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Likewise, reducing exposure to environmental factors known to increase incidence may help prevent this condition. If you know there will be heavy rainfall in your area, keeping your horse in a barn or under shelter can help reduce risk. Also, limiting access to muddy areas or trying to reduce the overall presence of mud may be helpful, as caked mud on your horse could compromise the skin. If you are seeing high biting insect populations, implement best management practices based on fly species.
Make sure you’re checking the temperatures and not over-rugging as rain scald can also be caused by excessive sweating. Barrier creams should be avoided because they can be difficult to wash off properly and reduce the amount of oxygen reaching the skin, encouraging the Dermatophilus bacteria to multiply. If possible, bring your horse inside for a time to allow the skin to dry and protect from prolonged wetting of the horse’s coat. Sprays, such as diluted lemon juice or vinegar added to antiseptics like 5ml eucalyptus or thyme oil, and 4 cloves of garlic peeled and crushed are easily applied supports for rain rot. Add 5ml of Thuja to the spray for additional antifungal properties.
Spotting signs of infection
Wash the affected areas with either a chlorhexidine or povidone iodine solution and warm water. Use a soft cloth or brush to massage the lather through the coat as much as your horse will tolerate. This will clean the area of any contaminants, remove a lot of loose hair and scabs, and help to improve circulation. There’s quite a few preventive measures you can take, as well. This can include daily grooming, changing and cleaning blankets, providing a run-in shelter, sanitizing saddle pads, keeping up with mud in pastures, and proper nutrition.
However, horses that are over-rugged can become sweaty which makes the skin susceptible to infection, so make sure rugs are removed or reduced on mild days. Keep your horse dry and reduce exposure to known environmental factors during treatment. You may also want to keep horses with rain rot separated from others while treatment is occurring to prevent spread amongst horses.
Rain Rot Treatments for Horses – EquiSearch
Dan Richardson has been a practicing veterinarian for over 10 years. Dan is originally from rural western Nevada and attended the University of Idaho for undergraduate study and Oregon State University for Veterinary School. The Richardson Family enjoys camping and spending time on the water fishing, paddle boarding, or digging their feet in the sand somewhere warm.
This will usually be needed daily until the area has healed. If the saddle area is affected, the horse may be unable to be ridden until it’s successfully treated. Rain scald is a non-contagious skin condition (meaning it doesn’t spread from one horse to another or to people) that can be caused by the same bacteria asmud fever1. Rain rot and skin infections are one of the most common things I see in my incoming horses.
Home Remedies For Rain Rot
Congolensis is mostly dormant, but under wet conditions, this bacterium can cause an inflammatory infection resulting in lesions along your horse's skin. These lesions cause small patches of raised bumps which are scabs containing clusters of your horse's hair. Removal of these scabs results in bald patches along the affected area.
Horses with compromised immune systems are more at risk for rain rot. Multitudes of bacteria and other microbes that live on your horse’s skin, and most of them pose no direct threat to your horse’s health. However, when these bacteria and other microbes get underneath the surface, they can cause serious health issues like skin infection, commonly referred to as rain rot. All it took – was a bathing session, some coconut oil and a 3 day application of mud gel and his skin notably cleared up – and he was a lot less itchy! Within 7 days of the final treatment his coat shine is starting to return and he was certainly a lot happier in himself – and hair regrowth was coming through his bald patches. It is contagious through sharing rugs, brushes and saddle pads etc.
Infected horse is a best practice for rain rot prevention. Horse every 3-4 days until the rain rot has subsided as over bathing may make the condition worse. While rain rot is a pain to deal with, it is fixable, provided you are diligent and proactive about treating the infected areas. For the most part, rain rot is easily diagnosed, but if you are unsure, your Vet can perform a quick test with a small sample of the infected skin. Consider covering your horse if they are susceptible to rain scald, this is an extra barrier that will help keep your horse dry.
For horses that live out without a rug, it’s important to ensure the field has shelter from the elements to reduce the amount their skin and coat becomes wet. This could either be in the form of hedges and trees or manmade field shelters. Light coloured horses tend to be more susceptible which is thought to be due to their pink skin which is more delicate. Additionally, horses with poorly developed immune systems or underlying diseases such as cushing’s disease are more prone to getting rain scald. Initially areas start exuding a sticky secretion that matts the hair together into small clumps. This progresses to crusty scabs that often have tufts of hair attached to them, which can stand up and look like paint brush bristles.
In severe cases, lesions and scabs may become large and affect multiple layers of skin. When this occurs, the horse's use may be impacted until the infection clears. As a final tip, and possibly one of the most important, learn to try and spot the symptoms of mud fever and rain scald as early as possible. Spotting and treating the infection early will provide a lot more relief for your horses – and probably you as well! As with most things, a minor case is a lot easier to treat than a major one.
Long-standing cases have large areas of scabs that merge together into one large plaque of coarse hair. Once the skin has become damaged, it can be invaded with secondary bacteria. Affected animals can be quite uncomfortable, especially when the affected area is touched. Cushing’s disease, or Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction is a chronic, progressive condition caused by an imbalance in the hormones produced by the pituitary gland. The disease commonly affects horses and ponies over the age of 15 and due to rising life expectancy rates, it is becoming increasingly prevalent. Offer minerals, especially copper and sulfur, which are needed for the keratin to support hair growth.
Some of these practices include setting up traps, increasing farm sanitation, introducing parasitoid wasps, and spraying your horse with a pyrethroid-based insecticide. Here is NZ, there is a great product called Vet Direct mud gel – it contains strong antibacterial and anti-fungal active ingredients that are great at eliminating the infection once the scabs have been removed. In particular we recommend using it to treat larger skin patches across the horses body and face. As you can see in our photo’s below – Oscar here was the model patient. If you aren’t based in NZ – there will almost certainly be alternatives available, just ensure your treatment contains both antibacterial and anti-fungal properties as both may be present in the infection. Rain rot, also called rain scald or dermatophilosis, is a skin infection caused by a bacterium known as Dermatophilus congolensis.
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