Vaccinating your equine friend

Since today was vaccination day on our farm, I decided it was a good topic for a blog. The first time I vaccinated my horse on my own was in my early teens. I remember watching my mom trying to build up the courage to jab that needle into my horse. It must have been after about five minutes when I decided I could do it, took the needle from her, and proceeded to inject my horse. I’ve been doing it ever since.

If you want to find an efficient way to give your horse a shot, I recommend watching your veterinarian. I’ve learned a couple of good techniques over the years during a vet visit. Some easier to emulate than others. But first, we must know where to vaccinate before we talk about technique.

Where to give an Intra-muscular Injection

There are three areas of the horse commonly recommended for vaccinations. This is the triangle formed by the muscles of the neck, the pectoral muscle, or the rump.

The image below is borrowed from Virginia Tech and I’ve added labels to the locations.

For most of my injections, I’ve used the neck. However, recently one of my horses had a bad reaction and spent several days unable to move his neck. The discomfort it gave him was bad enough I reached out to my vet for some advice. From that, I’ve made two changes to how I give vaccinations. The first is, I don’t give a combination vaccine with West Nile in it. The West Nile is often the culprit for bad reactions. Instead, I purchase a 5-way and a separate West Nile for each horse. The other change is, I give the vaccine most likely to cause a reaction in the pectoral muscle. After giving a few injections in the pectoral muscle, I’ve also found this to be my new favorite place. I get far fewer startled reactions from horses giving the injection here.

How to inject a vaccine

Before injecting a vaccine, it’s important the location is clean, You can use an alcohol-drenched piece of gauze or cotton ball to do this. All dirt should be removed.

Some like to insert the needle first, then attach the syringe. I personally like to attach the needle to the syringe first. In either scenario, it’s important to pull back on the plunger slightly. If blood is present, you have inadvertently hit a vein and should pull the needle out slightly before injecting the vaccine. You do not want to inject directly into a vein.

So now you have the idea. Let’s talk about how to “insert the needle.” I’m going to tell you the techniques I use. There are other ways so find the one that works best for you and your horse.

Let’s first talk about the neck. My favorite way in this location is to pinch the skin right beside the intended injection site with my left hand. Pinch it enough that it probably feels a little uncomfortable. Then with the right hand insert the needle quickly. The needle will go in with little effort. Now, pull back on the plunger, check for blood, and then depress to inject the vaccine.

I do prefer to have someone hold the horse instead of tieing them. That way if the horse reacts I can move with it and not worry about the horse panicking because it’s tied.

If you are going to inject in the pectoral muscle or rump, I suppose you could use the pinch method, but I find the thump, thump, inject method works great. I’ve watched my veterinarian do this one-handed and it looked so easy. But in reality, I was just was not coordinated enough. Instead, I’ll thump twice with my left hand and then my right hand comes in on number three, and in goes the needle. So easy in the chest!

Here is a very short video explaining the neck location. I personally insert the needle faster since not all horse stand this well. Most act like they don’t even feel it, but not all.

What Vaccines to give your horse

What vaccines you should give your horse is a conversation I highly recommend you have with your veterinarian. It will vary based on your geographic location in some cases and also on the exposure your horse may have. The AAEP recommends all horses receive core vaccines of Rabies, Encephalitis/Tetanus, and West Nile. They also recommend based on age and use Influenza, Rhinopneumonitis, and Strangles.

Be careful who you purchase your vaccines from. Vaccines that have sat at room temperature or are exposed to light will lose effectiveness. If you are purchasing them locally, be sure to ask how they have been stored and verify they have not expired. If purchasing online, I’ve found the most economical store is valleyvet.com. But if you find a good source, please share!