Lyme Disease is becoming more common in areas where it has never seen before. Currently, Lyme Disease is found in the northeastern states, from Virginia to Maine, North-central states, West Coast, the southern areas of British Columbia, Manitoba, Southern and Eastern Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Many horses that have been infected with the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease will never show symptoms.

A small percentage will become ill from it. It's important to know if the ticks that carry Lyme Disease are a problem in your area, and to check your horse frequently. Here's what you need to know about Lyme Disease.

Other Names for Lyme Disease:

Lyme Arthritis

Symptoms:

It can be difficult to determine whether a horse has Lyme disease because the symptoms mimic so many other diseases. Symptoms may include:

• Muscle stiffness or soreness
• Fever
• Joint swelling and soreness
• Lameness
• Laminitis
• Uveitis
• Changes in Attitude or Behavior
• Appetite changes
• Weight loss

One indicator that Lyme Disease may be the problem is the presence of lameness and fever together. Most horses that are lame do not have a fever. The muscle and joint soreness may be intermittent and travel to different areas and joints. Once the disease becomes chronic, neurological symptoms like head tilting, difficultly swallowing and inflammation of the brain can occur.

You may actually find one or more ticks on your horse. They are most likely to latch on around the head, throat area, belly and under the tail.

Suspect ticks if your horse is trying to scratch these areas.

Causes:

Lyme Disease is caused by bacteria called Borellia burgdorferi. The bacterium is carried by ticks. Ticks are parasites related to the spider and feed on the blood of animals and humans. There are many different species of ticks. The ticks that bite horses and humans don't fly, but climb plants, waiting for a host to walk by. They sense the body heat, respiration and coat or skin of their hosts. They drop onto their victim, then use the hooks on their legs to latch on. It may be very hard to notice a tick when it first lands because they are very tiny, and almost look like a little seed about 2 to 3mm wide. Under magnification, you can see that ticks have a tear-dropped shaped body and eight legs and can be brown, black or reddish colored. When latched on, however, two of the legs may not be visible. When they are small, they may be very hard to detect, especially in the hair coat of a horse.

Once you notice a tick, it will be much larger than when it landed. As they feed on the blood of their host, they expand and become rounder as their stretchy bodies fill up. At this point, they may appear grey-ish or dark red. The saliva of the tick contains the bacteria the causes Lyme Disease. As they suck the host's blood, the saliva enters the blood stream.

 

Diagnoses:

A blood test can determine if your horse has Lyme Disease if drawn eight weeks after the first tick is found. If ticks are a known problem in your area, yearly screening is recommended.

Treatment:

Once it's been determined your horse has Lyme Disease, antibiotics will be administered by your veterinarian. The course of treatment can last months and be very expensive. During treatment, in some horses, there is a danger of laminitis caused by the toxins exuded from the dying bacteria. Most horses will recover fully, but in some cases Chronic Lyme Disease can occur. It's uncertain if this happens because of re-infection from more ticks, or if the bacteria persists in the horse's blood and begin to multiply after a time. Chronic Lyme Disease appears to occur in horses that are diagnosed and treated long after the initial symptoms appear. This makes prompt attention to any health problems essential.

Prevention:

Although there are vaccines for humans and dogs, there is currently no vaccine against Lyme Disease for horses.

Daily grooming will give you an opportunity to check your horse for ticks. It can take up to 24 hours before the bacteria can be transmitted in sufficient quantity to cause Lyme Disease, so prompt removal of any ticks will reduce the chance of infection. This can be done with an inexpensive tick remover tool, or tweezers can be used to pull the tick gently off the surface of the skin. Pull the tick off with a very slow twist to avoid breaking any appendages. You want the tick to come off 'voluntarily'. Be sure to kill the tick after you've removed it. A boot heel against the barn floor should do the trick. Burning a tick with a match or applying oil or alcohol to make them withdraw isn't recommended.

• How To Remove a Tick - Veterinary Medicine - About.com

Ticks are more prevalent in spring and fall, so during this time, keep horse pastures mown short and cut down tall weeds that give ticks a leg up. Clear any brush piles or stacks of wood from your pastures and paddocks. Spraying tick repellent on your horse may also dissuade ticks from landing on it.

Remember, ticks like your blood, and that of your other pets, like cats and dogs, as much as they like your horse's. After working in your horse's pastures, check for ticks on yourself and have a shower within a short time of being outdoors. Remember to check your other four-legged companions. Don't worry about getting Lyme Disease from another animal, however. It is not transmittable by anything but the ticks themselves, so is therefore not zoonotic.