Equine Vaccinations & Prevention

At Red Hills Veterinary Hospital, our vets will work with you to design an equine vaccinations schedule that fits your horse’s unique lifestyle and risk factors. 

Types of Vaccinations For Gillette Horses

Our veterinarians regularly review the available vaccines and dewormers and consult with leading experts to select those products that are the safest and most effective for horses.

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

Core Equine Vaccinations

While some vaccinations are given to horses based on the level of risk they face in terms of contracting a particular condition, there are five core vaccinations that should be given to all horses to protect against common equine conditions that all have significant fatality rates in horses.

Core vaccines for Gillette horses include:

• Rabies
• West Nile virus
• Eastern and Western equine encephalomyelitis
• Tetanus.

All horses can be exposed to these potentially fatal diseases and need to 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
• Equine viral arteritis
• Rotaviral diarrhea
• Leptospirosis
• Potomac horse fever
• Botulism
• Anthrax
• Snake bites

The Importance of Dewormers to Protect Your Herd's Health

Our Gillette vets recommend deworming most horses once or twice a year. Before having your horse dewormed in the spring, a fecal exam should be done in order to measure the number of worm eggs being shedding in your horse's feces.

Although most horses shed very few worm eggs, some will shed high numbers of eggs and are more likely to infect the rest of the herd. Internal parasites can cause a number of problems in horses, including as colic, anemia, ill-thrift, and diarrhea.

Types of Dewormers

Based on the results attained in your horse's fecal exam, we will recommend whether you need to deworm your horse.

The different types of dewormers include:

• Fenbendazole

  Targets roundworms, bloodworms, and pinworms.

• Ivermectin

  Targets all parasites except tapeworms. However, resistance to ivermectin is high in roundworms.

• Ivermectin and Praziquantel

  Targets all parasites. However, resistance to ivermectin is high in roundworms.

• Moxidectin

  Targets all parasites except tapeworms. However, resistance to moxidectin is high in roundworms.

• Moxidectin and Praziquantel

  Targets all parasites. However, resistance to moxidectin is high in roundworms.

• Pyrantel

  Targets bloodworms, pinworms, and roundworms.

Common Equine Parasites

Several common parasites can result in health issues for your horses. 

The following are both internal and external parasites that our Gillette vets recommend deworming against.

• Roundworms

  Most commonly seen 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 young horses, roundworms cause poor growth and development as well as respiratory signs. Young animals with bad cases can have obstructed intestines leading to colic and possibly 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, thanks in large part to appropriate deworming

• Cyathostomins

  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

  Most common in horses less than two years old or horses with poor management. Worms live in the large intestine, but they deposit their eggs around the horse’s anus causing the horse to have an itchy hind end. 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.

  Tapeworms don’t seem to cause many diseases in horses. While colic is considered a risk with this type of worm, the incidence is quite low.

• Bots Flies

  Bots 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.

  The larvae are passed out through feces and hatch in the spring. Botflies rarely cause clinical signs in horses, but they can cause gastric ulcers.