Here's a mystery diagnosis

[Bunnylady]

At the office, we always used to joke about the people whose kids go to day care being 'prime vectors'. Their child would go to day care, catch something, they'd catch it from their child, bring it to the office, an give it to all of us. It was truly amazing how often families of day care kids were sick and how often they got US sick!

Oh, yeah, you know it! My kids were home until they started Kindergarten. When my oldest started school, the bugs started on us! During most of his Kindergarten year, I don't think there was a two-week period when there wasn't at least one of us sick. Our immune systems eventually got tougher; we get sick a lot less now.

I agree with you about most barns' "quarantine" being a joke. Unfortunately, I have heard of some airborn viruses being caught when the nearest possible source of infection was at least half a mile away. Most people don't have facilities large enough for effective quarentine for that sort of thing. I have always considered myself lucky that I haven't brought anything nasty home to my own animals; I never even think about changing clothes or shoes when I come home (though I should!)

I hope by now your horses are well again. This situation had piqued my interest, I know how frustrating it can be to have something going on and not know how to treat it or how to prevent it. Did you ever get any definitive answers on what it was?

 

[w c]

I think there is no practical treatment for viral infections except nursing care, and that antibiotics only prevent a bacterial infection from taking advantage of a very weakened animal. We don't like to overuse antibiotics and we only use them if the animal is really going down hard. And we have no faith in any herbals actually attacking a virus. Just studying how viruses work will make anyone a doubter. So we did not use herbals or antibiotics this time.

All the tests came back from UC Davis negative. We're very, very spooked by neurological form of Rhino around here, having seen not a few cases. So when a virus pops up we tend to do a defcon 5 scramble if it doesn't act exactly like 'the plain old snots'.

We did all the nursing care - loose bandaging, blanketing, plenty of good feed, and stay out of drafts, and the swelling in the legs gradually subsided.

The friskiest of the bunch is the mare and she heralded her recovery by bucking and leaping all over kingdom come. Of course I don't normally depend on a horse to declare when it's all well, any more than I do a two to six year old child. But she is well.