Pigeon Fever...what is it? Really, it is something that I have never heard of before. I just happened to see a post on a friend's Facebook and decided to read about it. Then I shared the link. Then I heard that three people that I know personally have horses fighting this illness. Now that was a SHOCK! All of these friends live in Florida, too.
So what is Pigeon Fever? Basically it is CL in horses. CL is a disease that can be transmitted to people through the milk of dairy animals. Due to this, we test all of our dairy animals every year for CL. Boer goats are more prone to CL than the dairy goats and it is due to this, that we have elected not to own Boer goats. One day, I will take time to locate a clean herd of Boer goats and add them to the farm, but not yet.
There are different names for Pigeon Fever: Dryland Distemper and Colorado Strangles. It is more prone in drought areas and out west. However, this year it is in Florida. Here is an article from the Florida Extension telling about some new cases: Pigeon Fever in Florida. I understand that there are many more cases than just the four mentioned in the article. The horse in the pictures now has an opened abscess that is draining well. They have the horse isolated and have to clean the wound regularly with betadine. They plan on burning any material used to clean the wound.
Another really good article that I saw posted on Facebook about this was published by the Quarter Horse News: Pigeon Fever. This really was very informative and shows the abscesses after they have opened up.
It seems that fly control is very important to prevent the spreading of this disease. A very good topical spray for horses is Endure. You can purchase that at Jeffers Livestock. If you are have horses in the infected areas, then you may want to consider a feed through fly control. Now remember, it takes two to four weeks for these to start working, but since we don't know how long this disease is going to be around, you may want to consider one of these. The one that I would recommend is Solitude. Remember, you would need to have all of your horses using this product for it to be effective.
If you are like us and have chickens roaming around, you need to be care and not feed a growth inhibitor fly control. Instead, two products that are natural and effective are Get-Away and Bug Check. Notice that the Get-Away has vitamin B-1 in it. I was speaking with the nutritionist at FRM about a month ago trying to encourage them to put herbs in their horse feed like Seminole does. He asked about the benefits of the herbs and when I mentioned garlic and bug control, he said their research showed that vitamin B-1 was more effective than any other product on the market. That was news to me! He said it is so effective that they actually add it to the deer feed that they produce to help the deer out! So I'm thinking that Get-Away would be a very good bug repellent. Again, remember that it will take more than one week to help protect your horse.
Another product that helps stop the parasite cycle is Diatomaceous Earth. Be sure to get a food grade product, not the stuff for the swimming pools! Here is one that I plan on picking up the next time that I stop by Tractor Supply: Red Lake Diatomaceous Earth. In addition to the DE, it has a natural clay that will have added benefits for your animal. I have not tried this product yet, but it is on my shopping list for the next time I go to town.
I came across another article worth mentioning as I researched this Pigeon Fever. I have used Vetericyn on a calf that had a grapefruit sized abscess at the umbilical cord site. The calf survived and had a complete recovery. We used a combination of products on the calf, but one of them was Vetericyn. So since there was this testimonial of successful treatment of Pigeon Fever with Vetericyn, I thought I should mention this too.
I guess I will end this article by saying the most important part of dealing with Pigeon Fever is knowing that you have it. You need to go out and groom your horse every day. Simply by doing this one daily task, you will be so familiar with your animal that you will notice problems immediately. This is really important with this disease to prevent the spread and to save your animal.
