SHIPPING FEVER
For many of us, hauling horses is a happy ritual of summer. Wherever we’re heading—shows or clinics, parks or parades—road trips usually mean there’s a fun day ahead, full of activities with our horses. Most of the time, our horses seem to share in our enthusiasm, coming down the trailer ramp bright-eyed and ready to go.
Yet for them, as for people, travel has a potential downside: exposure to respiratory bugs and other pathogens, particularly when their destinations are crowded with other horses. “It can be similar to a person catching a cold from the person sitting next to you on a plane,” says Virginia Buechner-Maxwell, DVM, DACVIM, of the Virginia–Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine in Blacksburg, Virginia. And those post-trip sniffles are usually a minor problem. “If horses get a respiratory infection after transport, like people with colds, they usually just get over it. Rest from work may be all that’s needed.”
Sometimes, however, a fever and cough that start soon after a trip are early signs of a much more serious illness: pleuropneumonia (commonly called shipping fever), an inflammation of the lungs and the pleural membranes lining the chest wall, which can cause fluid to build up in the space between the lungs and the rib cage. “This is no longer simply an upper respiratory infection that clears up in a few days,” Buechner-Maxwell says. “If the infection has progressed to pleuropneumonia the resulting fluid buildup between the chest wall and lungs compresses and damages the lung tissue and can have long term effects or even lead to death if not diagnosed and treated
