Dreaded Mud Fever - again

[LouLou3]

Hi everyone - call me naive but I really thought I had my boys mud fever licked, dare I say it I even felt a little smug my routine was weekly or fortnighly to wash legs with hibbiscrub allow to dry thoroughly overnight and then apply gallons of pig oil in the morning...it worked perfectly actually preventing him from getting it but since this cold snap it doesn't seem to be working and he's getting the scabs - I've heard of applying sulphur - not sure where to get this from or how it works but just wondered if anyone has any ideas...

 

[BubbleDog]

The treatment that I had most luck with was Keratex mud shield powder. I think it beats all other preparations because it gets straight to work drying the sores or scabby bits out thus making them reduce in size until they disappear. However, how you would manage that in this weather I am not sure as my horse routinely every year gets mud fever in August on the same leg. Obviously this time of year the key to it is keeping it dry. Maybe you could hibbiscrub it in the evening, put the powder on aftewards and then pig oiil in the morning to waterproof it. I've heard of sulpher being used as well but never tried it myself as never needed to.

 

[Ermintrude51]

Ive used sulphur, mixed with either pig oil or sudocrem, for mud fever, with great success, it worked after 2 years of low grade mf which had defied all my efforts and driven me nuts!! You can buy it on Ebay, its a powder, search for Flowers of Sulphur.

 

[KS1]

Pig oil and sulphur mixed is a great preventer but not good once scabs are formed. (You also need to be very careful on the ratio of the mix as sulphur will burn is too much is added).

My lad suffered for 8 months to the extent of spending over £500 on treatments and resorting to having him sedated and his legs clipped out by the vet so that they could be treated.

This year I have fed him "Mud Guard" since September and he hasn't had one bit of mud fever this year. I don't touch his legs at all and he's been great. The "Mud Guard" is £35 a tub but its worth paying to see him pain free.

Incidently he got the mud fever in Sept 2008 while away for 3 weeks training and turned out in a dry paddock, vet thought either bacteria in the dry soil or the sand school was the cause. I believed this as the year before (2007) he was always covered in thick mud and had his legs hosed every night and never got mud fever then.