Skin infection? HELP PLS!

[Hollyhorse]

My horse is an irish sport horse 6yo steel grey gelding who is really thin skinned. He's hypersensitive and coldbacked, and always needs thick real sheepskin on his boots, saddlecloths etc and pads on his bridle! Now he's recently developed some bald patches on his head and the top of his neck. I've been using a couple of different products like sudocrem, green oils and equus skin shampoo and spray, however nothing seems to be helping and it's getting worse. At the same time he's been rubbing his tail a lot so it's starting to look thin at the top and when you pull the hairs away you can see little pussy and bleeding spots - again I've been putting different products on this which doesn't seem to help or make it worse. Then the same is happening on his mane. I'm not really sure what to do as I've tried several different things and nothing seems to help! I'll try and take some photos to show what they look like. Any one got any advise?

 

[Llwyncwn]

Hi Hollyhorse

Firstly, how long have you had him?

The symptoms you describe sound very much like sweetitch. Has he shown this behaviour for a while or have you recently moved yards/fields?

If its not SI, I would get the vet to do a skin scraping and take bloods for a full profiling in the hope that you can find out what is happening.

We have a mare on the yard (new aquisition) who is treated as a SI horse, but she does have a skin allergy which was diagnosed at Willersley. They developed an injection especially for her (called Meg) which she now has every four months. She cant have any other horses rugs near her stable wall as her skin will react.

Hope you get it sorted.

 

[Daisy11]

the details youve given sound very much like my mare who has bad sweetitch i would wash with hibiscrub and apply d itch cream along with lots of fly spray and a fly sheet and see how you go if your still worried i would just get the vet to take alook

 

[gothdolly]

It does sound like sweet itch but could be many things,.. I realy would get the vet to check him out because you could be throwing money away trying to treat the wrong thing if you just assume its sweet itch etc.

But Domi's tail gets all sore and cracked too if he does not live in his sweet itch hoodie.

 

[Hollyhorse]

I've had him 18 months and I bought him from Goresbridge sale in Ireland. Since I've had him he's been at my home (we have our own land and yard) and at a Southampton livery/competition yard while I've been at uni! He's been back home with me since the end of May and will stay here now as I've graduated, he's had these symptoms for about a month. He's out in the field with a 3 year old who, like the other horses in another field, show no signs of similar problems. He's out at night and in during the day and when out is coated in fly spray and wears a fly rug with a neck and a fly mask! I will try washing with hibiscrub as haven't tried that yet. I have the vet out next week for vaccinations so will get him to have a look and maybe investigate in case it's an allergy and not sweet itch, it wouldn't surprise me! Thank you

 

[itsmyparty]

Our grey had a baldy patch over his eye - not itchy but was a bit weepy and grew from thumbnail size to about the size of 2 50p pieces. We got some Imavarol (used to treat ringworm and other fungal infections) from the vet and the hair is now growing back. If it was ringworm I would have thought your 3 yr old would have got it too though.