I have had horses for over 40 years. originally from South Australia, I had never really experienced mud fever in our horses. We moved to the Ballarat region over 30 years ago and we had a blessed run of good health with our horses for more than 20 of those years.
Being cold wet and muddy, Ballarat is an ideal environment for mud fever and it arrived in some of our yearling Arabians about five years ago. What a curse of a condition. I hate it and have spent hundreds of hours trying to eliminate it from our horses. Some seem immune whilst others are more vulnerable.
There are some excellent online articles, and I must have read most of them. I will provide a list of a few at the end of this post. This is just about my experiences and I appreciate every case can be different. Some are mild and easily treated whilst others need veterinary care.
After a few years of treating mud fever I think my treatment has got better and more effective. The key point I would say is ‘go in early and go in hard’. Once it has spread from heals up legs, it becomes a nightmare to treat, and you will need veterinary help. We have had it get away and in these cases it has involved our vet shaving the affected area and a combination of antibiotics and prescription only cream.
I have spent hundreds of dollars on a prescription product called Dermapred and it has given us varied results. Slowing but rarely eliminating the entire infection. I may well have contributed to this lack of success as well, by inadequate cleaning and drying the infection site and removing scabs. I was shampooing every few days with a product called Malaseb and I don’t think this was enough, as it meant I was also applying cream onto a dirty leg (when I didn’t shampoo first). A chance encounter with a sales person in Ballarat Petbarn helped greatly. She told me she had previously worked for a horse vet and treated horses for mud fever daily. She suggested using Hossgloss shampoo (a quarter of the price) daily, scrubbing, de-scabbing then using dairy milk-fever treatment mixed with a little Zinc cream (to make it go further I think).
The milk fever cream is prescription only so does need to come from your vet. I am not game to say I have completely eliminated mud fever yet, but it is the first time in a few years I have felt on top of it. I am only treating one horse now, and he is 98% clear. Each day I shampoo his legs by swabbing them with hot water, then applying the shampoo to each effected region. I leave it on for about 5 minutes then rinse. Prior to rinsing I scrub with a ‘Tigers Tongue’ sponge which is a gentle but effective way to remove scabs. It is then essential for the legs to dry thoroughly before applying the cream.
Links
Our 5 secret tips for getting rid of mud fever and rain scald in horses