We had an outbreak at our place.  Haven’t been hauling, and we notified our vet right away.  We quarantined our place immediately, even before the vet arrived. 6 of our 8 horses had VS symptoms, which were actually mild. It didn’t effect feeding.  In fact, none of them developed vesicles or sores in their mouths.  We had some with quarter-sized sores on the inside of their ears.  Some developed ventral sores in the midline.  Two developed painful, weeping areas on their muzzles....they were the hardest to handle.  Only one developed one sore on the coronet band.  I don’t think any had a fever.  The muzzles looked like a burn-type injury.  As soon as we suspected it, we called the vet and he came out to check them out and draw blood.  The TX state vet fella called me and said it was senseless to run the blood test, since clinically that’s what it looked like.  I called the neighbors and gave them a heads up.

At first we tried to keep the 2 initially effected horses separated from the rest, but that became unnecessary, once the others developed symptoms.  We just washed them with surgical soap 2X a day, hosed them off, and applied Desitin on them.......the muzzles were the hardest.  They are almost all entirely cleared up....about 10 days after the first ones developed symptoms.   VS can be passed directly from horse to horse, either through human contact, buckets, grooming tools, etc..., but probably the biggest mode of transmission is via biting flies.

People also need to realize that the VS virus CAN infect humans, particularly if they are immunocompromised.  It usually only causes mild illness, and most people don’t develop symptoms, but if you are immunosuppressed, all bets are off.  Use gloves, bleach water, and hand washing.