Itchy Horse - with a difference

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catherine22

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Bear with me, this could be long.

My mare has been itchy now for over a year (see my previous posts), the itching moves to different parts of her body on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, but is always worse on her tail. She will swing her quarters round to try and get you to scratch them and on really bad days almost chases you backwards. Some days are worse than others but we have kept a diary of weather conditions, temperature and time of day and there are no patterns at all. The only pattern we can slightly notice is that she is always worse at midnight when they get checked, but then some nights she’s fine. When she rolls she will (sometimes) sit like a dog to scratch her tail/ quarters. Her field is totally electric fenced as otherwise she would rip herself to pieces, thus she looks completely normal, nice shiny coat, normal looking skin. She is also getting more grumpy and irritable
Can’t put her in a stable as she will rip herself to pieces

We have tried

Eliminating all foods – no difference
Feeding vitamin and mineral supplement – no difference
Feeding brewers yeast – no difference
Moving fields (still on the yard) – no difference
Steroid cream cleared up the irritation when she did manage to rub her tail on a post but there is no where normally to put it (or requirement for it)
Steroids (prednisolone) 40 twice a day worked to start with (couple of weeks) then she got worse again, does increased to 60 twice a day – no difference
Cavalesse inc cream (but same issue no where to put it) – no difference
Fly rug on in summer – no difference
Rugged in worst of winter weather (normally unrugged) – no difference
Wormed all up to date
Tried various lotions and potions, including Aloe Vera and Aromesse
Clipped to get a good look at her skin (and check she wasn’t over heating) – no difference and healthy looking skin
We then pin pointed it all starting after she went to stud so she is currently on regumate (2 weeks)– no difference.

Things we have left to try are
moving her to another yard further away, to see if it’s something in the environment,
allergy tests (as we have eliminated everything diet wise, I’m sure if these did show anything it would only be an allergy to grass, which there’s nothing I could do about)
skin scrapes and
consulting a specialist.

This horse is retired, 20 ish not particularly easy to handle but manageable, not insured, but happy (apart for the itching!) and has already cost me the best part of £1000 trying to get to the bottom of this.

Anyone have any ideas or experienced anything similar?

At work so only have ribena to offer or a toasted waffles if you got to the end
 
I had same problems with my horse. I had him allergy tested and found that he is allergic to dust mites in the air. I changed his bedding, I have to clean his rugs regularly and he is on immoune (sp?) therapy which is injections once a month and the second he started these he went back to normal.
 
dermoline insecticidal shampoo - it will kill any potential creepy crawlies she might have.

Have your fields been sprayed at all? She might be reacting to a chemical residue in your grass.
 
Thanks jojo, it may be worth getting her allergy tested then, altho as she lives out I'm not sure what else she could be allergic to. the injections sound interesting though, do you know what they're actually called?
TB she has been deloused and dermolined - no difference
fields haven't been sprayed
 
I was going to suggest the bedding, too, but just noticed you have her living out. Have you tried her with a muzzle and restricting her grass intake?

Sounds like the injections above are immuno-suppressants. You might find that piriton in her feed helps, but this will only affect histamine signalling and won't help with the other inflammatory pathways, hence only a limited effect on severe sweet itch.
 
Keep her in for a week and see what happens.

I know that you feel that you cannot keep her without her living out, but if she is itchy she is miserable and it would be fairer to let someone keep her who can give her a life without grass if that is what is causing it. It's not common, but it does happen that they itch if they eat grass, especially left on it 24/7

I took on a horse with severe sweet ictch (he had the scars to prove it) and for other reasons he had to be removed from grass completely. Even though he was still turned out in midge areas (just not on grass), the sweet itch disappeared completely.
 
Thanks for all your advice
FS - I will give piriton a try, it can't make her worse
cptrayes - I have a stable i can put her in but I just worry given walls to rub on she will make the most of it and end up ripped to pieces. Even when i've brought her in and tied her next to a wall, with haynet, she ignore the haynet completely and just scratches. But potentially it could be worth the risk.
Actually we have a wood chip lunging area I wonder if I could borrow that for a week, put her in there and see if that helps.
I just feel so sorry for her and starting to come to the decision even though she looks happy if we can't get to the bottom of it she may be better off PTS :-(
 
I have had good results using a detox both the NAF one and Global herbs restore, it would be worth trying before you do the allergy test.
 
You mention trying a fly rug in the summer, but have you tried a sweetitch rug year round (keep finding the little blighters earlier and earlier)? My mare fortunatly has fairly mild sweetitch, but unless rugged 24/7 from end feb until nov then if she has anything solid around her she will rub herself terribly. No food/lotions/jabs etc make the slightest bit of difference, the only thing that has has helped her is to prevent the midges from biting at all.

What does your vet suggest to try to get to the bottom of it?
 
Is the itching mainly her tail/bum? Could it be pinworms, Kelsi used to itch her bum a lot and do the same as you described turning her bum on people to get them to scratch her. Had the vet out and they said there has been a lot of resistance to wormers. We used a wormer with pyrantel in as suggested by the vet and this worked.
 
Echo the pinworm...my mare was uncontrollably rubbing her hindquaters, spoek to my vet and the suggested worming for pinworm before they came out...low and be hold i never called them out she was a changed horse!
 
The itching mainly seems to be in her tail and sometimes quarters. But it also moves and can be her wither, chest, under jaw.
Never seen any pin worms or signs, may give her a pyrantel wormer, it's not going to hurt before allergy tests/ skin scrapes.
The pony- she has it all year round, even in the snow last year and she very rarely has a rug on unless weather is terrible, so it's unlikely but worth remembering
bp - i will try detox / restore see if any of those help? how long did you use it for before seeing a difference?

ETA-Strongid-P or Eraquell for Pinworm?
 
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Will pick up strongid p tonight see if that helps and will start the detox/ restore and see if I can get to the bottom of it.
In some ways I'm ready to give up, but equally I don't want to be defeated by it!
 
My horse developed a mysterious itch a couple of years ago. I spent 4k trying to find the cause. Found plenty that DIDN't cause it but never found what did.

He was skin scraped and allergy tested which showed that he is sensitive to wheat, maize, horse chestnut trees, house dust and dogs.

I kid you not I tried everything. Malaseb shampoo, cider vinegar baths, a wormer injection meant for cows and so on. He was on 60 prednisolone tablets a day at one point but they didn't help. A steriod injection resulted in an abcsess. I've covered him and I mean covered his entire body in Holland and Barret pure Aloe Vera gel (2 whole large tubes a day)and added 600ml pure aloe juice to his feed a day. All of it made no difference.

If one more person suggested worming him I would have thumped them!!!

Changed feed, bedding, field, new rugs, etc etc the lot. It took over a year but eventually he became a lot less itchy. He still has moments now though and when he does rub he will rub down to raw skin.

A lot of the key with him is not to over rug him. Despite being fully clipped (except legs) he was only in a medium weight rug and only when it got to -5 did I put a neck cover on. He is a pure bred arab and people would be horrified! I've seen unclipped heavy weight cobs in heavy weight rugs. A lot of the time I think it makes the person feel better rather than the horse needing it.

He is currently fed nothing with molasses or additives of any kind and nothing with wheat or maize in it.

Good luck with your quest and please let me know if you find something that does work as I fear my quest is not over with yet!....
 
As your mare is "older" have you considered Cushings? Itchy skin conditions are some of the things Cushinoid horses are prone to. Our Cushings pony had some horrible itchy episodes last year and, as she already had mild sweetitch we assumed that it was getting worse. She was affected worst on her chest, quarters and lower legs so we treated as mites, pinworms etc. with no effect. I clipped the worst patches out but there was nothing to see, except big flakes of dandruff. It stopped and started for no apparent reason.

All we could do was use a Rambo Sweetitch rug, which is robust enough to withstand quite severe rubbing so her skin isn't damaged. She is allowed a rubbing tree in her field (which has worn smooth as glass!) but otherwise everything is taped off. I did feel that being so itchy and not being able to rub would drive her bonkers.

I have been recommended to use Black Salt from Global Herbs which has a cooling and calming effect on irritated skin and am going to give it a try. It's not expensive!
 
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