Years ago we had a friend that had a horse in a sling after a mountain lion attack and the vet recommended peat moss as bedding. Might work for her while her sores heal. Myself I’d probably cake them in desitin or somesuch and do the major deep peat moss bedding. YMMV of course!
She does have a bit of Arab around her… sweet mare, glad you have her!
She was quite comfortable this morning with breakfast in bed. I believe her expectations will be high after last night.
I used that once when I was boarding on a private farm because the owner liked how it composted faster for his garden. It got into everything, though. You also have to dampen it because it has a fine dust. But it really doesn’t help because the dampness stays on the surface. It was really easy to shovel, but you lost whole sections from pee. I don’t think I can do that again, especially because my horse has asthma and we only use large shavings in the barn to reduce dust.
She looks worlds better already. I can’t handle the belly dots. High level of cute.
Bath pictures!
She’s really shiny in the first one. Not sure why. The second is after fly spray and goop on her bony spots. I think she looks better. She’s certainly more energetic. We had to remind her to stand while getting hosed off. She’s back in her stall tonight. She was pretty happy about it, too.
Compared to her first bath on 6/6 (oops, wrong one. Fixed it).
I’m so glad you’re doing the pictures, it’s amazing to see the progress with good care. Her eyes are so much softer. Good job!
Thanks!
Today was her last iodine bath. That stuff is harsh, but the vet was worried about ringworm. We dilute it and then shampoo her. Her skin is better overall, but the scrapes were having trouble healing fully with weekly iodine, plus spray on anti-fungal. She could’ve had rain rot as well. She still has a lot more hair coming in and she’s softer and lost the greasy feel (except where we have to put ointment on scrapes).
I’m not sure if the pictures show much gain. The weight tape on Sunday showed it and she feels good. This might be what the vet was referring to when she said she might get a little worse before she gets better on the doxycycline. Poop is normal, so that’s good.
Normal poop is cause for celebration in the horse world. So… yippee! 
I chuckled at her enjoying breakfast in bed. She might be thinking that she could become accustomed to that lifestyle.
The pictures definitely show her weight gain! She’s looking so good and so much happier!
Oh she’s filling out nicely. And her eyes are so soft and peaceful looking. It’s lovely to see her coming to rely on you. She’s so lucky! You got a good one and are helping her be even better.
Bless you both!
I sometimes have a hard time logging into this forum after I clear the cookies. I put up with grief just to hit the like key and to say Matilda’s progress is fantastic.
She looks to be a very trusting horse and seems to understand she is in safe care.
She looks so much better!! Can already see the weight gain!
Thanks, guys! It’s hard to see when you see her every day and pictures don’t always show what’s happening in real life. Just second guessing myself, lol.
Introductions are coming soon. I can’t wait. It’s hard to play musical chairs and we know darn well we aren’t doing a true quarantine because we don’t have that capability. No snotty noses and nothing to indicate anything contagious. Our mini donkey has vaccines issues, but he’s still current. Everyone is due for shots in August. Matilda will get hers soon. Our vet will be back next week and we’ll figure out when she gets her shots and pregnancy test.
Not so good update. Her skin condition is much worse this week. Her sores are becoming larger plaques and the spots along her mane and tail are now spreading fast with raw pink skin showing. She isn’t scratching them too much, except her tail. It’s like it kicked into high gear. It must not be the fungus that we thought we were fighting.
I’m thinking mange or scabies instead of ringworm. We’re on standby for the vet to come do a skin scraping today. Depending on the results, we’ll probably treat the other three equines, just in case. Our quarantine is not perfect (very few places can do it right). We may have switched a stall bucket. Matilda has her own brushes, but we haven’t been using gloves when we handle her, so we have to assume the others have been exposed if it’s something like scabies. From what I read, it doesn’t seem contagious to people. Thank goodness for that. We don’t have rashes or anything.
The young lady we bought Matilda from had a few other horses she was selling. One was a curly mare with almost no hair (although she was at least fat). What she had was in a few random patches. She told us it was because the mare was homozygous for curly genes. I’ve seen pictures of them with very little hair, so it seemed plausible. Now I’m wondering if the mare had a skin disease she passed on to poor, weak Matilda.
Here’s a picture of the curly mare and the pen Matilda was in….
The vet (not our regular vet, but good guy in the same clinic) came by and did punch biopsies to send off. She’s back in the round pen for isolation. We gave her pour on Ultraboss, which can help if it’s an eco parasite, and we have a new anti-fungal shampoo, just in case. The young lady dewormed her with ivermectin, which could have calmed down the scabies, and then our vet had us do Ultraboss that first week because she had so many fly bites on her. That could have calmed it down for two weeks. That would make sense because it flared up again this week because it only lasts for two weeks. Just thinking out loud here. We’ll see what the skin biopsy says.
Another vet call?
Close up of her rashes. The scabs come off easily in the weekly baths, without any scrubbing. We’re supposed to spot clean her bad spots with the new anti-fungal shampoo, if it’s a fungus.
Youch. That looks painful. And her debilitated condition isn’t helping her fight it off, either.
Incidentally, my pink-skinned mare has thickened, wrinkled skin in some spots where she had sunburned badly and scarred.
Has photodermatitis been considered? It’s unlikely, especially considering the curly mare, but it isn’t outside of the realm of possibility. Especially if she has major deficiencies. Maybe ask your vet if you should try putting a UV protectant fly sheet with neck cover on her?
That’s a good thought. The vet said he thought it was a mite of some kind, but we’ll see what the tests results are.
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