Ticks and Horses

In addition to making sure that your horse is given all the vaccines needed for a locality, horse owners should practice an effective external parasite control program.  I recently read an article where the question was asked “Why do ticks infest my dark bay horse worse than my chestnut?” The response went into the immune response of individual horses and how ticks select their meal options.  I won’t try to recreate that here, but did think about tick control as part of the health management plan we use in keeping horses healthy.  We vaccinate horses to reduce the risk of them contracting certain diseases, but an important component of the health care plan is keeping biting insects (including ticks) from being a problem.  There was an article written about controlling ticks in this blog back in 2014 (Tick Control in Horses) that has some great information, so please review that.

Ticks can transmit diseases very easily since they do take several blood meals through their life cycle.  The deer tick is one of the primary vectors for Lyme Disease, which affects many horses each year.  I’ll just use this example of diseases that can be spread via an insect that takes multiple blood meals from different animals during its growth and development.  While Lyme disease may not cause horses to die, it certainly affects joint health and increases veterinary costs and horse care expenses.

Most Lyme disease is spread during May and June by adult ticks.  Adults take longer to attach and take longer to fill up and drop off than the nymph stages.  Anything we can do to prevent ticks from attaching in the first place significantly reduces the chance of transmitting a disease. 

Most products recommended for use in horses contain pyrethrum or permethrin, and are spray and wipe materials.  Coumaphos is a spray mixture that can be used on horses (Read the label!), and permethrin can be a spray, used in a back-rubber, or as a pour-on or spot-on.  Cypermethrin can be used as a dust or powder.  Pyrethrum is mainly a spray and wipe material. 

The North Carolina Ag Chem Manual has a section for insect control for horses, but does not mention controlling ticks on horses specifically.  There is a reference to using products recommended for cattle and other livestock regarding fly control, and many fly control products also provide some degree of control for ticks.    All I will say to that is for horse owners to be sure to check the product label to make sure it is registered for use on horses to control the target insect before purchasing.

Horse owners should work with their veterinarian to discuss controlling insects/external parasites as part of the overall herd health program.   Tick are certainly out in force now, so plans and action for minimizing their effect on horses need to be done now!