tail rubbing .... help!

It’s itchy butt season. Lots of the horses at the barn are going to town rubbing their butts. I’ve tried pretty much everything except MTG (because it’s gross), and just when I think I’ve made horse more comfortable, his tail is even balder the next morning.

In the past, daily slathering of DIY Equiderma has helped a lot (aka baby oil gel + chlorhex ointment), slathered on tail bone and under tail around anus. Frequent rinsing off of sweat and wiping of any poop juice also helps. Not this time!

I’ve tried conditioners…Eqyss, HealthyHaircare, Vetrolin Shine, tea tree oil in any of those or in the baby oil mix. Tried more frequent shampooing of tail and also mane (mane has a lot of dandruff but he only rubs it out trying to reach through the fence, not due to itching) with mild shampoos such as Eqyss MicroTek or Vetrolin shampoos or Head n Shoulders. He wears fly protection. Still itchy butt!

I clean his sheath on about a weekly basis because this time of year it gets funky quick. No change.

He’s getting regular bodywork on his SI area too to support injections there.

I have some general anti-bacterial, anti-fungal wash that I was initially given for kitty ear crud that’s also advertised for use on horses, which I haven’t tried. I also haven’t done apple cider vinegar rinses yet this year.

Horse is up to date on de-worming (spring and fall, no history of being a high shedder or anything). He gets a good amount of flax in his diet. But he’s seriously going BALD. He doesn’t grow much in the mane and tail department anyway.

Mine often itch their tails and manes because of bug bites. I use uber fly spray, fly sheets/neck covers and slather their udders/sheaths and tails with swat or zephyr no fly ointment.

Then keep everything moisturized and make sure ark sure they are on a good biotin supplement to help fix what damage they might do…

He wears a fly sheet with a neck. I took the neck off this week, though, because it was causing even more mane damage. Tail rubbing still bad!

Pyranha Wipe N Spray is the only thing I’ve found that really helps him with the bugs, but the oiliness of it can cause its own skin crud. Santa Cruz Animal Health just sent me a free sample of their new “natural” fly spray, so I’m trying that on his roots and midline and legs…today was the first day, so we’ll see how that goes.

He gets biotin, copper, zinc and E…

When my horse did this and I ruled everything else out except bugs the only thing that kept the tiny bugs away that were making him do this was deep woods off! No other spray kept the midges, mosquitoes, gnats or whatever little bug it was at bay.

My vet’s cure for this was Ivermectin, in the rectum. It worked like magic to eradicate some pernicious worm that is not particularly affected by oral dosing.

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Weekly? Both mares and geldings can have very itchy yeast overgrowth in their smegma that causes them to itch their tails. Both mares and geldings can have yeast growing all the way between their hind legs where they sweat. But weekly cleaning is a lot! If his problem is this bad where he needs weekly cleaning, then the smegma should probably be cultured to determine if he has bacteria or yeast overgrowth. Too much cleaning can disrupt the healthy flora balance, or systemic problem can contribute.

Even if you weren’t washing him weekly, he’d been dewormed, and he was itching his tail out I’d look at the yeast in the smegma.

Other tail itching causes: pinworms or bacterial infection that developed on the skin of the tail already rubbed off for other reasons.

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That’s pinworms. I’ve done that treatment, and it worked reasonably well.

In the meantime… I really thought we’d dodged some of the allergies by moving to a new barn, but a few hot days and I arrived at the barn today to find that the mare had rubbed her tail pretty badly since Sunday, and has some big welts from insect bites. Sigh.

Cavalor Sw-Itch has been my go-to for tail rubbing. It’s very hard to find, and oily and kind of gross, but it has stopped her from rubbing as much in the past.

I may just try DEET, though.

I just pick out the gunky globs. I don’t use cleaners but will spray with the hose in that area when getting sweat off of him generally. I will occasionally use KY, but not nearly that frequently (like, only for the couple times a year cleaning). But he gets a lot of sweaty smegma globs up there about every week and gets a little smelly, and he seems to really enjoy me getting them out, so I imagine it’s itchy. He takes a lot of lay down naps, so he probably gets more dirt in that area than average (sometimes there’s sawdust stuck). Other times of the year, he doesn’t get gunky as frequently, but he has gunkier junk than the average gelding.

I’ve asked my vet about pinworms in the past for other periods of itching, and he thought it was highly unlikely.

It shouldn’t be itchy or smellier than normal. Just like athletes foot or jock itch, yeast or bacterial overgrowth thrives in sweaty warm areas.

My mare does this every year…I got mad one year and poured Absorbine on her tail…and voila! No more itch! :slight_smile:

Hmm…I dunno…the smell is what I’d call normal gelding smell just a bit more noticeable? He is itchy pretty much everywhere all the time, all seasons and would probably love it if I spent all of my time giving him scratches. I thought the buildup was making him itchy enough in that particular area to rub his tail this much. Is it common to use jock itch type things on horses?

Straight?

Yes. But only on her tailbone…don’t go near the sensitive area! :slight_smile:

Soooooo…Blush does this. Nothing stops it. It started when her neck stuff came up, stopped when we had a good result with the injections and came back when the injections no longer worked. My best guess is she has some neuropathy that gets particularly irritating when the bugs are landing.

Keeping her VERY clean helps, I think because the hair slides instead of breaks, and because there’s less to attract the bugs. And a fly sheet with a tail cover helps, probably just because the hair breaks less. Nothing else does anything (and I have certainly run the gammut of “fixes”!)

So, sorry to say–I think this is an offshoot of the neck stuff, and I don’t think there’s a whole lot that can be done about it.

In general, the first line of attack here is fly spray. Absorbine Ultrashield applied starting at the base of the tail, working upward thought the tail hairs. Then a spray overall on the body, a sponge for face and ears. This done daily. Great BM here takes over when owners can’t come.

Oh, I remember you saying that before @Simkie. I forgot about that because I was seeing so many other horses rubbing their butts at the barn that I thought this time it was environmental. It definitely gets worse seasonally. But his overall itchiness and sensitivity issues could very well be related to all his spine issues. Although, interestingly, he’s tolerating a soft brush right now really well for him (usually HATES it). And the recent SI injections have stopped some of his other weirdness.

He rubs mostly at night, and I take his fly sheet off when he comes into his stall for the night because it’s just too hot, and it also gives him shoulder rubs that I want him to have a break from wearing clothes. So, no tail flap to cover when he wants to rub.

I was noticing that some nice slippery, clean hair did seem to stay better looking slightly longer, hence all the tail and mane washing, but it’s gotten pretty bald since his last shampoo on Friday of last week.

The vets want to repeat SI injections in 3 months and then do his neck again at that time (would be a year since last done), and I can try to remember this then, since we will probably have a bit of bug season left.

In the meantime, from a medical perspective, he’s currently on a whopping dose of Robaxin (15g BID) to see if we can get him over his last behavioral hump under saddle. That’s been doing nothing for anything, and since it’s a CNS depressant, you’d think at the least it could help this rubbing if it’s a neck thing. He has been on it since last Thursday evening when he had a re-check from the vet. Vet did comment at that time on his tail looking bad. Anyway, just waiting on her to confirm, but I think we are going to stop the Robaxin and probably try him back on Prozac next week because he’s got these mental/anxiety blocks about initially going forward, despite all signs pointing to him feeling pretty darn good right now. It could be a case of being a teenager, but if so, he’s got to be the brattiest one I’ve had, and I’ve had some real brats! :lol:

I have had excellent luck with Sw-Itch from Farm Vet. And no greasy residue the next day, but I have found you have to apply it pretty much every day. Or ask your vet for a steroid spray. That works equally as well. And yes, keeping things clean helps, but once they start…it’s hard to get them to stop without intervention.

Try a tar based shampoo. Used to be Equi-tar which is no longer available. I have been using the dog tar based shampoo Chewy.com sells. Does the trick (treats seborrhea, essentially). Twice a week for a few weeks than weekly til the itchy butt season is over, here in Octoberish. Make sure you leave it on 10minutes or so and rinse well.

I found that I had to wash Blush’s tail about every other day to keep her from rubbing bald spots. It really took a whole lot of work!

Curious to see what others say. My gelding is currently on stall rest for a suspensory injury, and the tail rubbing has gotten out of control. Sheath cleaned, Pyranha fly spray applied liberally, stall cleaned three times a day, and no luck. He’s a low shedder and was dewormed with Ivermectin in April. I’m also washing his tail with Malaseb every few days, which seems to help for a day or two before he’s back to the rubbing.

He luxated his first coccygeal vertebrae in a freak pasture accident in December, so I’m wondering if he’s starting to regain some nerve function there. Regardless, tailbone baldness is not a good look for him! I may have to resort to keeping his fly sheet on in his stall.