should be isolated from healthy horses. In-contacts should also be isolated and have their rectal temperatures checked twice daily. Isolated horses should not be able to contact other horses directly including over a single wire fence. Electric fencing has been used for temporary isolation paddocks. Isolation includes gear, feed and water bins, waste bedding and water. Call a vet if you are concerned, even if it's a 'cold' that won't go away.
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Routine quarantine (yes, even a friend's nags)
Colour photograph of a horse saddle up in a stable.Infectious organisms like nothing better than a holiday in a nice, new stable with lots of horses they haven't met before.

This is essentially why exotic bugs are so dangerous.

Most infectious diseases have an incubation period (time between infection and sickness) of less than two weeks. So a quarantine period of two to three weeks for all new introductions is a good idea.

Quarantining involves gear as well as the horse – saddlery, feed and water bins and grooming equipment. Always clean and disinfect introduced gear.

Hygiene
Diseases are injected, carried, sneezed, coughed, licked and defecated onto the next candidate.
    We know this – so why do we walk into other folk's paddocks with grubby boots and jackets? Why do we use the same rearing bit between horses? What do we do with gear that we lend to a friend?

    Apart from washing hands between horses; changing your clothes and doing sick and in-contact horses last in your stable routine are important to preventing and controlling disease. Some diseases require additional precautions that, if followed, can significantly limit losses - for instance Equine herpes virus 1.

    A tip on 'cleansing and disinfecting' - dipping gear in a smelly, coloured foaming solution may look right but unfortunately some elbow grease is required. To make sure you are not wasting your time and money, scrub visible dirt off first, then disinfect.

    Why bother?
    If the above is starting to sound impractical, just consider what good horse health management achieves:
    • Fewer common diseases – they will still happen but as fewer horses are exposed the 'flu' season should be shorter.
    • Nasty diseases such as strangles and equine herpes virus abortion become rare.
    • Fewer vet bills and less expenditure on various remedies.
    • Performance should be truer to form as the individual horse is no longer compensating for a whole raft of minor viruses and bacterial overloads.
    And then there's the exotics…
    Emergency diseases (exotic diseases and the home grown ones such as Hendravirus) would be devastating for those directly involved and the surrounding area or state. The ripple effect however can be limited with the cooperation of the horse owning community. Good records and sound horse health management will enable disease control to be applied more rapidly and appropriately. Go to top of page

    What do you do if it happens?

    Call a Vet
    We (the disease controllers) are more interested in helping the horse industry as a whole than pursuing individuals. So reporting suspicious signs to your vet or to the exotic disease hotline (1800 675 888) goes a long way to helping yourself and everyone else.

    By the way, the control of many emergency horse diseases do not require wholesale destruction of horses, although that decision often depends on rapid detection and diagnosis.

    Quarantine your establishment
    • Do not allow any horses or other animals or 'things' (trucks, feed, bedding etc) on or off your property if possible until the all-clear is given.
    • Start making a list of horse, people and 'thing' movements for the past fortnight.
    Isolate any sick horses and in-contacts
    • Sick horses and their contacts should be isolated from the main population and neighbours. Effective isolation prevents direct contact between horses or groups of horses.
    • Handle the sick horses last or use separate staff. Wash your hands thoroughly between horses.
    • Wear protective clothing such as overalls when attending the sick horses and take them off for washing before attending to other tasks.
    • Take rectal temperatures twice daily.

    The Law

    Those who deliberately risk their own and other peoples' horses by not reporting suspicious disease or ignoring movement restrictions are liable for prosecution. If in doubt about any disease or movement regulation PLEASE ask your veterinarian or DPIPWE.

    Further Information

    Exotic Disease
    An Equine Exotic Disease manual for horse owners is available on the web at www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/HOR/02-054sum.htmlYou are now leaving our site. DPIPWE is not responsible for the content of the web site to which you are going. The link does not constitute any form of endorsement (you may download or purchase a hardcopy).

    A guide for Government and the horse industry has been developed in Victoria (Horse Alert Victoria). This document has relevance for Tasmania. It details government responses to equine emergency diseases and describes the diseases we are concerned about.

    Most importantly for equine event organisers, the document gives outlines for contingency plans that can be put in place in case an emergency disease is suspected.

    Hendra Virus
    This useful overview of the Hendra virus is available from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries website: www.dpi.qld.gov.au/cps/rde/dpi/hs.xsl/4790_11127_ENA_HTML.htm


    DPIPWE can assist organisations develop contingency plans.

    Horse Alert Victoria is freely available to equine organisations and owners from Racing VictoriaYou are now leaving our site. DPIPWE is not responsible for the content of the web site to which you are going. The link does not constitute any form of endorsement or in hardcopy form from:

    Contact: Animal Health and Welfare Branch
    Biosecurity and Product Integrity Division
    Animal Health and Welfare Branch
    13 St Johns Avenue
    NEW TOWN TAS 7008
    Phone: 03 6233 6875
    Email: AnimalWelfareEnquiries@dpipwe.tas.gov.auGo to top of page


    IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS

    Exotic Disease Hotline Number (24 hours) 1800 675 888

    DPIPWE Enquiries 1300 368 550 (BH)

    Horse Import Enquiries 03 6336 5334 (BH)




    Tasmania Online


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    This page - http://www.dpipwe.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/WebPages/CPAS-5SH5RL?open - was last published on 17 September 2009 by the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment. Questions concerning its content can be sent to AnimalWelfare Enquiries by using the feedback form, by mail to GPO Box 44, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia 7001, or by telephone to 03 6336 5398.

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