From: "Lani M
Olson" <LMOLSON90@xxxxxxx> Subject: Re: [RC] Pigeon
fever
First, is the soil contaminated or contagious before an abscess
breaks?
Before, that's where the flies pick it up, and
moreso after, if allowed to drain without being confined & the area cleaned
up afterwards.
I did lots of searching for info on dryland
distemper aka pigeon fever when we had it here. It appears that the bacteria can
be in the soil, either dormant or possibly just not picked up & spread by
the flies, for years, then there's an outbreak. Common sense tells me to do
everything possible to avoid the further contamination of the soil. Our
horse that had it had been moved here recently, & the property had never had
horses on it before, so we theorized that he had picked it up before he came (he
was on a small parcel with several horses) & it developed while he was here.
So, yes, the bacteria was probably in soil somewhere, hopefully not here, and
since we isolated & sterilized as much as possible, hopefully it is still
not in our soil. It's been 6 years & no more cases of it.
