my horse is experiencing some rain rot and wondering what thoughts are on doing a body clip in her … she usually gets body clipped for the winter because she is prone to skin problems like rain rot (she has cushings, hence dealing with the suppressed immune system)… i know the theory is to remove the scabs, and the hair is just kind of coming off right now leaving bald patches underneath, no scabs with pus at the moment… any one ever body clipped to deal with this?
I do. I find most rain rot clears up faster if I can expose it to air. Even if the horse will still be rugged after I clip, I can get a treatment product onto the scabs if the hair is clipped.
If the horse is very scabby, you may not be able to clip the most impacted areas, but even shortening the hair seems to help.
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I definitely have, it made treatment 10x easier! Especially if you are dealing with thick Cushings hair.
Is she on a really good, balanced vitamin/mineral?
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thank you!
that’s the problem, she is SO picky with her supplements … she is on a complete feed (true choice pelleted feet and a ration balancer from purina) supplements with free choice hay and alfalfa 2x a day but for supplements only gets salt as well as MSM… obviously also her prascend and equioxx… she was on some other feed through supplements (prescription skin and allergy that worked literal wonders, etc) but stopped eating her feed completely or leaving a lot of it, so we had to cut back to just the essential stuff, which works best for her
Yes, one of mine got rain rot the first year he was with me and I clipped him. He was a pony with a bear-like winter coat and treating it was nearly impossible with all that fur. Vitamin E helped his skin condition too.
Just a thought that you may already have dealt with, but have you considered that she may be reacting poorly with something in her grain to cause the recurring rain rot? Like soy, or any of the grain by-products? Do you know the sugar/starch content for her current diet? Has she ever been on any different feed with different results?
I ask because, in my experience, rain rot is almost always resolved when feed is addressed to suit the horse’s needs! With Cushing’s being a factor, I would be immediately inclined to wonder about her diet being a primary factor here.
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