Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Shut Down

I want to thank all of the other bloggers who posted about the EHV-1 outbreak.

It didn't take much reading for me to come to the conclusion that I would not be going to the 2-day barrel race over in Eagle this coming weekend. The thought of taking my horse to a public venue, at an indoor arena and add in an overnight stay in a public barn....

Suddenly did not seem appealing....Or wise!

I don't have to worry about missing anything though...

Every equine venue in this area has been cancelled...

Rodeos, ropings, barrel racings, horse shows, gymkhanas, horse sales...

EVERYTHING!

There is one confirmed case (probably deceased by now) and 2 with symptoms in quarantine awaiting tests results.

I called the trainer to make sure he was aware of the situation and the severity of it. He said he knew about it, but did not know about the confirmed case or other 2 horses. The barn he works out of is in lock-down, the barn he works at part-time told him to stay home and he is contacting the sale barn he works for to make sure they are prohibiting the sale of horses. I would suspect so because they already postponed the Catalog Horse Sale that was scheduled for this weekend.

I wonder how long this will go on for?

P.S. If you are or plan on moving horses please make sure you or your vet contacts the Dept of Ag. for new requirements. Colorado has implemented a permit # that must be obtained and used on the Health Certificate for horses coming into Colorado.

16 comments:

Sherry Sikstrom said...

With those kinds of broad strokes to mitigate the spread ,hopefully not long.I am very impressed that your area has takenm it on so seriously.FAstest way to stop an epidemic is to stop feeding it

Mikey said...

I wonder how long it'll last too. Just got word today my show this month is cancelled (thank God cause I wasn't going to make it anyway, graduation ceremonies are everywhere).

I'm glad people are cancelling though. I hope this passes soon and we can get back to normal. Lotta people worked real hard and planned to compete. It's a shame to not be able to show off all that hard work.

Paint Girl said...

Our local vet came into our barn today and had a meeting with all of us. There is one horse that was tested at a local vet clinic, but the results haven't come back yet. It is in quarantine(the horse).
We had a show this week out of state and it was canceled. The show the week after that will probably also be canceled (we weren't going to that one this year anyways.) Our vet told us to not allow any new horse to enter our facility or grounds. The vet did say that depending on how this plays out, everything could be back to normal in a few weeks, hard to say though.

Rising Rainbow said...

I don't know how come I didn't hear about this until now but I read this post then I got an email about the outbreak. I'll have to do some research to see if any horses have tested positive in our state but regardless my horses are home for the duration. No hauling horses to the park to school. Guess I'll be picking rocks and making do working here.

Laura said...

Wow - that is scary! Sounds like a good thing your area has cancelled all events - that is the only way to convince people, it seems.

Haven't heard of any cases in my province yet, but it's only a matter of time, I'm sure.

Crystal said...

Pretty scary, but I think the best way to contain it is to close stuff down and quit moving horses. If everyone complies it should be quick to be over.

HollyLane said...

Great post. I just blogged about this last night too. I am not going to panic or live in fear. But only because I plan on staying home for the next month. Here is the link to the Colorado travel requirements. This was the official press release from Colorado Dept of Ag, http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=text%2Fhtml&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1251713839578&ssbinary=true

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

Thank you HollyLane.

I talked to Levi this morning and I guess the sale barn does have a few horses already on site that they are going to sell. Levi will not be taking any horses to the barn and the vet gave him some protective measures to follow to prevent him from carrying anything to the horses at his barn. The sale barn was understanding to the riders who declined to bring horses. It's going to be a long day for those people running cattle on foot, I've had to do that before, but the kid has to work.

Since I will be hauling horses back from SD in a couple of weeks...I will have to make sure our vet obtains the permit #'s for the health certificates. I'm not particularly concerned about the transport. I will be bringing horses from our isolated ranch straight to my home place.

Since everything this weekend was cancelled, it looks like it will be into June before I have anything on the schedule. Things should be pretty clear by then.

Oh, and MiKael-I'm sure you already found this out, but there is at least one confirmed case in Washington.

Cut-N-Jump said...

Last I had heard there was a confirmed case in Prescott. The local stuff here started out saying keep your horses home at least 10 days. I think it has been bumped to 30 now.

Everything has been cancelled- shows, trail rides, ropings, barrels, gymkhannas, they are encouraging everyone to keep their horses HOME and SAFE.

My understanding is it started with an infected horse at a cutting show in Ogden. Glad NONE of ours were there!

Rising Rainbow said...

I found the infected horse in WA came from the cutting horse competition in Ogden. Guess that seems to be where this whole thing started.

Michelle said...

Oh sounds scary. I hate when stuff like this happens..

Danielle Michelle said...

I was just talking to one of my student's who is on the Bloomer HS team - she's bummed but it's scary. I hope thay get a handle on this.

Krystina said...

It does appear this outbreak stemmed from the Ogden cutting show. One of our local area vets here in British Columbia was at the show, and is the attending vet for the one horse in the Fraser Valley of BC (Vancouver area) that was exposed to the infected horses at Ogden. Test results came back yesterday that this horse is in the clear, however the incubation period of 10 days is up on sunday. My facioity is currently under voluntary quarentine as this horse hauls to our facility regularly. Come monday morning we should be in the clear of that particular case. THe other active case here in BC is located in the interior, Vernon. 7 horses at one cutting barn were at the Ogden show and exposed. Three have contracted the virus, one horse was said to not be doing well at all. We have been advised not to travel beyond the Fraser Valley with our horses for the enxt few weeks. All remaining May shows, and some early June shows have been cancelled. Hopefully things will be back to normal and no more confirmed cases pop up within the next 3 weeks or so.

GoLightly said...

Love the pic of Moon as the header! Wise thinking, stay home. As a wise vet said, There is no such thing as an emergency horse show.

14th, JIC!

Michelle said...

This is so scary. You know what's crazy? Once I started reading up on it, I looked to see if there had been any activity here in Florida. And the answer would be YES! I had no idea, but apparently there have been a couple of cases in Gainesville, not far from me. There has been no publicity about this here. Very scary. If I weren't an avid blog reader, I would have no idea this was going on right now....

C-ingspots said...

All the cases of this specific outbreak did come directly from a horse who attended the cutting show in Ogden, Utah. The rest were secondarily infected by those horses as well. Remember, this disease is not new - it's been around for years. This particular outbreak is getting so much publicity because these were big $$ cutting horses and the show was represented by Canada and 18 states, so it's a bit more widespread than the usual outbreaks. We had an outbreak last summer about an hour from where I live, and no publicity, no closed barns (other than the 1 where the infected horses were) and no cancelled events. This one is being spread outrageously by the well-represented rumor mill. Some people just seem to thrive on drama. Remember, that's why we vaccinate our horses and practice good husbandry habits with our animals...so we can use them. Disease is a big part of our lives and there are worse ones out there. This one is nothing new. But, all that said - it never hurts to be cautious and stay home for a while either. We all love our ponies, don't we?