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Potomac Horse Fever (PHF) is a disease that everyone associates with the geographic areas located around the Potomac River. Because of that many vets do not recommend vaccination of horses in areas that are either nowhere near the Potomac nor in areas that do not commonly experience the disease.

So it was when I kept my horses in Chester, New York, a location greatly removed from the Potomac and where PHF was rarely if ever seen.

My mare had just given birth to a filly who was now six weeks old. The filly had been underweight at birth but was progressing well. The mare was in great health, although somewhat overweight.

I noticed that the mare was off her feed and was very listless and had a nasal discharge. I called the local vet who came and checked her out and diagnosed a cold. He gave her antibiotics and said to keep an eye on her temperature.
Over the next couple of days the mare didn't improve, the local vet came twice more and insisted that his original diagnosis was correct, but I was getting worried. I was staying in the barn longer than I would normally do and that could have been a life saver!

It was around 8:30 or so at night when I was in the barn and heard a weird noise. I walked down the barn to find the source of the noise and found my mare with projectile diarrhea. I called the equine clinic and the vet there told me to get her on trailer and to bring her to the clinic, NOW!

The barn owner was just saying goodnight to her boyfriend and, despite being in a really nice, long skirt and dress shoes, pulled out the truck, hitched up the trailer and loaded my mare and the baby. We drove to the clinic where the vet was waiting for us.

He immediately put her on IV fluids, because the diarrhea had dehydrated her, and gave her a booster of antibiotics. He drew blood and checked her vitals. He checked the blood and could not find any immediate reason for her condition. So we hoped that the fluids and antibiotics would do the trick.

For the next 5 days she remained on the IV and the vets were trying to discover the source of the problem with no success. Every day I was at the clinic and the vets, vet techs and I would search through the stall looking for some sign that the diarrhea was abating. A couple of times we got excited because there were HUGE piles of solid manure in the stall that were surely too big to have come from the filly, but we were wrong that filly can poop a mountain!

After 5 days the vet told me that the only thing they could think of was PHF.

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