i realize there have been tons of questions and answers about how to treat mudfever - i just cannot find anything on when it is safe to stop the treatment.and yes,it would be obvious to say * when it is over * — but i THOUGHT i had got rid of all scabs,the legs looked and felt clean except for one or two very small spots …when they were gone,i found a couple more TINY spots ,wondering if i overlooked them before or were those new ones or just stubborn ones …let’s just say 98% is clear ( she had it halfway up to the knee ) the hair that came off is growing back and horse is fine.so can i just stop now ?
My experience was that you can stop treatment after you bury the horse. Hopefully YMMV
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On the upside, it wasn’t the scratches that did him in. I was advised to continue scratches treatment until there was 0 sign of scratches and all the hair was regrown. We never made it that far despite years of treatments.
My, still living, horse once had a pea tiny spot of scratches and that healed super quick.
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thank you !
I have had less scratches issues giving my horses eq stim 1-2x per year.
Answering you post, I would keep up treatment until those little spots heal
thank you ! will look that up,i suppose it is a supplement ?
It’s an injection that your vet can give IV. Stimulates the immune system. Can cause a fever.
My vet also recommend Eqstim for our chronic scratches and he now gets it monthly.
I’d also say treatment can stop when there are no lesions. If you have even small spots, those will keep coming back.
If you aren’t able to fully clear it up, I’d push for more diagnostics. Finally getting a biopsy got us the right medication to clear it up finally and with management (Eqstim + keeping fly boots on 24/7 and never clipping white legs both to protect from the sun) we haven’t had any reoccurence in a year and a half (knock on wood) after having it chronic for a year.
yikes ! you had to deal with this for a year ! i HOPE this won’t be the case here but one never knows.thank you for your advice 
for treatment I don’t stop until there’s decent hair growth back on the skin.
But then I look for prevention, which is almost always resolved by adding more copper and zinc, even assuming an already solid diet. If the diet is just forage, then add a ration balancer or a forage balancer as a starting point.
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@JB was actually JUST searching the web for a copper zinc ready to use product.she does get a ration balancer and ground flax added to her feed but still …also got a set of mud boots to use once all has healed up.just 3 tiny spots left and hair is nicely growing back .
can you recommend something ?
probably the most convenient ready to use is the 3:1 product from MadBarn. Uckele has powder and pellet, but they add some kelp which puts a lot of horses off. HorseTech has powder. Powders obviously mean you have to add water or something to make it all stick.
ok i saw the stuff from mad barn.my only question is : i have the horse just over 7 weeks now,she did stand in a muddy paddock before she got here for a few weeks.according to previous owner she never had any health issues,vet did a general check and gave 2 thumbs up. so i do not know at this point if this is simply caused by environmental circumstance and a one off.---- is it maybe to much-too early to add these supplements ?
You can certainly see if it returns in your environment. For the most part, the environment is only a catalyst, not the real cause. The moisture can trigger infection when the immune system isn’t preventing it.
It’s $30 for a year’s worth of the mad barn 3:1 stuff, so I just give it to both of my horses. The soil here is so iron-rich, they prob both need it.
gotcha !
$30 would only be a year if you’re feeding only a 3gm serving. The small bag is $30, with 167 6gm servings, which is 100mg cu and 300mg zn. That’s the lowest I’d supplement for something like this. I actually supplement about double this (Horsetech’s products). They also recommend 1.5 scoops, so 9gm and 150mg/450mg for an 1100lb+ horse
definitely not expensive - more thinking about if it is needed ,i hear one can over supplement …debating if i should wait until spring and then have vet do bloodwork if condition has not improved or come back …
For these minerals, it’s incredibly difficult to OD, as you’d need to feed upwards of 2500mg Cu for the 500kg horse, and odds are almost none that you’d get him to eat that LOL
I think it’s reasonable to see how she does in her new environment. IME, adding cu/zn to help address this tends to work fairly quickly, weeks to a few months, unlike when using them to affect coat changes where you have to wait util the next coat fully on the addition has come in
