Influenza Vaccinations for horses and ponies in Ireland

It can be difficult to remember when to vaccinate our horses, especially if we have quite a few of them. Not all vaccinations fall due at the same time. I bought a number of ponies throughout the year in 2009 and they all needed vaccinating. It may help to have the following written down:

1st Primary Vaccination – any date if the horse or pony has not got up to date records.
2nd Primary Vaccination – 4 weeks after the 1st Primary Vaccination.
3rd Primary Vaccination – 5 to 7 months after the date of the 2nd Primary Vaccination.
Annual Booster – one year after the date of the 3rd Primary Vaccination.

I recently tried out a new way of keeping track of the dates vaccinations fall due by writing them on a POST-IT (note pad with one sticky edge) and putting this into the vaccination page of each horse or pony’s passport. This worked well as I didn’t have to do all the calculations over again.

All horses and ponies in Ireland now have to be microchipped and have passports by law. When the vet was giving a new pony his vaccination, I asked him to run the microchip scanner over his neck to see if he had one. He did but the vet said it was a very unusual number. It looked more like a small animal’s microchip to him, maybe a dog’s or a cat’s. I have been advised to send the number to Sport Horse Ireland when I apply for his passport. It will be interesting to see what they think of it!