Mites and lameness? Help please

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Beautysmum

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Feather mites and lameness?
Hi all, I'm having a mites nightmare. I bought my dales gelding back in feb and began treating him for feather mites with deosect as he was stomping his back legs. However, he has come in from the field lame on his back leg and my friend said she noticed him stomping last week again (she just forgot to mention it). Has anyone ever experienced lameness through mites? I have the vet coming Monday but I'm really worried about it. What treatments have you all used and did they become sound again? Thanks
 
I have always used frontline for mites (2 treatments a week apart)
I would say that the lameness is not from the mites themselves but the banging of the foot.
 
My cob gets a sore and scabby irritated skin when he has mites, it certainly makes him uncomfortable and reluctant to flex his legs, but not exactly lame. I now clip his feathers off all year round, and he is much happier, and its much easier to keep him mite free.

Perhaps your chap has kicked himself whilst stamping against the mites? Hopefully its nothing serious.
 
It may or may not be mites. Yes lameness is very possible
The soreness caused by either mites or what I will call feather rash has caused lameness to 2 horses I know. I hope for your sake it is the mites. As the other is a real pain in the butt and needs almost daily management

I also successfully used large dog frontline pippets

I will try and explain what I mean by feather rash is scabby sores on the skin under feathers. Can actually get bad enough to get deep cuts where the skin dries out and horse scratches or bites themselves

Either way at the moment you need to treat for mites either through injection from the vets.

Interestingly I have a friend who is 70+ and has been dealing with this for 20yrs
In first instance vet did alsorts of allergy tests and all sorts if very expensive creams
However the following is her method of controlling it and it has worked for several horses I have passed it into and is now working on my welsh mare

Bad news is as it has got bad enough to cause lameness you will almost certainly have to clip his feathers (this time)
Treat each leg as tho infectious (for hygiene)
Wash legs with either hibbiscrub or better still a coal tar shampoo £8 from boots
You will need to really get into the skin and thoroughly wash
Dry with kitchen roll (again for hygiene)
Then apply either zinc and castor oil cre me (wilkinson is the only place I found it)
Rub well into the sores while legs are still a little damp

In wet conditions you will then need to apply pig oil to keep the mud out

This needs to be done every other day until you have it under control and then still every week minimum forever :(

If your lucky enough ever to get to the stage where there are no sores. Still keep washing but no need for cream

I must admit my mare now only has a couple if tiny sores while it is dry I just wah her once a week and out cream on 3 times a week

Very often the cream doesn't soak in unless IOU have washes the legs

Another point my friend made was that when it's more than just a little bit she does this before she rides so the movement doesn't crack the skin

Blimey sorry for the novel

Ps another friend also had expensive cream off vets which didn't work. But this did :)
 
I have done something similar to what soulful has described. I don't wash the legs, as it seems to be a form of eczema and that should be kept dry. I spray the legs with tea-tree mist daily, any really bad patches are sprayed with Hyppocare.
I found that changing from haylage to hay helped to clear it up and now her feather can grow back.
 
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