Itchy legs with scabs?

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Pooley22

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My sisters horse has very itchy legs with lots of scabs all over them, if you watch her in the field she will find anything she can and will reverse up to it and start itching her legs. If you try and touch the scabs she doesn't like it and will try and stop you, we have hibiscrubed them and put sudacrem on them but it doesn't seem to have an affect. We also clip all her feathers off to make it more comfortable for her. She has this all through the year and has always had it for the 3 years we have had her, and she doesn't have bad sweet itch or anything. Just wondered if anyone had seen anything similar and what the best way to treat it would be? TIA
 
There is a horse on my yard with something similar to what you've described, he has it all year round and its very similar to mud fever. If I remember rightly its something to do with the suns rays.
Either that or I would suggest its probably mud fever!

Have you had the vet have a look?
 
Sounds mostly like feather mites - see your vet.

Mudfever is also itchy - it wouldn't hurt to wash her legs with Nizoral shampoo from the chemist. dilute in hand hot water, lather up well, over the scabby area and well beyond too. Leave for 20 mins then rinse off. If you apply with an old face cloth you will find many of the scabs will come off easily.

Leave for a few days and if need be wash again.
 
If she doesn't have mites when you check her and it's definitely not mud fever, look closely at her diet. My share horse used to have this problem. Long story short we worked out it must be something in his diet. We cut everything out, except grass for 2 weeks and then started reintroducing feeds one at a time. All was well until we introduced molassed sugar beet. We then knew sugar was the culprit - and he had lots of it in his diet before - licks, molassed chaff, sugar beet cool mix full of sugar - we felt awful! He now has as low sugar a diet as possible and only gets the rash in spring when the sugar in the spring grass is high - this also serves as a warning to others on the yard with lami ponies to get them off the grass as it appears before any other sign.

I'd try cutting out all feed and then re-introduce things one at a time. Go for a plain unmolassed grass chaff as a base and add things one at a time with 2 weeks in between so you have time for a reaction to occur (although it flared up virtually overnight with M) and can rule it out as a problem. Look at all the ingredients, rather than just thinking of a mix as a whole. Alfalfa and sugar are the two most common culprits but it could be anything. M now has grass chaff, Saracen Re-Leve and Fast Fibre.
 
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