HELP WITH SWEET ITCH!

rowan666

rowan666

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a friends horse in my care 16yr old cob has sweet itch and i have no idea what is best to treat/prevent this as ive never had this with any other horse! do any of the vast amouts of products actually work???

he has aparnetly had this problem his whole life but no one has previously bothered 2 try and do anything but he isnt on rich grass now so thort he mite not get it but i was wrong and hes started itching his poor tail off again :(

hes been on hayledge, alpha a oil, senior mollychop and condition mix fr last 2 mnths since being in my care wasnt previously fed on anything but hay, no idea if any of that makes a difference? PLEASE HELP!!
 
Sweet Itch is an allergic reaction to midge bites, so rich grass doesn't cause it although there is a suspicion that a high sugar diet can aggravate the symptems. It might help to return him to hay and feed a low sugar diet.

To date the most effective treatment is a good sweetitch rug which prevents the midges biting. Benzylbenzoate is the traditional treatment, inexpensive, soothing and repelling and best applied to the itchiest bit i.e. roots of the mane and tail. Some chemists refuse to sell it - EU rules! - but you can get it on-line if you google it. There is a new (to this country) fly repellent called Tri-tec 14 which is very effective. I also wash our pony's mane and tail regularly with a tea tree shampoo as the scurfy build-up only adds to the itchiness.
 
Hi there,

My horse is a sufferer of sweet itch, and it is best to catch it early and prevent the bites in the first place. My horse has a rambo sweet itch rug which is great for preventing the bites. She is also on a high fibre, low sugar diet and gets hi-fi molasses free, which i have heard is meant to help. ALso she gets brewers yeast, but this is best started early on in the year. A new product which we are trying is Global Herbs flyfree, which seems to help keep the flys away.

Before i got her last year, her previous owner used Gold label itch gon, which worked wonders. It has neem oil in it and it was applied to her mane and tail once a day, it does make it greasy, but it helps and my horse has always had a mane and tail.

It seems to be trail and error really, but i would recommend the itch gon at this stage.

Hope this helps
 
I buy pure Benzyl Benzoate http://mistralni.co.uk/catalogue/product/498/Benzyl-Benzoate-BP from here and mix 200 ml Benzyl, tea spoon of Iodine, 800 ml of pig oil or baby oil to make 1 litre, rub on every 3 days, got this recipe on the IH forum from lady in a hot country with plenty of midgy things.
Every 2 weeks I bath him in shampoo mixed with teaspoon of iodine, lather him up and leave on for 10 mins, this lifts off all the scurfy bits. He is only a mini shetland so a bit smaller area to deal with lol!! but is working so far this year whereas he is normally rubbed out on face, neck, hips, rump and tail and was going through 3 Boets a season despite being rugged from beginning of Feb each year.
Have also done the Sweetitch trial, food supplements and vet injection with no relief and had decided last winter would be his last until read of this mixture, he also has Global Herbs Skratch Plus, not sure if it helps but reluctant to stop it just in case.
 
my friend's horse has this condition. She treats him with Dermoline shampoo which is for lice etc, he has his mand and tale washed regularly with it in the warmer weather and it helped him a lot. She also used a product called Killitch, cant honestly remember if it was a shampoo or not. She also used the Rambo Sweet Itch Hoodie rugs which have washed and worn forever, they are very good quality. Her horse itched more when he was skirfy too so it was beneficial to keep him clean and his rugs. His rugs were washed with Nuumed Nuuwash as its kind to their skin and it was rare he was seen in a dirty one.
 
My horse suffered from this. Fly-rug and kill itch lotion from carr&day&martin. It didn't stop it but it seemed to help the matter. Also tried d-itch powder from NAF (which smelt like curry) but didn't seem to have any effect. It's so frustrating!
 
OK so your first priority basically is to STOP the midges biting him in the first place, so a sweet itch hoody or a Boett is what you need (not to be confused with a fly rug - the hoody's cover the poll & ears area), you also might need to put him in a fly-mask if the midges are really bad.

Then you can "top up" your management with stuff like proprietory brands, some of which have been mentioned here. People have recommended Avon Skin So Soft Dry Oil Body Spray (www.avonshop.co.uk) - you need the one with the blue logo! Cheap and cheerful.

Then you can think about supplements etc. I feed mine 1 scoop of Brewers Yeast per feed, plus some linseed - and occasionally some cider vinegar and seaweed. Also Clivers (the sticky stuff which grows in hedges) is supposed to be good.

Re. grazing. The recommended advice for a sweet itch is to "stable between dusk and dawn". The worst field for a horse with sweet itch is in a valley, with a stream, and trees or moorland around. The best being somewhere high up which catches the breeze. So you might need to re-think the field situation.

Whilst it may sound horrendous taking on a sweet itch, it CAN be managed, and once you've gone through a summer and dealt with it, you just get into it each year. I always start to watch for midges around mid-February; and don't really relax until the end of October (tho' this year I was out faffing around putting a sweet itch rug on mine on flippin Christmas Day!!!).

There is something called "Bio Eos" which are little capsules you feed the horse during the sweet itch season. They're not cheap, but come highly recommended. Try the National Sweet Itch Centre (sorry don't have link).

Good luck anyway.
 
Has it been proven he actually has sweet itch? I went for a few years thinking my last horse - a Welsh Cob had SI as he itched out his mane every summer and seemingly would have times when he'd go crazy rolling to itch himself. I got him allergy tested in the end by a specialist vet, turned out he wasnt allergic to midge bites at all, he was actually allergic to most grasses, hay mould and dust! Definately worthwhile getting this horse tested in case its nothing to do with midgies at all!
 
Hi,
I used to loan a horse with really bad sweet itch..
She had a full fly rug ( going all the way around her tummy)
And every so often we used to wash her mane and tail with medicated shampoo. Also, garlic likits are meant to keep the flys away because of the garlic smell!
 
Exactly what mijodsr2blinkingtight (is that right?) said. My mare is now 19, suffered from severe sweet itch from 18 months onwards. Boett rugs are expensive but the best and the national sweet itch helpline are fantastic. Details at http://www.sweet-itch.co.uk/

Bio eos is good for some horses but doesn't work on all however an improvement is usually seen. Don't touch Cavelesse - waste of money (mare has been part of many sweet itch 'cure' trials) so have tried every product on the market!

Good luck - my horse leads a happy, full, active life as long as her allergy is well managed and it's just getting into the habit of doing things a bit differently when the biting bu**ers are about.
 
deffo the Tritec for the sweetitch - the mossies that cause it don't have a sense of smell ( according to the National Sweetitch centre lady) and our pony was terrible until we used this last year. She now lives out all summer - no fly rugs but has the most distugusting sticky up bog brush ,mane. one bottle lasts for ages - I just reapply every 4 days and doesn't smell nasty either. Gave up with all the smelly loyions and postions after I spoke to the NSC lady! Will never be with out it - I get it from a nice lady at kickinwestern.co.uk
 
Another for Bezyl Bonzoate! Swear by the stuff. I ordered mine from Hyperdrug 2 summers ago and still have a nearly full bottle left!

I have used this on my mare since she was 2 1/2, she's now 9 and hardly ever rubs/suffers.
 
My vet recentley told my to try feeding a spoonful of Marmite every day. Apparentley lots of other clients swear by it! It's meant to deter the flies/midges from biting? I decided to give it a go and so far so good. Another thing to try is Piriton Antihistamines, if you ask your vet they should be able to write you a prescription or if you know someone that works in a pharmacy they might be able to get it cheaper for you. Vet calculated that my 13.2 can have up to 20 twice a day and at the moment he is on 10 twice a day and has stopped scratching altogether :)
 
MiJodsR2BlinkinTite said:
The worst field for a horse with sweet itch is in a valley, with a stream, and trees or moorland around.
Click to expand...

Haha welcome to my world! This describes to a T where I live, so all of our fields are midge hotspots. They have always been bad here, but seem to be even worse this year.

I have invested in a "Mosquito Magnet" - made in America to catch mossies, but work in the UK on the dreaded midge. Got it second hand of eBay. I have set it up close to the stables so that my horses have some respite from the damned things - so far I have literally caught MILLIONS. It is not a short term solution and you need to have the machine running 24/7 for the whole of the midge season - which for me is March to October. It catches the female midges (which are the biters) and they die and this therefore interupts the breeding cycle. The costs are a propane gas cylinder every 28 days and attractant, which is cheap.

I was spending £33 on fly supplement and £30 on fly spray a month - both of which had ZERO effect on the midges whatsoever. Seem to be winning with the mosquito magnet and this has the added bonus of actually reducing the numbers in the long term :) Now I just need to buy one for myself so I can sit outside in the evenings!!
 
According to the sweet itch specialist lecture I attended this week at the RVC, the studies using the Bio Eos capsules showed it to be completely ineffective.

If you can't move to a high mountain top or somewhere super windy, try these:

Stabled, you are recommended a 20 inch fan as midges are weak fliers. Out, avoid dawn and dusk as already mentioned and use a proper Boett.

Brewers yeast or Marmite are good, vitamin B3?

Use Summer fly cream, the one with Deet in it for tail/mane. Use Deet, but nothing near 50% as this is too strong.

Put very fine mesh (20 holes per square inch, I think, as midges are generally small enough to get through normal mosquito nets) over stable windows.

Keep away from water and stable in the middle of American barns if you have one as midges won't generally fly as far in as the middle.

There is no cure and no sign of the promised vaccine as yet.
 
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nadinek82 said:
My vet recentley told my to try feeding a spoonful of Marmite every day. Apparentley lots of other clients swear by it! It's meant to deter the flies/midges from biting? I decided to give it a go and so far so good. Another thing to try is Piriton Antihistamines, if you ask your vet they should be able to write you a prescription or if you know someone that works in a pharmacy they might be able to get it cheaper for you. Vet calculated that my 13.2 can have up to 20 twice a day and at the moment he is on 10 twice a day and has stopped scratching altogether :)
Click to expand...

this is very interesting, how expensive are they? also is it tablet form so you give 10 tablets crushed in his food aday? my hors is 16hhs will ask my vet, very interesting. worth a try.
 
i have a shetland mare, she was in a terrible state with sweet itch, i took the advice of a 75 year old horse man and covered all the affected areas with used engine oil,3 times per day, brush it on thick around the tail and mane the change is amaizing, plenty flies and midges no more sores its been over a month now with no side effects
 
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Unfortunately not all sweet itch is manageable. Zara is an extreme case and basically gets bitten wherever she isn't covered. She wears a boett rug but not a hood as she rolls so vigorously that she always manages to twist it over her eyes. A normal fly mask seems to work for her as that slides back into position but there is a gap between that and the neck of her boett so she gets bitten all round her jaw area. I have to cream inside her back legs right down to her hocks and inside her front legs down to her knees. She also gets bitten and bleeds at the top of her stifle and udders where the rug doesn't go.

She gets so distressed trying to scratch herself when the ointments have worn off and I hate seeing her like this. She has got arthritis in three legs and at the end of March she tore a tendon which is not healing. I have therefore made the decision to have her pts. If she didn't have sweet itch, I would keep her as a field ornament but to be honest, from February until end of November is torture for her so I'm going to let her go.

She is an extreme case and even though she is this bad, it wouldn't put me off having another horse with sweet itch although not to this degree. I just thought I would let people know that not every case is manageable.
 
I have one which I'm having problems managing, it's any fly that upsets him plus the sweet itch I can't long rein him or tack him up where he is sore, am also considering PTS as wouldn't be fair to sell him to someone unless they were very expert carers. He would probably be OK in a barn type environment away from water but sadly we are wooded and streamy, its the 3rd SI one I have had here :(
 
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