disease vectors

Happy Friday, y'all! We are officially into the height of spring around these parts. The local flora absolutely erupted into leaf and flower thanks to frequent rain showers and rising temperatures, and with all that comes the bugs omg the bugs! 

pictured: ticks, so many ticks

Tho, realistically these days... The ticks are with us year round. Actually, at least in my experience, the winter ticks are the sneakiest of them all bc nobody expects or is looking for them... I was appalled to find an engorged one hiding under Doozy's jaw recently, ugh. 

Normally I can get 'em the first day or two after they attach, but that one managed a full meal. Oh well, it happens!

oh look, there's one right there! fun thing about lone star ticks is they don't even try to hide, they'll just bite the horse in any old place, like on the shoulder or right there on doozy's belly

Virtually every horse in my region will have a mildly positive Lyme titer, reflecting at least some presence of antibodies. Tho I'll still do a test if there are indications of a more acute case. 

Around here, we'll usually say that if you're horse is acting a little off, his behavior or manners are a bit changed, he's cranky or maybe seems body-sore or NQR in a hard-to-pin-down sorta way, it's wise to at least run a titer. 

common tick types
source: Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Science

In recent years, another tick-borne illness has become increasingly common: anaplasmosis. Charlie had a case back in 2020, following my first run-in with a lone star tick. 

I was honestly expecting he'd pick up the infection mostly bc of the huge swelling at the bite site, despite the tick being fairly freshly attached. And Charlie miserably obliged that expectation after a 9 day incubation period by spiking a gigantic fever and feeling very sorry for himself.

an increasingly common diagnosis. familiarize yourself with these symptoms: BIG fever, puffy legs
source: https://stablemanagement.com/barns-grounds/tick-diseases-in-horses/ 

Treatment was fairly straight forward and the horse recovered quickly... It's honestly not a huge issue. Except that if you aren't thinking of tick-borne illness when those symptoms appear, it can be easy to panic or freak out. Nobody likes giant fevers and swollen legs! 

let the countdown begin, i guess...

Time will tell if Doozy goes down the same path. It's possible that I missed the tick the day before... but doesn't seem likely given that it was right at the girth groove. So I'm guessing it latched on the morning I found it. Getting it off was a little weird tho --- the body came apart in pieces!

sorry it's fuzzy, but the body literally tore in half when i tried to pull it out -- not just the body separating from the head 

Like, the segment of the body where the white dot is came off from the rest of the body, which has literally never happened that I can remember in years of plucking ticks off horses... Like, sure, the head will often pull apart from the body... But idk, this was weird lol. Luckily a barn mate knew where an old pair of forceps was hiding, so I could dig out the last little bits o' tick (ew). 

 

is this lifestyle worth it? yes lol, the answer is yes

Doozy, for her part, seemed very grateful for that little bit of attention and vigorously nuzzled my elbow while I worked, as if to say, "Omfg it itches get it out get it out!" 

So we'll see what happens. Maybe we'll get lucky? Anybody else had to deal with tick issues?