Mosquitoes biting horses

Knowing that horsehair does not completely protect a horse from mosquito bites and knowing that horses can get bit by surrounding mosquitoes nonstop, I had a question for Dr. Kevin Hankins, senior veterinarian, Equine Technical Services with Zoetis: “How is it that horses don’t go crazy? It is amazing. There was a study done at Texas A&M showing that horses are built up to 2000 times an hour by mosquitoes that are around a mosquito pool. They are mainly bidden underneath on their belly and on their flanks, not so much on their top line. You would think between the mosquitoes, the flies and all of the insects that bother them they would absolutely go nuts. The good thing is that horses do not respond to the proteins in the saliva of the mosquito the same way that humans do. We get an itchy bump and they don’t. So horse gets bitten by mosquitoes, contracts West Nile, what are the symptoms? Those are highly variable ranging from walking strangely to not getting up.