This is a disease I'd never even heard of until recently. It's pretty tightly regulated in Western Europe, but not in the east, which is where infected horses tend to come from. Some horses with is get sick, some are symptomless carriers, it's spread by biting insects and if a horse tests positive for it, then that horse has to be destroyed. So I was somewhat worried to learn that there had been a case confirmed at the so called animal sanctuary in our village. A couple more cases were found at a nearby village where the infected horse came from, so we got an official visit from an official government vet with official papers telling us the horses are in quarantine and cannot be moved until further notice and must have blood tests to check they're not infected.
Which is why my two baby girls have had to stay in a field with no grass in it for the last couple of months. And I've had to buy a lot of hay, even though the 3 hectares we have in another village where the big boys live is full of lovely grass which keeps on growing as it keeps on raining!
Then we had the trouble of actually getting 4 tubes of blood out of Kinna who has been terrified of needles ever since she was microchipped, this involved sedation (another needle!) and two vets to hold her down (because if they couldn't get blood to test, she'd have had to be PTS)...luckily Sky didn't even flinch, she's half cob though and very sensible, unlike Kinna who's obviously very sensitive!
So I was mightily relieved to get a visit from the (very cute) government vet this morning to tell me that the blood tests (and they've tested every horse, pony and donkey within a two kilometre radius of the original case) have all come back negative to the quarantine will be lifted.
Nice to get good news occasionally.......
