Equine Vaccinations & Prevention

Types of Vaccinations For Southern Wisconsin Horses

Badger Equine Veterinary Services has put together annual vaccination recommendations for your horse, in accordance with AAEP guidelines, and our doctors can customize a vaccination protocol that works for your particular horse, stable, and situation.

The following are the two different categories of equine vaccinations that we provide.

Core Vaccinations

The five core diseases that all have significant fatality rates in horses are:

• Eastern and Western Equine Encephalomyelitis
• West Nile Virus
• Tetanus
• Rabies

All horses can be exposed to these potentially fatal diseases and should be vaccinated annually according to the American Association of Equine Practitioners. 

Risk-Based Vaccinations

The following vaccinations are given if your horse's lifestyle may put them at risk:

• Equine influenza virus
• Herpesvirus 
• Strangles
• Potomac horse fever

Vaccination will vary depending on your horse’s unique lifestyle and environment. 

Common Parasites

Parasites are organisms that will live on the skin of your horse or infect the intestinal tract to gain nutrients in order to survive. Internal parasites can easily infect your horse and can cause serious illness such as inflammation, colic, anemia, ill-thrift, diarrhea and other uncomfortable conditions.

The following are both internal and external parasites that our Southern Wisconsin vets recommend deworming against:

• Roundworms

  Most common in horses less than one-year-old and very old animals due to decreased immunity. They migrate through the trachea and live in the small intestine.

  In younger horses, roundworms may cause poor growth and development as well as respiratory issues. Young animals that have bad cases of roundworms can have intestinal obstructions leading to colic or even death.

  Older affected horses may have a poor hair coat, weight loss, or decreased performance.

• Bloodworms

  These worms can migrate through the arteries around the large intestines and cause colic. Bloodworms used to be a major problem in horses, but their occurrence and significance has decreased with appropriate deworming.

• Cyathostomins & Strongyles

  This type of parasite lives in the large intestine and migrates into the wall of the intestine. Cyathostomins cause severe gastrointestinal signs such as decreased appetite and diarrhea.

  Resistance to dewormers is increasing in these worms, so targeted deworming is especially important.

• Pinworms

  Pinworms are most common in horses younger than two years old or horses with poor management. These worms live in their large intestine and deposit their eggs around the horse's anus, causing them to have an itchy hind. 

  It’s difficult to treat and control pinworms so good horse and pasture management is important.

• Tapeworms

  Horses become infected with tapeworms by eating small pasture mites during grazing. These worms attach to areas of the bowel lining causing thickening, inflammation, and ulceration of the intestinal wall. Since these worms spend part of their life living on mites, they are difficult to control.

• Bot Flies

  Bot flies lay their eggs on the horse’s coat in late summer and early fall. The eggs show up as small yellow specks, mainly on the horses’ legs. Horses ingest bot eggs while licking or scratching their legs, then the eggs develop into larvae in the equine stomach and small intestine.

  Bot fly larvae are passed out through feces and will hatch in the spring. Bot flies will rarely cause clinical signs in horses, but they may cause gastric ulcers.