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You’ve just shipped your horse all the way across the country to contest one of the many prestigious indoor shows, and you’ve done everything right. You picked a reliable shipper, your horse was the picture of health when he left, and he appeared his normal self upon arrival. You start him back into light work and are preparing to head to your first show.
However, a few days after you arrive, your horse starts to develop a fever, nasal discharge and cough. When the symptoms continue for a few days, you call the veterinarian, who diagnoses your horse with pleuropneumonia or “shipping fever.” Your horse undergoes treatment for several weeks, and your show season has been derailed.
Unfortunately, this scenario is a reality for horse owners who ship their horses frequently. However, shipping fever is preventable with proper management of your horse while on the road.
What Is Shipping Fever?
Shipping fever is a respiratory infection that affects the chest cavity and the lungs. It occurs most often during transport because of the stress of travel combined with the fact that air quality declines inside horse trailers if they aren’t properly ventilated and horses don’t have room to stretch out their head and necks.
“Most bacteria is in the environment, and it becomes pathogenic when their defense mechanisms aren’t working or they become overwhelmed by bacteria,” said Jordan Lewis, DVM, of Palm Beach Equine Medical Center in Wellington, Fla. “On a daily basis, you could scope a horse and see dirt in their trachea. Normal horses can get rid of that. Horses that have compromised immune systems; the cells that normally get rid of that dirt aren’t working very well. The macrophages help take away bacteria, and with stress or exercise there’s decreased viability and a decreased number of them. There are some studies that say that it takes up to two weeks for the cells to recover after transportation.”
The illness has been around for centuries, ever since horses began being transported en mass, such as during wartime. While antibiotics are available today, they weren’t prevalent when the disease first became a problem, so horse owners had to think of different ways to keep their horse healthy on the road. Even today, giving antibiotics pre-travel isn’t recommended.
According to a study conducted by Carolyn Stull, DVM, an extension specialist at the Center for Equine Health at the University of California, Davis, horses that were cross-tied while in transport were more likely to suffer from dehydration and immune system failure during and after travel, in comparison to horses that traveled lose with the ability to lower their heads.
