Things You Might Not Know About Equine Biosecurity

veterinary hospitals, huge amounts of work, labour, expense, and time go into biosecurity considerations for each case, for everyone’s protection. This includes regularly changing footbaths, culturing feces on every patient to identify horses that may be harbouring infectious organisms, and taking the temperature of every patient twice per day to catch fevers early. Although these procedures go on in the background, they are vital to running horse hospitals.

7 — Shared water sources can put horses at risk of disease. One of the highest risks for transmission of infectious disease occurs when communal water sources are shared between resident horses and visiting horses, for example at shows or events. Bring a water bucket for each horse when you travel and avoid shared water sources. This includes shared natural water sources such as ponds, which may harbor infectious organisms that could make your horse sick.

Good hand hygiene is important to prevent the spread of disease. By now, everyone is aware of the importance of frequent hand washing to prevent the spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19 in humans. It is also important to practice good hygiene in the barn. Scrub your hands with soap for 20 seconds, or the time it takes to sing the Happy Birthday song twice.

9 — When going from one facility to another, change your clothes and put on clean shoes. Ideally, it is advisable to put on clean clothes and shoes between visits when going to more than one facility. At the very least, wash your hands thoroughly and make sure there is no organic matter contamination on your shoes.

10 — If you are going to haul someone else’s horses, ask a few questions first to ensure only healthy horses get onto your trailer. Find out if there have been any diseases in the barn lately. Has the horse you are going to transport been sick or had any fevers? Be sure to remove manure after you unload the horses and run a disinfecting wipe over the area where the horse’s head was tied, including bars, doors, clips, and mangers.