Finally, we have fantastic news here at Hugs – we have the all clear from strangles! We have a massive thank you to say to our incredible founder, Andrew Bowden and the wonderful Directors and staff at Carbonxgen Limited, who despite times being incredibly tough on businesses at the moment, made an incredibly generous donation to pay the vets bill that has come from the strangles outbreak. The outbreak has caused Hugs to have a vets bill equivalent to our annual veterinary costs, despite our amazing vets giving us a significant discount!
This extremely kind and vital donation has supported us hugely, we do not know what we would have done without it, given the stretch on finances already due to the cost of living crisis. We are eternally grateful for Andrew and Carbonxgen’s additional support, what amazingly kind and caring human beings and organisation. We are incredibly lucky to have them onboard in our mission for better animal welfare and human well-being.
Every equine on-site has had a guttural pouch endoscopy (scoped) and blood tests. We are pleased to say that every horse, pony and donkey on-site is clear of the disease and none are carriers. 10% of equines who have had the disease can become a carrier and it can lay dormant for a long time with no symptoms. This is why everything on-site had to have a full guttural pouch scope as this is the only way of checking for carriers.
During the investigations we did find the cause of the infection. One of our Shetlands (Georgie) had very large chondroids in his guttural pouch and so he was the carrier! Georgie arrived at Hugs in December 2021. He had been through our isolation period with no issues and been at Hugs for nearly a year. He displayed no symptoms in all that time, including the daily visual and temperature checks, the danger of carriers! For some unknown reason, he had obviously started shedding and hence the start of our strangles outbreak!
After a big heartfelt discussion with the Hugs team, our vets and other charities; the decision was made, in Georgie’s best interest, for him to go to the amazing Horse Trust charity with his best friend Clifford. The Horse Trust has a lot of experience treating strangles infections and strangles carriers. Being a larger charity, they also have fantastic vets who are onsite meaning he could instantly receive cost effective treatment.
Read the full update here: https://mailchi.mp/4fd55cc8f8ad/hugs-weekly-update-15639693
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