Helpful Hints

I took preventative measures to keep EI symptoms to a minimum and I'm happy to say, it worked! If you think EI is coming your way, you might find this information helpful.I have 16 horses in my care, aged 0 to 28, ( one foal was born inthe midst of EI )All horses got infected a few weeks ago and all had minimal symptoms.

NOT ONE got secondary infections. depressed, sore, loss of appetite,pneumonia, colic.One horse had NO symptoms at all as it was vaccinated overseas THREE years ago.

Her off spring (yearling filly, born in Australia, never vaccinated for EI) had almost no symptoms except a snotty nose and a temp rise.The other 14, all had a mild cough and a bit if a snotty nose, I canonly explain it by the way we managed it so I thought, now that we successfully got through it, I might share this with you, hoping it will help your horses.

Once I knew it was coming my way within the next two weeks, I stopped training and simplified their diets to a mixture of; wheaten chaff,bran, oats, grassy or barley hayI also added herbs in once a day (garlic, rosehip, echinasea; 2tablespoons of each per horse) Once EI was here, I gave every horse, from the moment it got a temperature, some bute for 3 days ( 5ml, or one sachet morning and evening)

All horses dropped their temps within a few hours and did not get atemp back.

All horses were given medication in the form of BROMO TRIMIDINE or BTS for 10 days as soon as I heard the first cough, even though most stopped coughing within a week I still gave them a 10-day treatment and daily temperature checks.

The BTS is not just an anti-bacterial, it has a mucolytic effect as well, and makes their cough less dry ( and less harmful )I hope this information will be helpful, all the other horse owners I speak to, have had much more severe symptoms, the coughs of neighbouring horses were much louder and dryer, most of them did not treat their horses until it had secondary infections.

SPR Horses.com