Bald patches on legs

[badgerdog]

My horse has developed bald patches on the sides of his two front legs. I rubbed them with my finger and the hair just fell out. The skin underneath doesn't appear damaged, there are no scabs and they aren't itchy. He lives out 24/7 and I've been putting a lot of baby oil on his legs to repel the mud. I was wondering if I've been too liberal with the oil and this has caused it. The only other thing I can think of is some kind of rain scald, mud fever (but the skiin looks healthy) or simply dead hair coming out too soon.
Has anyone else got this problem?

 

[laurenn1010]

my mare has this at the min, i think its a touch of mud fever, altho hers is itchy! treating as mud fever.

have u tried scratching it for a while to make sure its defo not itchy?

 

[badgerdog]

Thanks for your reply. I initially thought it was mud fever so I put Filta-bac on which is what our vet recommends but it made the skin go all scaly.
It doesn't appear to bother him at all but it looks very unsightly. I'll give them a bit of a scratch tomorrow and see how he reacts.

 

[Kallibear]

My old cob had something similar every year. When she was changing her coat (spring and winter) the hair would fall out and skin go flakey, but not sore or irritated, and she's be almost bald over most of her legs from above her feathers (i.e normal hair on legs) up to her stifles/elbows. She would be left with a very very thin baby fluff covering and soft slightly flaky skin. She'd remain bald until the new coat grew in.

She had all sorts of investiagtions done: skin biopsies, skin scrappings, steriod injections, all sorts of parasitic treatments and skin washes. Made no difference. We finally decided it was just 'her' and named it Seasonal Alopecia. Vet though it was a mistake in her coat shedding and she lost too much hair, and skin, too quickly during the moults.

 

[badgerdog]

Maybe mine is the same. Someone did suggest that his coat on his legs had just come out early and I'll have to wait for his summer coat to come in. I heard of a horse years ago at a yard I was at had a similar problem. The vet had done investigations but nothing untoward was found. She just had baldy legs from around february every year. Sounds just like your old girl!