I have had problems with a very itchy horse for the last few years. My
older appaloosa, rubs not only his tail but his full body by walking up to
the fence and leaning on it and moving back and forth. Luckily I have
brand new fence. He does the majority of the rubbing on one of the
cross members. He gets so bad that he will rub for 15 minutes or more and
raise large welts on his hide. The barb wire on the top will scratch him.
To correct this problem, I wash him in a tar based shampoo, and put him on
Antihistimes. I also put him on prednisone for short "bursts" and then
leave him on the antihistamines. This seems to help when he is really
bad. Believe me these horses are miserable. My Arab had periods of
rubbing his mane, he may have a problem caused by Gnats known as sweet
itch. I usually but a moisturizer on the rubbed spots and will try the
Antihistimes on him too. He hasn't been so bad this year.
Something New I'm trying is with the ABC plus company. I talked
to Jim and he suggested that I try their enzyme product and then drop the
anti histamine. I am trying it now and have had him on it for a couple of
weeks and now am only giving Antihistimes 1 x per day. I will slowly taper
and see what happens. I use the ABC plus and am currently using their
Free choice stress pack. The horses love it so much I have trouble
keeping it in front of them.
The abc plus and the stress pack seems to have helped with Dandi's
respiration problem, I had bad P&R's at the last Natrc ride and To tell
ya the
truth, I had run out of everything several weeks before. I'll see what
happens next time,but I did refill my order.
Lucie Hess
Columbia, Missouri
Chief Black Arrow -retired Appy
Moonhill Dandi -current mount- 7/8 Arab