My old vets method:

- wash with regular Palmolive dish soap
- scrub off as many scabs as you can
- dry
- treat with Special Formula (mastitis medication)
- cover with Destin

This is the process I have been doing. It seems to work... then as soon as one spot clears, 4 more spots appear.... GRR

1 - wash with selsun shampoo or iodine shampoo
2 - let sit for 5 - 10 minutes
3 - rinse with warm water
4 - dry legs
5 - rub in cream - made of Desitin 40% zinc, Vagisil extra strength, Polysporin triple antibiotic
(the vagisil is for the anti-fungal, the polysporin for the anti-bacterial)
6 - Cover with Desitin


The cream works, the spots clear in less than a week, but I cannot seem to clear up for good. He is on 24/7 turnout, but he is still stocked up every day so I have to walk him for about 20-30 minutes to get the swelling out. He is not lame or off at all... just really swollen with wandering scabs.

He does not seem to be in any pain, and is very welcoming when I wash as it "scratches" the itch. I tried the mastitis cream once and the next day was the worst I've seen, so I stopped using that immediately. I have also tried MTG, but that made the scabs hard.

Any idea how I can get rid of this for good? He is not standing in mud or wet conditions... that is the other puzzling factor... He has never had before, and one day - after 3 days of straight rain - they appeared. The turnout has since dried up yet this persists....

Feed your horse kelp. I have used kelp for over 30 years and it is still the cheapest and the best supplement. Any horse that is one kelp will not have mud fever or thrush and it has many other benefits.

What exactly is mud fever? Is it a fungus? A bacterial condition? My new horse has tiny little scabs on one of his forelegs . They are so tiny, I can't pick them off. I was trying to curry them off (gently) and made a bit of headway, but they do seem to re-occur.

Hi, Barbara and Hoti47:

Fortunately I don't have to deal with fungal infections very often now, as I live in a dry climate, but when I lived in BC's Fraser Valley it was an ongoing battle for most barns.

I finally came up with a method which seems to work:

1. Scrub the area with hot water and Betadine (or similar iodine wash)
2. Let sit for 5 minutes
3. Towel dry aggressively, picking off softened scabs as you go
4. Clip cleaned and dried area, and keep it clipped out all year
5. Apply Wellhorse resin daily, or even twice daily to cleaned, dried, clipped area until all scabs are gone.

I have had one peculiar, and very dangerous experience with the scratches pathogen, in that rather than manifesting on the skin surface and creating the inflammation and scabs, it moved internally, and created enormous edema and internal toxicity.  That had to be treated with antifungals and antibiotics.

Barbara:  I think what you are seeing on the cannon bones is a fungus which grows very easily on some horses, especially if they wear dunbreathable boots/wraps for work.  I have to confess that I've forgotten the name of it, but I've had very good luck treating it by scrubbing the areas with a grooming mitt to loosen the little scabs, and then treating the whole area with a thin layer of Panalog.  Daily attention for about a week usually clears it up.  I now use only boots/wraps which are completely breathable, and launder them often, and that's stopped it from happening.