Treating Lyme Disease

[Goranson Farm]

Does anyone have experience treating lyme disease in work horses?

My horse Annie slowed significantly this spring/summer. Due to moderate tick exposure this past spring I decided to test her for lyme. The blood test came back positive with her titers significantly higher than normal. Cost of treatment ranges from $850 to $1500. Right now I’m trying to decide what level of treatment to pursue.

Any information/first hand experience would be incredibly helpful. I’m interested in pursuing homeopathic treatments as well as the conventional treatments of doxycycline.

Thanks,
Carl

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[Will Stephens]

I live in the Lyme disease capitol of the word and have served on the two separate tick/Lyme task forces here. I am currently on doxycycline myself for the fourth or fifth time in 16 years. For the horses it is no joke. I have had three horses contract Lyme disease. My mare Tess was so affected her titer was the highest readable number (3000 if memory serves) which spiked a massive fever. Fever caused laminitis resulting in her being put down after 6 months of trying to keep her going. She was a great horse. We found the tick right away and caught the fever right away and it all was still for naught. It is part of our routine to check the horses after being in tall grass or the woods just like we check our selves and the dogs every time. We seam to find them on the horses mostly around the head. It’s amazing how many we find in the longer hair under their lower jaw.

Doom and gloom sounding but I mean it as a cautionary tale to others, prevention in this case is by far the best cure. We use a fly spray that helps repel ticks also.

We have had success with the doxycycline but some pro-biotic digestive help for the horse is essential because the dosage is large and for a long time. Light walking which they very well may have no interest in doing on their own, and watch the temperature in their feet (cold water hose or cold stream if you have one.)

best of luck with it.

[Does’ Leap]

Hi Carl,

We treated a mare for lyme last spring. She had originally come from PA so I had hoped she picked it up there, it is a real bummer to have our horses up here getting it, because from what I have read it is a really big deal for people.

You can get compounded doxycycline from different pharmacies that is much cheaper than the vet, your vet needs to give you a scrip but I think I treated my mare for 6 weeks for less than $200 and she was much improved. Then throw in any immune support you can think of, and ledum is supposed to be beneficial as well.

In my many conversations with people dealing with this I did come across a non conventional treatment some are turning to. A friend I really respect had a barn in CT and constantly had her horses on doxy and they kept getting sick and sicker. SHe resorted to using the dog vaccine as a treatment and it apparently worked miracles for her horses, she is now in Northern VT so that may have solved some of her problems as well. I did some research on this protocol and it is apparently being used in some really hard hit areas, I did not go for it, but it is in the back of my mind if I end up with continued issues.

Good luck, I’d be interested to know what you do and how your mare turns around,
Kristan

[Does’ Leap]

Oh yeah, the pharmacy I used for the doxy was Rood and Riddle, you can look them up on line, but I was told by my vet it would be over $1000 to treat my mare as well.

Kristan

[KMichelle]

While I have not had to deal with Lyme in my horses, I do know of people who are vaccinating their horses with canine prescription, and perhaps this would work on an acute treatment dose as well.

Also Stephen H Buhner published an excellent book on homeopathic Lyme treatments.

And while you maybe be able to ideally pursue a generic avenue for antibiotics, I know that I for one, could not replace my work horses for less then $1500.

[Goranson Farm]

Thanks for the help! Sorry for the delayed response. All in all its amazing how much vets mark up antibiotics and how well they work…

Annie is now on Doxycycline which I ordered from Wedgewood Veterinary Pharmacy. The total cost came to $450. I contacted Rood and Riddle (thanks!!!) and found that they couldn’t ship Doxycycline to Maine due to shipping regs. Not only could Wedgewood mail me the antibiotics but they turned out to be cheaper than Rood and Riddle.

On the health front:
Annie has been on antibiotics for about about a month now and seems to be doing better. She has more energy and isn’t as mopy. Last week we seeded over 13 acres of cover crop! I would get up at 5 to mix the vetch and oats, load the grain drill with 200lbs of seed, grain, medicate and harness up Annie and Snap, and plant until in got hot/humid (about 10:30 last week). With Annie in mind I wouldn’t seed more than 2 acres at a time. It took us about 3 acres before the team and I could make some straight evenly spaced passes. At first I was to hopping off the grain drill pretty regularly to throw some seed down by hand on areas we had veered off course. This gave the team ample time to rest during the work. In a couple months I will have Annie tested again for lime and see where we stand.

Horses on the farm:
Despite Annies Lyme this season we have raked all of our hay with the team (25acres), cultivated with a single horse our black plastic crops, and will have seeded over 15-16 acres of cover crop. The team and I will be working through the fall hauling the harvest of 50,000 pounds of carrots, 60,000lbs of potatoes, 15,000lbs of winter squash, and other random root veggies in from the field.

Next years goals include tedding+raking all of our hay, cultivating (Why does a cultivator that can straddle a 36 wide bed not exist!!!!!!), fertilizing cover crop ground with three up and seed all 30+ acres of cover crop with the team. If folks have any ideas for other tasks on a 60 acre organic farm that could be efficiently completed with horses I would love some suggestions.

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