It’s that time of year again. The heat and humidity seem to get worse with each passing day, and if you were an unlucky northerner like me this year, you got the fun addition of poor air quality on top of that. Sweating, more sweating, bugs, hauling to competitions – all that added up to one big problem for my thin, sensitive skinned OTTB mare, Letty.
That big, unavoidable problem was a laundry list of summer skin condition issues. Rain rot, sweet itch, cannon crud, bug allergies, bonus allergies, biting chunks of her skin off – and the icing on the cake was the possibly related (or unrelated?) drop in weight. You name it, she had it. Did I try to prevent it, you might be asking? I sure as heck did. Did it help prevent any of these issues?
My $700 vet bill says otherwise. Antibiotic injections to take down the secondary skin infection, a bottle of hydroxyzine, a bottle of banamine (she had a fever), bloodwork to confirm she wasn’t suffering from an immune disorder (which she wasn’t, luckily!), omeprazole for the ulcers she likely had (when did a jar of that stuff get so expensive?!) and a farm trip charge later, my credit card was taking quite the hit. Needless to say, I would like to officially announce I am now a self-proclaimed equine skin condition expert. Ok, so maybe expert is a bit of a stretch, but let’s just say I’ve tested a lot of products, methods and supplements. Letty is not your average horse – according to the vet, she just has unusually sensitive skin (I know, I know, a thoroughbred mare with sensitive skin? I should have just started a trust fund for her the day she was adopted.)
Last year, the vet told me to go with Pyrana’s oil-based fly spray because it stays on longer, even when she’s sweating like crazy on hot days. So what did I do? I went out and bought the gallon size of that stuff so she would be as fly-free as possible. And last year, it seemed like that might just have done the trick. We also started her on cetirizine, an allergy medication for people that horses can also use (in much higher doses, of course.)
But that was last year. This year, the game changed. Remember all that extra humidity and air quality non-sense I said we had up north this year? Well, that led to the year of horrible skin issues for poor, sweet, young Letty. On top of that, the oil-based fly spray we thought was working well was suddenly causing her rain-scald type issues.
Let’s back up to early spring, though. I know my horse and I know skin conditions are her weakness. From the moment it got warm enough to bathe, I was doing regular baths in the best anti-fungal shampoo’s I could get my hands. I got her back on the cetirizine. But alas, by the end of June, the slew of skin conditions I had seen in the past plus some new ones reared its ugly head.
By mid-July, I was on the phone with the vet, because despite an array of creams and baths, her skin was looking worse with each day and now she was dropping weight for no apparent reason. Overall, she just seemed uncomfortable (she ended up being feverish too). I will say I think that her skin issues lead to the secondary infection (and fever) so after the antibiotics started doing their thing, it helped me get her back to ground zero. Did she still have rain rot and some other fun skin issues? Definitely. But at least things were at the point I could begin to get them back under control myself. We did switch to a water based fly spray, and that has yet to cause the skin irritation the oil-based one did.
Hence, the whole reason for this post. Maybe I can share some of my horse-adulting wisdom with all of you! Like I said, I’ve definitely gained some first-hand experience with getting some really bad skin conditions under control. Some of these tips I gained from the veterinarians I’ve worked with to keep her skin happy, and some through my own trial and error.
Tip #1: Products I love
When the humidity steps up it’s game, your product game needs to be right there with it. If you listen to Horses in the Morning, you’ve probably heard Jamie & Glenn talk about Equiderma products. Before trying my first Equiderma product, I was using some lower end stuff like Fungasol. Do I not like Fungasol? No, Fungasol is a good product, and if you have a horse with mild skin stuff, certainly give it a try as its pretty cost effective. On my other mare, a warmblood name Tilly who gets fat on air and has like less than the average amount of skin issues, something like this works great for that cannon crud everyone seems to get. But for Letty, this just wasn’t cutting it. So, I bought the Equiderma Lotion and since then, I’ve never looked back. The lotion is great for spot treatments, but I will literally put a dollop in my hand and rub it into her coat all over after a bathe. I will do this wet or dry. I found this REALLY helped prevent and treat her, especially since her fungus seems to be all over her body. It seems to help relieve itching and the dry skin that comes from the frequent baths the vet recommends.
Speaking of baths, let’s talk about my go-to bathing products.
If you can find one of those hand-gloves (like this one: Pet Grooming Glove) that have some soft rubber nodules, this is great for really getting that rain rot and cannon crud scrubbed off.
I have two shampoo’s I love: Absorbine’s Silver Honey and Finish Line’s First Aide Shampoo. Since I found the silver honey can be a bit more drying, I use this every few baths (or just in the spots the fungus is bad) and use the First Aide Shampoo the rest of the time since its an aloe and iodine based shampoo. It makes her coat super soft and shiny and is mild and best of all, great for any open wounds or healing skin infections. Speaking of wounds – I also really love Absorbine’s Silver Honey Wound Spray.
My vet recommended I bath once a week give or take to get all the sweat, fly spray, and grime off her coat so it’s not sitting there causing irritation – which for Letty, usually means itching and more rain rot.
Coat Defense is another product I’ve been loving and will love even more when it’s too cold to bathe anymore. You just sprinkle it on and it absorbs sweat, plus helps treat and prevent a variety of skin conditions.
Tip #2: Hand Grazing After a Bath
If Letty isn’t getting turned right back out after bath time, my vet recommended hand grazing while her coat dries to make sure she’s nice and dry before being put back in her stall. This is great for preventing more rain rot. I’ll even take a clean towel and dry those legs off!
Tip #3: Supplements & Medication
After the $700 vet bill that my credit card is still recovering from, I decided to do some research on supplements that might help prevent Letty from having these same issues again. A bottle of the First Aide Shampoo mentioned above had just come in the mail from Finish Line that same day, and enclosed in the box was a catalog. I love Finish Line’s products anyway, so naturally, I began scouring the pages from something that might help her out. When I stumbled on the Immunex page, formally called “ShipWell,” I was ordering it within minutes. Why? Immunex boasts a list of things it does for horses that really resonated with me:
- EPM
- Skin irritation
- Lung function
Letty had EPM a few years ago, so naturally when I saw two out of three problems listed as things it helps with, I was sold. Plus, who doesn’t love a little extra lung function help for their showjumper / eventer?
It’s been a little over a month, and already I have seen an improvement and I have peace of mind when I haul her anywhere or fear I will have a whole slew of problems pop up weeks later. You can up the dose from the daily dose to a shipping dose the day you plan to haul or show. Since hauling can compromise a horses immune system, this supplement has already helped keep things from going off the rails again.
I use a 100x product called GutX which I also love, and this has been great for her overall health and keeping ulcers at bay.
While the cetirizine was not enough for Letty this year, it seemed to help last year and has helped other horses in my barn with more mild skin conditions. I found bottles of cetirizine super cheaper on Amazon. For Letty, it was time to step up our game and go with the skin-specific, prescription antihistamine called hydroxyzine.
I hope these tips help you with your horses’ summer skin condition woe’s! May the odds be ever in your favor 😉