Is it a "racket" or is it factual?

Like the title says, I'd like to know opinions.

My horses had "some" of their shots today. They will have the rest in 3 weeks because the vets don't recommend doing them all at the same time because it is hard on the horses system.

The horses receive, EWE, West NIle, Tetanus, Rabies and Rhino/flu. They received the first 4 listed and will receive the Rhino/flu later along with their teeth being floated.

So is this a legitamate way to proceed, or (as my husband suspects) is it a way to get another farm call fee in?

Whats your opinion about this.

Thanks

My vet does them all at the same time plus our horses get the strangles vaccine and they are all fine. She just does every horse in the same shoulder so we can moniter if anything bothers them. The barn has 30 horses and we have never had any problems. I guess if they are getting the teeth floated you would be paying another farm fee anyways?

We give all the vacs ourselves.

Some vets give them at the same time but others split them up on the theory that the immune system is going to be over-loaded by giving too many at once or that it is too much stress on the immune system and you may not get as good a response. It is a matter of professional opinion but there isn't alot of information to back it up. Since you are exposing the immune system to lots of different infectious agents at once and the seperate vaccines have adjuvants which are designed to trigger a stronger immune response, giving multiple different injections at once may put significant strain on the immune system.

Thank-you Rider4life, Ladydreamer and Ryle.

Ryle, I understand the explaination you gave, but I'm curious to know if these vac's have the same potential to overload an immune system if they've had them each and every year? (sorry for the long sentence)

Seems once they have them, they're in the system . I know with a new shot, like west nile for example, the vets had to come back to do a booster after the initial vac.

I do like that my vets have my horses welfare at the forefront, but as we all know the expense of keeping horses has so greatly increased that saving alittle here and there also adds up.

Thanks again for responding.

I split mine up. I think it depends on the horse. Some are completely unfazed...others like mine...maybe because he's older or just more sensitive get flu-ish if they get them all at once.

Like LadyDreamer, I give my own shot. It is recommended by the vet supply site that I get them from to stagger the shots so I would agree with your vet.

Our vet gives us a choice. We have had reactions from stiff necks to collapse.
If we are going in soon for a teeth floating we stagger them, otherwise its all at once. Our vet comes out and does all the animals in one day, dogs and horses. If any of the horses need the teeth done we normally go in to his office within a week or two. This year we weren't sure when we would make it into town so we had them all at once. No reactions this year thank goodness.

There isn't any proof that they overload the system when given all together. And we don't have proof that a single vaccination is all they ever need. When antibodies are created, they stay in circulation for a certain amount of time but just like with any other cell in the body they don't "live" forever and they breakdown or get used up and have to be replaced. If there is no repeat exposure, the body doesn't build new antibodies so it takes the body longer to respond to an infectious agent when it enters the body.

To try to make it a little more clear, think of antibodies as trained soldiers who have been educated on the type of enemy they are going to face---his strenghts and weaknesses, his tactics, etc. So when you vaccinate, the body produces these trained "soldiers" which then serve as a prepared force to fight a specific invading organism. But when these premade "soldiers" wear out, they aren't replaced except at need. So should a horse become exposed to an infectious agent the body has to identify the infectious agent, gear up and start producing new "trained soldiers"---this takes time (days to weeks to mount a good immune response)--which gives the invaders more of an opportunity to overwhelm the body's defenses and cause disease. When we give vaccines, the body treats it like an invasion and builds up it's trained forces which then circulate and provide an almost immediate ability to fight of the disease that you vaccinate against.

Im sorry but I have proof through experience. I've owned one horse that gets fluish and icky if given shots all at once. And one dog who had an outright seizure after getting multiple shots at once.