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This is a really interesting topic, Angie. I've been wondering about scratches for years because our horses live on sand, work in sand, and I've never seen a case in 20 years of riding here. I did slide down some sand dunes in Death Valley when I was about 12 and almost died from the itching that the chemicals in the sand caused...I suspect that is a very special case.  We have all sorts of interesting dust in our desert, everything from pulverised adobe brick from pharoanic building works to white gypsum and limestone...those are alkaline, right? But no scratches. I'll bet it is some kind of pre-existing fungus or something in the kind of pattern that you mention...especially with the flare ups.

Maryanne

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 6:52 PM, rides2far@xxxxxxxx <rides2far@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

>>>>>>Do you suppose that your heat and humidity contribute to this condition?  Of
course it all seems to be connected to the continuous flexion of the pastern, but maybe a >>>fungus is more prevalent in humid conditions?

The problem with this theory is the fact that my horses *don't* get them and other farms get them every time, and we compete in the same conditions. It does not seem to be dependent on the venue like it is on the alkaline soil.

I happen to have darn near zero grass on my place. It's a chert hillside with some weeds. I feed hay year round. I kind of wonder if whatever is the source of it lives better on quality pasture.

Those who deal with it seam to deal with it every time, and when they get new horses in from different bloodlines, etc. they fall right into the pattern.

Angie
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