Found about 15-20 ticks on my mare recently in her mane and tail.  Got them all off, but she has some oozing sores, round in nature, left over that are continuing to crust. Any advice for 1) healing those up for her (they seem to be quite itchy) and 2) avoiding ticks again?  She is pasture board 24/7.  

I am using the mineral oil wash right now that I read on Discoverhorses.com.  Am headed out right now to check on her and see what I can do for her comfort.  Thanks all!

P.S.  Is there any way to search just in the forums any more?  I"m sure this topic has been addressed, but had difficulty searching.  Thanks!

Also check up inside her thighs, between her teats, in the drk corners of the anal area, tip of tail, in the forelock and in the ears if she starts shaking her head. 

I feed three of my horses processed garlic; the fourth can't have garlic because he has ulcer issues.

They still do get a few ticks.  I keep the areas washed twice daily.  I then make a mix of hemerhoid ointment, antibiotic ointment, and diaper rash cream.  The diaper rash cream holds everything on a lot longer so the flies stay off the open sores.

Some horses will welt up really bad over a tick bite, others hardly at all.  It can take the sores a week to a month to heal, depending how bad of a reaction the horse had.

Some folks swear by Endure fly spray.  I have heard other folks say to put powdered sulphur in a sock and whap the sock against the horse's legs.   If your horse is in tall grass that might not work.

MTG works because of the sulphur but it is waaaaay too hot to put MTG on a horse - it will burn and blister them; I've already read about that on another forum.

Hope this helps:)

 For the tick bites themselves, they will heal on their own.  Solo has an allergic reaction to them too -- one bit him high on the inside of his thigh this year and it looked like he grew a testicle! 

I've tried everything for keeping them off, since he is a tick magnet, but little luck.  Spraying permethrin heavily around the lower parts of his legs seems to reduce them a bit and sometimes the EquiSpot stuff helps a bit, but no luck keeping them off entirely, we have gazillions.  

I have found that Freedom Spot 45 works great for keeping the ticks away.  We don't have a big tick problem up here, but when I had him in NoVA a couple of years ago I was picking them off of him.  The Freedom Spot 45 worked great.  Soaking his tail in brown Listerine really helped him feel better.  Got rid of the crusties and helped the bites heal faster.

 I did wash her tail out with MTG since she had so many bites there with sores, but I rinsed her off really good then used mineral oil.  Her tail seemed better yesterday, but her mane had a couple huge sores.  I soaked them in water to loosen all the crud and then used a little ointment to help them heal quicker.

Thanks for all the ideas - Solo, if my mare starts to look like she has a testicle I'll be forewarned! 

I'll check into the sprays - why would brown listerine work?  Does any color work?

 has anyone had luck with mesh leg wraps (for flies)?

 I tried them this year in an attempt to keep the hoof stomping from flies down, and it seems to have cut down on the number of ticks they have.

 I was pulling 5-10 a day off before I put the leg wraps on, and now I'm down to an occasional one. 

I have some leg wraps, I really like them, but can't get BO to put them on consistently, bummer.

FluffyD:

I'll check into the sprays - why would brown listerine work?  Does any color work?

Brown listerine is a great disinfectant and doesn't have anything else added it to it for flavor like the others.  His tail was so itchy from all the crusty tick bites that everytime I touched it he would start bobbing his butt around.  The listerine really did the trick.  Got rid of the crusties, stopped the itching and healed up great.

I'd also recommend trying to give your horse a bath with plenty of Dawn dish soap (though be cautious as to how often, because it can dry out the skin).  My friend recommended it because it repels ticks.  I've tried it on the dog and it worked, though I haven't tried it on the horses yet (knock on wood :D ).

gypsy fly:

Dawn ... which one?  Lemon, Regular, New Zealand Springs, Hawaiian Pineapple, etc.?  

I wonder what the active ingredient is that repels the ticks?

 Hmm, I don't know--I've always used the original, blue-colored stuff (assuming that's what it's called, I never paid attention ;) ).