This is a continuation of my other rain rot thread but here goes:

3 of my horses have rain rot.  I am balancing their feed (See other post) and have been treating them for about 10 days now.  I have bought MTG and used that- it worked well for my gelding who has a short coat but not so much for my other 2 who have thick coats.  It made the dirt stick to them and made them oily.  I them switched to Microtek but I can't get the scabs off because of their coats and it hurting them.  I have no electricity and water at my barn and with it being cold and dark when I am off of work a bath of out of the question.  One of them is doing a better but it is not progressing very fast.  The other is covered and it seems to be getting worse.  I can't keep them stalled as they end up freaking out and I am afraid they will hurt themselves.  So I do not know what to do.  One gelding (who is getting a little better) is going to a new home after the holiday and I really want it gone for the new owners.  I called the vet who told me to do what I am doing and get the scabs off.  She was not keen on the idea of antibiotics though I read this could help...any idea why??

 Also, is there anything that I can get that will get under a thick coat or not have to be used with me having to pick scabs off?  I could clip them but it has been so cold here...Help!  

Ive always used Captan. 1 oz per gallon of water. It is a water soluable powder for rose fungus. You can look it up on the internet. I couldnt find any in town so I ordered it on the internet. I put it in a spray bottle and spray it on daily to the point of drip off. Takes about two weeks to clear up condition. Ive used it on horses that were out in pasture with rain and dirt. Mostly it affected horses that liked to roll in mud. Daily grooming with a curry to dislodge the dried crusted mud and stiff bristle brush. A horse vac works well too. Spray on after grooming. Good luck

I have always used the MTG...but with my horses thick winter coat I really had to rub it in...and i know how it is with the dirt and muck.  Another thing that i have used is basic Listerine.  The astringent dries out the fungus...but i wouldn't use this unless nothing else was working becuse with rainrot the alcohol would really sting.  I know you said you are balancing thier diets but if they arent already you could try adding Vit E and selenium into thier diet with some corn oil...both of those have really gone a long way with my mare who is constantly getting skin fungus from the muck...as soon as the wet paddock season hits she has to be sheeted to minimize the spread.   Another thing that is really good at keeping the skin and coat healthy is flak seed...just a cup a day.  This stuff goes a long way because it has a major impact on the skin and coat and helps the body heal from the inside out....

As far as antibiotics go...i have never heard of using them on rain rot.  I didn't think rain rot was bacterial...i always thought it was a fungal infection.  If what you heard is true though then resorting to the antibiotics might be your best bet considering your barn and time limitations....Good luck

Rain rot, scratches, thrush...they are all related. It's a PH thing. Something from inside of the horse is creating a neg. PH.....sugar, for the most part.. The wet weather promotes things and voila! These things thrive on neg. PH. Knowing this, you can understand why the vet discouraged antibiotics...wrong approach.

Got to get those scabs off if you are going to move forward. I have a barn like yours too!  I spot soak with a wet cloth or end up getting whole areas wet. Once softened, I pick them off or use the sweat scraper to help those large areas without upsetting the horse too much. Then I spray a cloth with Tea Tree Oil (or whatever you choose) and fluff it all up to dry and leave them in the barn to really dry overnight. As a prevention, I rub a cloth with ACV on it, on the drip line areas.

But the problem is coming from within...sugar causing a neg. PH., believe it or not. Go after the sugar and all things will improve...fungus moving in, low grade laminitis, insulin resistance...on and on.

I googled food grade molasses once, thinking I'd get a derivitive of corn...period. What I got was about 7 added ingredients promoting the viscosity and flowability, one of which really stuck in my mind.....ANTIFREEZE! Pure poison!

Black Oil Sunflowers seeds and Flax will promote a shinier coat, plus create a better raincoat for the horse.

Hope this helps!

 

 I have changed their diet off of a sweet feed and onto a more balanced pellet.  I am also back on using flax seed...used it in the past and didn't replenish it (yes I know bad).  I talked to a vet tech who works with only horses and she said antibiotics would not hurt.  I have been using a low dose of SMZ for 3-4 days and it has really helped.  I have coupled this with sponge baths with medicated shampoo and on days I do not sponge bath I pick scabs and use microtek.  I was using MTG but it made them so oily and messy it was worse.  It is almost gone on my one gelding, and my other who had the worse case is getting much better...I am not a "use an antibiotic for everything" type of owner so a one time use has not hurt them.  Hopefully it will be gone soon...keep your fingers crossed.

I'm glad that you have found a system that seems to be working for you.  I will have to do a little more research on the use of antibiotics...I hope it continues to show improvement, i'm sure that the wet fall weather is not helping.

ALLthe horses had it at my barn one year. Thats 50 horses with rain rot. Our vet said U have to pick off the scabs, as the fungus is under them. We shaved all the spots with it, sure they looked funny, but it was way easier to treat, as well as quicker to treat and to dry. We scrubbed with betadine scrub, picked off the scabs. It healed well, and no antibitoics were used. Just an idea. GOOD LUCK

I've battled with this too, so I know how you feel.  I'm glad that it looks as if you have found a routine that is working, albeit slowly.

I've found the Microtek gel to be helpful in softening the scabs and making them easier to get off, even with Annapolis' long winter coat.

 Your guys continue to improve.

 

mfairc5, I want to get my mare off sweet feed, and give her a better quality feed.  What or where did you research to find the best feed/formula for her?

I am interested in how others approach this.  (around here, most people feed sweet feed. because it's cheap I guess.)

 

 

 

Read your post. I have my two mares on sweet feed and oats. One of them has developed rain rot which I am treating with antimicrobial shampoo and betadine. However, I am intrigued by the sweet feed issue. Have you found a substitute?

Ed

 Ugh, I don't know if you were talking to me, but I went back and read my post, posted back in 2007! 

The sweet feed creating a negative pH still stands. Rain rot and especially promoted thrush, not to mention metabolic disturbances that take you down the road to IR/Cushings. Nobody is feeding sweet feed these days...or grain, for that matter. Oats is so high in sugar and especially starch, that all other grains are measured against it.  Non-molasses/rinsed beet pulp shreds have replaced it all to be the carrier of other nutritients to provide balanced nutrition instead. 

Looking at the problem at a deeper level takes you past getting caught up in the treatment, to understanding and addressing the cause of it in the first place. Why did the horse get rainrot in the first place? Because the horse couldn't fend it off by himself. Why? Compromised immune system, particularily Vitamin A. The immune system is created in the health of the digestive system and sweet feed and its high NSC helps to mess it up. Imbalance in the diet also leaves holes for the baddies to move in. Vit A and E are biggies, especially on a hay only diet. On grass, the horse needs neither. Selenium is touchy, but is also very big on the immune system. (speak to the vet) I feed my horses 1 gelcap/day of people Vit. A (10,000IU)/day and Vit E should be fed at 2IU/lb of body weight/day, so 3 gelcaps 400mg natural Vit. E/day, both from Walmart. The gelcaps have the oil that the E needs to be metabolized. The selenium needs the E to be well metabolized. Its a 3-way synergy going on.

I also keep an eye out on suspect areas, like drip lines, spines and fetlocks. If the weather has been wet for awhile, I will add the topical defense of rubbing straight vinegar in these areas. I spray it full strength from a spray bottle. Good for thrush maintenance as well. Vinegar is an adaptogen. It goes on as an acid and cleans, but when it dries, it leaves and alkaline residue behind that ups the pH. It is the negative pH that the baddies thrive in. Kill the jungle atmosphere and it has nowhere to get in and thrive...hoof or coat. A spray bottle of vinegar has become a permanent extension of my right arm. I haven't been to the feed store for bagged feeds in 20 years and yes, it was a bad colic episode with sweet feed that changed my ways. I've also haven't been to the tack store in years for quick fixes for problems like MTG for years either. Prevention is key.

  The sugared molasses creates that internal neg pH that promotes these problems, including thrush and worse....yeast infection, So, its clogging up everything inside, creating a glucose rise at every meal, building its effects and taking you right down the road to IR and laminitis. As the horse gets older, he's possibly looking at uncompromised IR and right into Cushings. Answer: lose the sugar and starch in the diet. The NSC daily intake should be 10 or lower. Now look at those feed labels and see 16, 18 and 22%! Now look at the 125IU of Vit E and all the touting its good for and know that at 2IU/lb for a 1000lb horse is 2000IU/day and know this is a joke as well. A lot of feed companies turned to high fat for cool calories when the complaints came in about sugar and starch and they still don't get it. The complimentary amount of E in there is to address the metabolism of the fat and is not enough to help the horse. I can name quite a few reasons why not to feed high fat. Horses don't require fat, just the omegas in flax. You'd be far better off getting a $10 coffee grinder and grinding up 4oz. just before feeding it. I've also learned that processed stabilized flax in bagged feeds has lost its omega values, yet the touting is all there about it. Flax is a biggie not just for coat shine and strength, but an excellent hedge against any inflammation present in the body. 

The body and coat type also comes into play.  A fatter horse with hollowed spine is going to hold onto a pool of remaining wetness longer. (mine is bum high, which also creates this pooling effect) Slab-sided body types with thinner coats also drain that water faster and prevents problems. Which body type do you think the sweet feed is lending to?

So, knowing all this, that its a compromised immune system that has allowed whatever baddie in, like rain rot, then thinking of antibiotics, which destroy the immune system entirely by wiping everything out.....do you think antibiotics are the answer to rain rot?  Maybe if you need help in bad cases, but then you must re-build the gut with pre and probiotics and build the immune system from scratch all over again. In the meantime, that leaves the "baddie" door wide open. Why not just build from where you are now and strengthen the immune system further? Make sense?

Hope this helps.....

 

Thanks for all the great info. So, out of curiosity, besides hay, what do you feed?

 Because hay is 3/4's of their diet, I test/analyze it to find the nutrition holes. I find out what is needed in all aspects with majors, traces, protein, lysine, iodine, selenium, electrolytes...the whole nine yards. Then I go again and pit them all against each other to find perfect balance = customized diet with needs met and perfectly balanced for THAT horse. The supplements needed are fed singularily and in the balanced amounts from this analysis so I guess you could say that I'm making my own customized supplement. I was able to do this by becoming a graduate of Dr. Kellon's NRC Plus course. You can too....what a journey! I'd been doing the barefoot trim for 8 years when the IR/Cushings concerns started, so I followed along with balancing the diet to help my trimming and knowledge take the horse to a higher level of success with hoof transition. It worked.....amazing results.  On the other hand, the hoof forum that expanded from the Cushings diet forum, show many horses with horrendous hoof pathologies I've ever seen...all related to diet. I know now exactly what it means to "get balanced". 

What do I feed other than hay? Well according to the this year's hay analysis:  8.3g Phosphorus, 20g Magnesium, 92mg Copper, 426mg Zinc, 3.3mg Iodine and 1mg Selenium. To that, I added 4oz. of freshly ground flax for perfectly balanced omegas and to fight inflammation, 1tbn. of salt, to drive thirst, cause water makes the world go round, 2IU/lb of body weight of Vit. E, critical on a hay only diet and 2oz. brewer's yeast for healthy gut and optimal absorption.  I also feed an apple a day to keep the vet away, lol!  This recipe is for my 27 year old, who is not IR or in any need of joint supplements at this time....also fully transitioned with the trim.  I watched her lift effortlessly in a lope the other day and except for gravity having at her back, I could have sworn I was looking at a 10 year old. She's still the alpha mare as well. Although I keep checking, her teeth haven't needed floating for the last 6 years as well, but that just may be the gift of perfect bite.  She's never colicked again since I balanced her diet either. 

Oh, something else.I did have trouble with a nasty on Walter's spine a couple of years ago. It wasn't rain rot, no scabs, but really sore and hair coming out in tufts. I cleaned it up and put NoThrush on it. It started healing right away. I kept watch for reasons to re-apply it, (out 24/7, wet winter), but never had to touch it again. I haven't fully researched it and should, but I'm told the main ingredient is diamaticious earth. (sp?). A taking away of the jungle that feeds the fungus....sort of what like vinegar does with pH? Must find out, lol!