Hello. So we had a pretty severe winter for Florida and the horses spent a fair amount of time wearing their winter blankets and sheets. Now that it’s warming up and blankets are no longer necessary, I thought the blanket rub issue on my thin skinned-fair haired Appaloosa was over. Wrong! He had his hair rubbed off at withers probably the size of a palm on both sides (I tried numerous blankets, different sizes, different lining, nothing seemed to help but at least there was no broken skin, just rubbed bald!) so I was eagerly awaiting hair regrowth now that the area was no longer irritated or being rubbed. But the hair loss is worse! He turns out very early in the morning and late in evening in attempt to avoid the sun but the small exposures seems to have caused sunburn? I can’t put people sunscreen on him, even baby sunscreen causes a reaction. I’ve tried coconut oil, desitin, anything to help protect the area and keep it moist/encourage the area to heal. Any advice or similar experiences? Thank you.
What about straight up zinc oxide? Did he react to Desitin? because that’s a large % ZnO, which is an active ingredient in sun screen. I use it on my mare’s pink nose throughout the summer.
Zinc oxide, in the tubes from drug store, not the perfumed baby stuff, applied daily and removed each night. Dirt sticks to it. The, oh what does my pharmacist call it?, the binder in the zinc oxide tube is unperfumed vaseline and should not cause a reaction. I went thru all the sunscreens for adults and lotions for children and for horses when I bought Cloudy, Mr. Neck and Rump sunburned 50% white and 50% grey pinto. Learn from our experience in 2001.
I also keep him out of the sun in midday, 11am to 5pm, in summer even with his zinc oxide on. He sheds out to “bald” in summer so he’s 50% pink skinned and 50% light grey skinned.
Just buy up all the tubes each time your supply gets low.
No you cannot use a sheet of any type like people in the north and pacific north west can use. I bought all of those years ago. Too hot for Georgia.
Oh great thank you!
Zinc oxide also works if your horse gets chapped from weight gain and sweating on his rear end. Owning a warmblood taught me a lot.
He’s sensitive everywhere. We went through a terrifying two weeks last summer where his chest was literally molting-like a bug. Just the top layers of skin thankfully but the vet was perplexed and I was horrified. Turned out his peach fuzz coat (only his liver chestnut body, he has thick white blanket blaze and socks) couldn’t tolerate tritech flyspray, or fly sheets, or pretty much any article of tack that wasn’t wrapped in fleece or memory foam.
infact, I’m starting to see the girth rubs showing up again that I thought I mixed last summer. Any advice there?
He’s good looking and well collected in his picture. Nice horse you have.
I don’t know about skin supersensitive to rubs. I’d try the zinc oxide but also get everything fleece lined.
Cloudy doesn’t have allergies, thank God, even to biting sand gnats and tritech is my daily fly and gnat spray.
If I think of something any of my friends have used for rubs, I’ll post it.
You might want to ask your vet to run a test for allergies. Like doctors do for humans. My vet ran one for one of my aussies years ago, blood pulled, tests sent to same lab as human blood, and my aussie was allergic to many things. Fortunately after a year or so, she outgrew all of her allergies.
Try changing your horse’s feed and hay and see if there are any things in them that are making your horse super sensitive to tack.
Does your horse like to be groomed? Cloudy hates to be touched because of his thin skin. But saddles and bridles and all are fine. Keep everything that touches your horse clean.
Nice looking horse you have.
Let me think about the rubs. You might have a very thin skinned horse.
