My go to for results without stress. Doesn’t bother the horse, smells good, spray every day and you should see improve in 3 days. 
And then figure out the source and resolve. Boost immunity, look at your diet, etc.
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I use ADM Gro- Strong. It was at my local farm store so I thought I would try it first before looking on line and it did the trick for us!
Okay. That’s interesting.
How long has your guy been on pergolide? Is it working to correct other symptoms? Has he been retested for dosage?
It took about 5 months for Prascend to fully address my old guy’s various issues, and months after that for him to return to his old self. It wasn’t an easy time for anyone. But every horse is different, each with its own cluster of issues.
I feel for you, OP.
The product Muck Itch is what many folks here in FL use. Unfortunately it seems to be backordered everywhere. Here are the ingredients: Ingredients: White Mineral Oil, Thymol, Eucalyptol, Methyl Salicylate, Menthol, Organic
Tea Tree Essential Oil, Organic Lavandin Essential Oil and 2% Chlorhexidine
Gluconate.
Much rain rot is fungal.
Try a ketoconazole shampoo and really work it into the area. I use a scrubber that is meant to have dish soap added. I apply the shampoo tot the area and then scrub with the scrubber. It works.
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In case it is rain rot, I’ll share what FINALLY worked for us - as close to daily shampooing as I could manage, using a chlorhexadine shampoo most days, and swapping in a benzoyl peroxide shampoo every few days. Suds up well and let set for 15 minutes. Rinse and dry as quickly as possible. It took a couple of weeks of doing this before I scaled back.
With a tough case, all of the usual remedies (Equiderma, No Thrush powder, tea tree oil, etc.) didn’t work. I’m dreading a possible return once the cold weather sets in and we are back in blankets.
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So I don’t think this is sap unfortunately. I had hoped. But my understanding is rain rot is an infection of the skin? Scabs on the skin? This is accumulation of dander (for lack of better word) causing his hair to form tufts. I try to pull the gunk out with my finger nails and I pull the tufts of hair out. His skin feels fine to me from what I see. Other than getting sensitive to all the grooming / scrubbing I’m doing to these areas. Is that how rain rot presents?
I’m in the camp of try increasing copper and zinc. My hony, who I’m sure is going to be a metabolic case at some point, would get rain rot frequently.
I moved him from a commercial diet on the recommendation from my vet to go soy free and switched to California Trace plus.
He’s been on this diet for years and hasn’t had a case of rain rot since. Bonus his color is gorgeous and his formerly shelly feet are fantastic.
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Rain rot is a general name for an infection of the skin that causes hair loss in scabby patches. Different bacteria/fungus can cause it. So it can present in different ways depending on what he is infected with and also other factors such as medical issues.
Usually rain rot is dry scabs that are painful to come off and usually bleed a bit underneath. But I have seen the ‘wet’ version too.
Any time the hair comes out in tufts it’s usually rain rot. Even if it’s not presenting classically.
I would suggest contacting the vet. They can give you a super strong medicated shampoo to combat it, and possibly antibiotics.
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Is it?
I was under the impression that it’s a specific bacterial infection: https://extension.psu.edu/rain-rot-in-horses
Is the word used differently now?
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Try a flea comb (like for cats) to remove the goop without pulling out his hair. Good luck trying to figure out what’s causing it!
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it was worth a shot!
Yes, little scabs with tufts of hair resembling a small pointy paint brush.
This doesn’t sound like rain rot. It sounds similar to cannon keratosis, which is an over-production of sebaceous “gunk” on the front of cannon bones, almost always the hinds. It’s greasy feeling and matted clumps of hair come off. I honestly don’t know if something similar happens on the body, I’m just saying it sounds more like that, than rain rot
Have you done any deep currying? Does he tolerate that at all? Does it seem to help?
It may be time to get your vet to culture it and see if he just needs a course of antibiotics to clear it up. And yes, it may be related to PPID and just weird skin funk
No, it’s actually caused by a specific (set of)things, usually bacterial, can have a fungal aspect.
Ringworm is an infection that causes hair loss, but is nothing at all like rain rot
I think this is caused from lack of currying. Which I’m embarrassed to admit. I’ve been currying the heck out of him the past 2 weeks. he’s a thin skinned chestnut so he hates me now. I went out of town for three days last week and that gave him a much needed break honestly. Greasy would be a good word for this. This is why I think medicated shampoo/cleaning may not help. But I don’t know how to extract all of this from the hair. I feel like that is step one. Then healing and better currying on my behalf. If I don’t make progress this weekend I’ll call the vet Monday. We should have one day this weekend that’s warm enough for me to bathe him. I’m going to get off all the equiderma that I’ve put on, and clean with betadine scrub, leaving that on for 10 mins. see where that gets me? I’m getting pretty anxious about lack of progress and cold temps arriving.
In general usage horse owners call any skin infection on the back rain rot, like we call the same symptoms on the lower legs scratches. And we usually hit them first with our preferred home remedies of antifungal or antibacterial soap/shampoo and topical. I havent dealt with it much first hand, but I did clean up a leg issue with Head and Shoulders and Desitin diaper rash.
If the case is particularly bad or tenacious you can get a vet to scrape and culture. Then you know what you are dealing with and can tailor treatment more effectively.
The details here, older horse with Cushings moved to a new barn last year, would have me checking his nutritional profile. It’s possible last barn met his vitamin mineral needs with its regular feed and this one doesn’t.
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I worded that somewhat poorly. What I mean is that there’s no specific bacteria or fungus that has been identified that causes it. So sometimes it presents slightly differently based on what it’s being caused by and other factors such as how strong the horses immune system is. For instance, one of my horses gets rain rot every fall. It’s in one patch, and gets itchy and scabs but there’s very minimal hair loss. Another gets it whenever we have a very wet summer. He gets the classic, whole body scabby bleeding grossness. Both cases are called rain rot and both were cultured, and both turned out to be different bacteria.
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Don’t beat yourself up on currying.
I have observed lots of horses on longterm pasture, never curried. Most are just fine in our rainy winters, but some get skin funk even in summer. My own mare hates being brushed so she basically gets dusted off for riding and hosed in the summer. One winter early on she got one funky lower leg that cleared up fast. She’s had a good VMS and flax for the past 11 years except when she’s been a good pasture, she has no coat funk of any kind and sheds rain. I think it’s basic health and nutrition not grooming, although regular grooming does let you see the problem early on.
We’ve got a new older Cushings pony at our barn. He is on medication and doing good. But he sprung up rain rot on his croup after a day or two in a rain sheet. They shaved the spot to treat it.
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What am I looking for in the nutritional profile. He’s getting 8lbs of Tribute Resolve per day. 2 lbs alfalfa pellets and grass hay. He always has grass hay in front of him. He gets some pasture, but it’s pretty sparse to be honest. Grass round bales in the pasture in winter.
Well, get the specs for the feed and the alfalfa pellets, and see what his overall vitamin mineral profile is at the amounts consumed.
