Mud Fever – Best remedies?

[BorgRae]

Hi all,

Ok, so my lad has never had mud fever in his life… then low and behold, I get down to the yard yesterday and he has scabby legs!!!

He’s not lame, and it’s not horrific at the moment, but as I’ve never had a horse with mud fever, I wanted to know your secrets for keeping it at bay…

So, yesterday I scrubbed them with hibi-scrub and warm water, dried them off as best I could, and a friend gave me some Wonder Gel which I applied.

What do you do with yours? What do you use? And how do you keep on top of it??

Any ideas of magic lotions, potions or just off the shelf solutions much appreciated!!

Thank you!!!!

 

[Dumbo]

Wash all mud off before you do this and ensure the leg is dry. Smother the scabs in aqueous cream (very cheap from body care!) cling film, bandage and stable. Re apply cream and repeat for however long it takes for the scabs to soften and come off. Shouldn't be longer than 3 days. Once scabs have peeled off apply Mud X. (Buy from a tack shop for £15 - vets can charge triple!) Can turnout out in a mud free area (little mud as possible!) but bandage. Should be gone within 2 weeks.

All the horses at my yard were treated like this with good results!

 

[aerodynamic]

Check out this, worse Mud Fever have seen... http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=587498

 

[Thelwellesque]

Nizoral human hair shampoo, works wonders, wash off the mud, lather up with water and apply, leave to dry then brush out. Seems to do the trick.

 

[alsxx]

Personally I limit the amount of washing I do when it comes to mud fever; will usually wash with something like nizoral to start with (not hibiscrub unless properly diluted down, otherwise much to potent and damaging to the skin).

I use sudocream with huge success on mine. I often find it's not so much the cream/ointment you use, but how you apply it, but have found sudocream to be superior to other ointments (and I've tried a lot!) - I will massage a liberal amount of sudocream into the affected area, getting it onto the skin/scabs rather than just the hair, and then bandage using fleece bandages - the body heat within the bandage warms and the cream softens even more so with the extra heat - give 12 hours and then remove and massage some more - I usually find that is enough and the scabs have soften sufficiently and have gone. I then continue to slather on sudocream as a barrier cream and find I can carry on turning out as usual and the body does the rest. Oh and this is on my thin skinned, mud fever prone TB ;-)

 

[Sophstar]

I'm currently battling mud fever (and I think winning) on the front of my cob's hinds. The only place he has it with a little on the back of his knees too, none on his heels or lower leg

I tried nizoral shampoo but he reacted to it and his legs doubled in size so if I were to use it again I would thoroughly wash it off.

My current routine is thoroughly shampooing all 4 legs once a week in shampoo with tea tree oil in it and then straight in for the night on a deep bed. Walks out in the morning with fluffy clean legs, (hinds are pretty bald atm) but gives me a chance to have a good inspection. Then make a mixture of zinc and castor oil and baby oil and smother his legs. I have had to add sudocream now his hinds are lacking any hair I then don't touch his legs at all till the following week's shampoo. No hosing, no picking any scabs, no brushing. Zilch. Maybe just top up the baby oil coating. The skin is a healthy pink, no sores or scabs but the hair is just falling away where it was affected. New hair is growing through already though *fingers crossed*