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  Discussion on Lice: Treatment of environment and pasturemates?
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New Member:
paigem

Posted on Monday, Apr 16, 2007 - 12:52 am:

I’ve been lurking on this website since I got my first horse just over a year ago. I had no previous experience with horses at all and it has been a steep learning curve and this site has been an incredible source of information. Thank you all.

I have a couple of questions re treatment of lice that wasn’t clear to me even after reading the article and the posts.

Buttermilk is an approximately 9 year old rescue horse who, 8 months ago, came to be boarded at the ranch where my horse is boarded. I am assisting in a “foster care” effort for her. Five days ago her caretaker noticed a few (only about 5-6) lice on her. She had lice when the rescue folks first got her 2 years ago and was treated and has had no recurrence till now. (Five days prior to this occurrence she had dental surgery which was fairly stressful for her). She is wormed regularly and had no clinical indication whatsoever e.g. itching, sores. The rescue folks are just in the habit of looking for and noticing these things.

She was immediately isolated and treated with sprays, baths and a dewormer as was done with her previous occurrence and consistent with the information on this site. I examined the lice under a microscope and identified them as the Damalinia variety. Careful examination over the last 5 days have uncovered no additional signs of infestation. She will be treated twice more at 14 day intervals.

How long should she continue to be isolated? She is completely out of sight or sound of any other horses and is quite stressed by this. Is it best to keep her isolated at least through the first 14 day cycle or could she be placed in 24 x 24 adjacent to other horses? Or back to her pasture?

Prior to this, she was housed in dirt pasture with 2 other mares. These 2 mares are healthy and happy and we have carefully examined them on a daily basis as well, and have seen no sign of lice. Should they be treated as a preventative measure or can we wait and treat only if signs of infestation are observed?

The article indicates that lice are spread by horse to horse contact or through tack and grooming equipment although that they can live off the host for some of time. What is the best way to disinfect equipment and tack? Since the lice are able to live off the host, is it necessary to treat her pasture? One of the posts recommended spraying with the garden insecticide, Seven, but I haven’t run across any other information re treating the environment for lice. Is it really necessary or helpful? If so is this the best product for this purpose? This seems to be a very low level infestation that was caught and treated early, but I’m not sure how much risk it poses to the other horses. We don’t want to dump a bunch of chemicals around unnecessarily but we want to be sure that the others are protected.

Any opinions on these questions would be helpful. Or if I somehow missed the info in the articles and you can point me in the right direction I would be grateful.

Thanks again for maintaining such an informative site.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Monday, Apr 16, 2007 - 9:51 am:

Welcome Paige,
We too find the risk for spreading or reinfection hard to judge so consider your goals. Are they to prevent further spread at all cost or to take a more measured approach and deal with further problems if they crop up. This should determine which way to go as there are pros and cons to either and one not clearly indicated here. If you do decide to treat the premises and tools it should be with the same products and frequency you would apply them to the horse.
DrO
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