Mud fever - would you let a horse be turned out on your land?

H's mum

H's mum

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After the article in H&H today about bacteria in the soil it got me thinking about mud fever and how this too lives in the land - Whereever I've been stabled, if one horse has mud fever, chances are the bacteria gets into the land and more horses develop it... I certainly wouldn't allow a horse with mud fever to be turned out on my land in case it got into the soil ...

What are your thoughts on this?
Kate x
 
Double_choc_lab said:
I always thought that it was a bacteria in the soil that caused the mud fever and that it didn't work in reverse ie horse infect soil - but I may well be wrong.
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Me too. We have had horses without mud fever at one yard, then moved to a new place and mud fever cleared up, then move back to the old yard and mud fever returned. Didn't think it worked the other way around in that a horse with mud fever could infect the soil.

Also it doesn't affect every horse. We had 6 geldings all turned out together last winter, and only one of them had mud fever, the one with white socks!

I wouldn't restrict a horse from my land just because it had mud fever tbh.
 
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I would not restrict any horses from grazing my land just due to them having mud fever. I really think it depends on the horse; I once had a horse with raging mud fever and another 20 or so on the same land without even a hint of it in the others, so it wouldn't affect my decision whether or not to let that horse onto my land or not. Hope that makes sense!
 
A horse can only be infected by the bacteria if it has a cut. Therefore, I would just be careful and if a horse had a cut on it's lower leg I wouldn't turn it out until it had healed.

It is impossible to say 'horses who have had mud fever aren't allowed on my land' because you don't know whether other horses in the past (before you owned the land) have suffered from mud fever. Also, as Double_Choc_Lab said, the bacteria in the soil affects the horse not the other way round!
 
SJ_Superstars said:
A horse can only be infected by the bacteria if it has a cut. Therefore, I would just be careful and if a horse had a cut on it's lower leg I wouldn't turn it out until it had healed.

It is impossible to say 'horses who have had mud fever aren't allowed on my land' because you don't know whether other horses in the past (before you owned the land) have suffered from mud fever. Also, as Double_Choc_Lab said, the bacteria in the soil affects the horse not the other way round!
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It's not impossible to say it- if it's my land then I am more than able to restrict it's use - I wouldn't mind if the horse was cleared of it - but how do you know for sure that the bacteria goes one way? Just playing devil's advocate on this one :)
Kate x
 
As far as I am aware, the bacteria which cause mud fever are always present in the soil (although I guess that different soils carry different amounts or bacteria types).

When the skin is damaged or cracked due to abrasion by mud and grit, or when it's constantly wet then dry, the skin weakens and its protective power is lost allowing bacteria to enter causing the symptoms of mud fever.

I guess that if a horse showing signs of mud fever were to rub its infected, weeping leg against another horse with weakened, compromised skin, you might get infection transferal but you'd have to check that probability/possibility with a vet!
 
Kate Sturgess said:
As far as I am aware, the bacteria which cause mud fever are always present in the soil (although I guess that different soils carry different amounts or bacteria types).
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Indeed. It's already in the soil. It is not transferable to other horses. They are prone or not, the enzyme is present or not.
 
SJ_Superstars said:
A horse can only be infected by the bacteria if it has a cut. Therefore, I would just be careful and if a horse had a cut on it's lower leg I wouldn't turn it out until it had healed.

It is impossible to say 'horses who have had mud fever aren't allowed on my land' because you don't know whether other horses in the past (before you owned the land) have suffered from mud fever. Also, as Double_Choc_Lab said, the bacteria in the soil affects the horse not the other way round!
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Mud fever gets into the skin as the pores open up due to the wet conditions. It is also not helped if the horses immune system is compromised. I am currently having a big problem with my 27yr old. His mud fever is in no way caused by cuts or abrasions to the skin. Out of my 5 horses turned out on the same land he is the only one with it (cue £400 vet bill!)

The bacteria is in the mud, end of. Not a lot you can do about it. Some will be immune, some will not be. Con had mud fever when I first bought him. By improving his diet etc he has never had another bout of it... till now... But at 27 I guess his body is starting to feel his age... :(
 
I had a horse that was very susceptible to mud fever, and then I started to feed her Top Spec products and she never had it again. She was always stabled at night in the winter, so her legs dried off and I put vaseline in her heels every day so nothing in her management had altered.

I was reading somewhere that some horses are lacking some nutrients/minerals which makes them suspectible. I suppose a horse of 27 is likely to become more vulnerable.

Oh yes, the horse gets it from the soil, I have never heard of it being transferred from horse to soil, but how would anyone know?
 
Sadly he has had it on and off since we moved to this house 2 years ago. Its been touch and go through the summer, believe it or not.... Mud fever in summer??? He is on various system support supplements, diet etc (inc Top Spec products... :( ) Just spend a FORTUNE on Rose hip and Seaweed, Comfrey, Haemogen, Pink Powder, Milk Thistle and Cortaflex HA. (Most of these he is on regularly but managed to run out of them all at the same time!!! Joy... Christmas is not happening this year. )

Had blood tests done and even they are not showing anything significant....

Really battling with him at the mo. Even the youngster has started a touch of it - but then he is a hairy so poss not true mud fever.
 
That might make sense if horses caught it from other horses. However, after far too many years of horse keeping, I'd say they don't. I've often had my horses sharing fields with horses that have mud fever, and they've never "caught" it. Sometimes, not always, I am convinced that the owner's leg-care regime makes their horses more vulnerable to getting it. So no, I wouldn't stop a horse with mud fever going out with mine.
 
i don't know loads about the science behind it all but in my experience some horses get it, some don't- i think its a bit like coldsores in people- some are susceptible to the virus and some aren't?
i've never had a horse with mud fever- but they have lived out in fields with horses with mud fever no problem. my grey horse and my current 5 year old have white legs and never been affected. i don't wash legs when i bring in- i just brush mud off when dry- i can't help but think that obsessively washing legs every day will make skin thinner? (i know that once you have mud fever then yes you do need to wash legs but i'm talking about horses who don't get it)
 
its not transferrable from horse to horse so no need to restrict turnout.

the bacteria comes from the soil but the soil is not infected by a horse with mud fever- i am not clever enough to explain the science but if you google it i am sure you can read the scientific jargon!
 
I don't agree that once you get mud fever you need to wash legs, that ain't always so and my vet agrees with me. I had a Blue Cross horse for a while, who had 4 white legs, all with pretty nasty mud fever. He'd been treated traditionally before he came to me, and was living out 24/7 in my field. I used to bring him in daily, wipe his legs clear of as much mud as I could with a towel, then slap a generous helping of Heel to Hoof on his legs. No picking scabs, no washing, no cling film... my vet saw what i was doing and said it was worth a try because sometimes the constant leg washing seemed to aggravate it and make the skin soft and more open to infection. After about 3 weeks his mud fever was gone, the scabs just dropped off gradually leaving healthy pink skin underneath, and an application of H to H 2 or three times a week kept it away.
I'm not saying that works for all horses, because I'm sure that this mud fever bacteria can be different in different fields. However, every horse I've tried that with, it's worked. The main problem has been the owners, who got tense with not seeing results quickly enough, and stressed about scabs still being on, and wanted to leap in and try something else without giving the process time to work.
I used to help with a pony who lived in a field where the gateway was horrible liquid mud, including some run-off from the muck heap. (I know, some livery yards!). Anyway, he was the only horse in a field with about 20 in that didn't have his legs washed every night. He came in muddy and the mud dried on his legs. Then the straw in his stable worked most of it off overnight, and we'd brush his legs in the morning to get the rest off and check him over. He was the only one in the whole field that didn't have mud fever. It could be that he was resistant and it was a "mud fever" field, but I suspect it was because the skin of his legs wasn't being softened every night. Oh, and he had his feathers on, more protection. I would trim feathers on a horse with mud fever so I could get at the legs, but I'd leave a bit there, not shave them completely away.
 
Same as Millitiger and as someone else said, a lot that get mud fever are lacking something from their diet not just from the wet conditions although that doesn't help of course. Healthy skin comes from within so that needs to be sorted alongside topical treatment too and I've found that if the wet conditions are solely to blame (ie. diet ok, good healthy skin) they seem to get over it far quicker than those whose diet is iffy.

Do agree with Tinypony too. No washing off at all; in fact my vet would like me to leave it alone completely and let the horse repair itself - as happens in the wild of course - as long as there is no infection of course in which case he gives ABs. I've done this and it takes a while longer (about 6 weeks) to clear but it does so well you wouldn't know it had ever had MF at all. I compromise by slapping cream on before they go out in the morning but I never, ever wash their legs off, they're allowed to dry at their own temperature and then brushed off.
 
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