Mud fever

[seeker]

Our pony has mud fever in one foot. We are hibiscrub-ing it and then drying it thoroughly and slathering it in Sudocream and keeping her out of the very muddy field. Anyone got any other suggestions? Can't wait for Spring!

Mudfever is hateful isn't it?
Sudocrem is good but we found a special cream in a brown pot the name of which escapes me - when I'm next at the yard I'll take a peak at the label. It's great stuff - far better than zinc oxide. Trimming any feathering might help too.

Aromaheel is very good - here; www.aromesse.com/pages/aromaheel.htm

If you can give the area a really good hibiscrub and then let it dry completely, and slather it with anything really sticky and water repelling, try and resist washing it again too much. If you keep all moisture out and keep it dry for a while it will have a much better chance of healing.

Another thing that a lot of people do which inadvertently do which helps mud fever get a grip is to wash their horse's legs down every time they get muddy. Unless you do a really good job and then dry the horse's legs asap you are just spreading the mud about and creating a damp atmosphere that the bacteria love. Far better to let the horse's legs dry and then brush the mud off, keeping any infected area well covered with a barrier cream.

Also, mud fever is a bacteria which lives in the soil. Some areas have it, some don't. If you fields are mud fever free, try not to hack through muddy areas that could be infected, eg really busy bridleways.

One small consolation of all the frozen weather we have had is that some of the bacteria will have been killed off by it.

Unfortunately, i think it can be just down to bad luck. We have about 20 horses at any one time and hose legs every single day in winter unless they are really dry. I can only remember one case of mud fever in 6 years. Hoe your horse gets some relief soon.

Sometimes it can depend on the type of pasture you are on, but as a rule of thumb dont wash horses legs down routinely and clean up and use an antispetic cream if a problem. If you put a horse with muddy legs in the stable they come out clean and dry in the morning. Far more healthy to brush off any dry mud than clean off any wet mud

Mud rash is a nightmare. Do any of you have feathered horses? Not sure what to do for the best.

I've got a feathered horse! He keeps stamping his feet, drives me mad. The vet and the farrier have both looked and neither can find feather mites which is the first thing we suspected. Can't find anything wrong at all in fact but still he stamps. The vet suggested Frontline as good for unexplained itching but that hasn't worked so don't know if we will have to give in and clip his feathers off.

As for cleaning his legs off, he is such a state at the moment with his long beard and thick shaggy mane that I'm past caring as long as he is warm and fed!

I was always taught never to brush wet mud in case you brush it into the skin and cause mud fever. I suppose if you wash the legs and then dry them with a towel you only need to miss a tiny bit of grit (easy to do with hairy legs) and you've started a problem. The only one of ours that's ever had mud-fever was the appaloosa, but he was susceptible to rain-scald and sunburn as well so I always thought it was something to do with his pink skin. Making sure he always had a dry place to stand and could get out of the wind when it was raining (driving rain on the back of his legs not good) seemed to keep it at bay.

Ours is very very pale grey - I suppose that we'll get rid of the mud fever just in time to get sunburn! No feathers - but if she did I think I'd clip them for the winter. Next year I'll plaster her dry legs with vaseline before we turn her out - it might help.

It's hard to believe someting so big can be so fragile!

Aaargh. I just wrote AN ESSAY on mud fever (I have 2 greys, down from 3 greys last winter so have known your pain in the past!) Then the sodding computer crashed and rebooted itself. I'm not writing it all out again. But the gist went like this; PIG OIL AND SULPHUR. Especially good for the hairies out there. Check here

As for mites, harvest mites can be microscopic so invisible to the naked eye, so don't rule them out as a cause to itchy legs. They can be treated by your vet with Ivermectin, although it is not licenced for that use. Depends on your vet as to whether they will entertain the idea.

I was just going to come on here and say Pig Oil and Sulphur - so I second pandora's suggestion

I have a hairy cob - you learn these things

Ooh thanks for that link, looks good and am deperate, like Pixel, to stop the stamping.

We tried Invermectin and Frontline last year and stamping seemed to stop for ooh, all of 24 hours it seemed.

Will order the Pig Oil/Sulphate.

owls your pics are similar to mine - coloured horse and labrador!

No no no to Pig oil and sulphur! Be really careful. I spent nearly a thousand pounds with the vet last year and everything I tried seemed to make it worse - the pig oil and sulphur seemed to spread the damn scabs. (I have a very large bottle of it going spar!) My biggest problem is that my mare will not let you touch her if she is in any sort of discomfort, hence vets and doping to get the scabs off. She ended up stabled most of the time, but I did find this www.h-10.co.uk was the only thing that really worked. I also bought some equichaps www.equilibriumproducts.com/leg_protection/equi_chapsreg_close_contact_chaps/ which helped to protect her legs whilst they healed. I now work on prevention, she is in every night, and I brush her legs thoroughly every morning to remove every last bit of dried mud. Spent a lot of last winter in tears, imagining that she would never be able to go out again unless conditions totally dry. I have every sympathy.

bit higher up but we (well Barney) seem to have some sort of bum mite, hopeful that Frontline will help - a couple of horses have/have had it in same area or slightly further down

is there a more technical term for this?

By bum mite, do you mean an itchy tail? Ie sweet itch? Or something different?

I remember some horses at a yard I was at years ago having some kind of mite that made them itch. The vet supplied some stuff to wash them down with (luckily it was summer) and we had to do ours too as a precaution.

Krugerellie, dhorse doesn't have broken skin or scabs or anything like that so hopefully we will be ok to try the pig oil/sulphur?

It sounds like a good thing to try for the stamping, I just hope it isn't as smelly and sticky as it sounds!

Dont wash your horses legs down in winter and dont ever clip them out. I have never had a problem since I banned people from hosing legs down every day. Now we only clean the horses up in winter if going to a show, if they come in dirty it is in the box until dry, the only time we might wash them is with warm water if they have been hunting, just to check no injuries, and then I dry them with a towel. They are a bit scruffy looking but dont have the problems they used to. I dont routinely bandage unless injuries as I think legs are best left au natural. I wouldnt use pig oil/ sulphur but might use antiseptic barrier cream if i absolutely had to. But dont keep washing!

should have started separate threads about bum mites instead of hijacking this, it's just little bald, slightly sore looking patches around bum (under tail)

hasn't had diarrhoea or anything like that

tail doesn't look as though he is itching madly, but a couple of others have had it and Frontline cleared it up so fingers crossed

Iggy two of my favourite things - Labradors and coloured horses. Must update pics with some clearer ones.

Have already ordered the pigs oil - mine haven't got any scabs either so fingers crossed.

I've just been recommended something called Mud Guard - might be worth a look.

I remembered to look at the brown pot of stuff I had that worked wonders for us. It's called cicaderm but I have googled it and can find only suppliers over here and in Belgium so I guess it's called something else in the UK or it's not available.

Best of luck.

Mr Fibble - do you mean Camrosa? Although that's green isn't it?

This Camrosa might work well for mud fever - but never tried it myself.

Has anyone tried those boot things? She's so hating not going out - I wondering whether she could go out a bit - maybe during the day - is he was wearing those. But I suppose we have to let it heal first. Oh bugger.

seeker - We tried some field sock things for my TB but they made the problem worse. Changing yards solved it once and for all. Bit of a radical solution I know but there were other factors (YO banning riding on Sundays, after 6pm, pretending my horses belonged to him to an inspector etcetera).

iggypiggy - not sure if it is the same thing. From the ingredients it appears to be basically Zinc Oxide with some extra oils and herbs extracts. One ingredient is a liver oil of something I don't know what it is... Lots of calendula and achillea.