Short version. Moved 22 yr old cushings mare from retirement barn to my boarding place. she has skin issues, has itched out much of mane and tail. crusty underside. We have started her on allergy meds, cleaned her up with a medicated bath. Here is my question: I have two different products in my locker, and want input on whether either would help the mane and tail: The first is MTG - I hate the smell but if it would be beneficial…The other is Equiderma’s Skin Lotion. Thoughts? Experiences? (Hoping that I can make use of some old stuff before buying something else, lol
I would not use the MTG. I’d opt for the Equiderma over MTG.
I will say that I used Equiderma Lotion on a previous horse and it made his skin flake more. I prefer Leovet Tea Tree Lotion. Of course any horse can react or not react to anything, but I’d try the Equiderma first.
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MTG has never failed me but test in one spot first for a reaction.
Equiderma is probably the safer of the two to try, but MTG is the better product provided horse isn’t allergic or turned out directly in sunlight.
Thanks to both of you. I think I’ll try one on a part of her mane and one on her tail.
Another suggestion is to feed flax, copper, and zinc.
It should help! In the interim, good luck with the topicals - some of them are really effective 
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what’s her diet? Is she getting enough Omega 3?
I will always strongly recommend against MTG no matter how many people say they’ve never had a problem with it. It’s burned way too many horses, including some who have suddenly decided to have an issue after not having an issue
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EquiDerma hands down. Hate MTG. Smells gross. Burns horses. And if I recall you are in Florida. Sunshine and MTG are not a good mix.
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I use EquiDerma with great success. Have no love for MTG. I’d also look at diet and increase her Omega 3 (flax) and add copper and zinc.
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Thank you! Yes I’m Florida, and think I will stick with equiderma.
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Mtg is the only thing that really makes an impact with my extreme skin issue horse.
equiderma works well for my allergic horses but I also shampoo w equishield ck shampoo (per vet) and leave on 10 min before rinsing. it’s antibacterial and anti fungal.
I’ve never heard this before, what happens? Not in FL anymore, but used it on my mare for years there with no issue.
It burns the skin. Badly.
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Its oil based so it can burn them if in sunshine, same as with certain fly sprays.
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It’s way more oily than most oil based sprays. Couple that with sun exposure on already compromised skin. It’s a real pribekrn.
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TIL. Glad I never had that experience.
UPDATE: We are about 2 weeks or so on our skin improvement program. Put mare on allegy pills for a while. Gave her a thorough bath on arrival with medicated shampoo. Now its to chilly to bath. BUT have been working the Equiderma stuff into base of mane and tail as well as other crusty areas on belly. Skipped the MTG due to smell.
Happy to say that I’m seeing improvement - crusty parts loosening and going away, smooth skin showing up. Settled into shorter T/O time with no problem, No open/raw areas on belly - this had been a constant problem. SO I’m thinking we are on the right track and if I can get a day close to 80, she’ll be fully bathed again.
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I know you’ve already gotten an improvement from the previously mentioned advice (congrats!!), but for the sake of creating an archive of invaluable experiences and opinions, just wanted to toss in my 2 cents for the future reader:
Equiderma always. That’s all there. All of their products rock. Their daily defense dry shampoo is incredible. The shampoo and conditioner are iconic. Only thing I haven’t liked is their fly spray only because they did nothing for the Tennessee flys
I really strugggled with my late gelding’s skin (shout out to the sensitive princess and the pea skinned TBs out there!!!) at bay throughout my ownership of him, but mostly for the first 60% of my ownership of him.
I’d already supplemented his diet with poly copper, poly zinc (for the hoof benefits) and he got adequate flax in his grain. Then added omegas since that ended up being low. The quality of his coat realllyyy improved, however, the random fungal yuckies were still a frequent occurrence. Also, his skin was still frequently dry.
Vet came out to specifically “dig deeper” at an underlying cause into why - they’d already been out in the past but only prescribed the oral med once for a REALLY bad infection from a previous employee’s negligence.
It wasn’t autoimmune or anything which was awesome per their testing and observations. Vet left and suggested supplementing vitamin E because it looked “a touch” low but other than that, basically the advice i got was what I was already doing. The gross stuff wasn’t becoming reinfected after we got it under wraps - he just kept getting new ones often. Which was good from the vet’s perspective and annoying from mine.
Added vitamin e to his diet and the quality of his coat improved marginally but the quality of his SKIN greatly improved. I found the yuckies were healing up faster and with less damage than before. Again, still dealing with somewhat frequent gross stuff thought. Looking back I think the vitamin e helped with the severity too.
Outside of the topical and care related-physical things I was doing (happy to divulge into this if needed/wanted but this is already long) the supplement that I saw the most improvement in decreasing the FREQUENCY and SEVERITY was pure Lysine. After 2-3 weeks we already saw improvements in freq and sev but after 8 weeks is when it was really noticeable.
So to recap, the concoction that worked for him was:
(A good quality grain and continuous access to high quality hay)
Poly Copper (Uckele)
Poly Zinc (Uckele)
Vitamin E (tried a few but liked MVP’s Vitamin E 5,000 pellets)
Pure Lysine (vita-flex)
Also mentioned omegas but I ended up tapering him off of them at the end and didn’t notice any decrease in skin and coat health (or an increase of yuckies). So if I did it all again I’d probably skip as long as everything else worked.
Anyways! Hope this helps!!! Skin grossness is so frustrating!
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Update 2 months in: All crusties are gone - crest, tail, chest and belly. Her mane and tail had been seriously rubbed out, now have new mane hair growing in - about an inch or so, and short little stubbles on the area of her tail which was basically bald. THANKS to Equiderma!! In spite of her Cushings coat, she is very shiny in the sun. And she is also happy - bright eyed, likes the frequent attention, her new pasture mate, the barn activity and treats, lol. She is also in love with the little TB gelding next to her. There have been no changes to her senior feed diet, but definitely better quality hay. Her whole environment is cleaner - this barn picks pastures daily, stalls picked 2x per day in addition to morning clean. Better access to bathing, though its been pretty cold for central Fla.
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