It’s been an interesting few weeks with my guy. I got sick with a cold that just would not go away. Coincidentally Odie was not feeling well either.
Pulled him out of his paddock one day and his left hind was puffy around the pastern. Slipped in the mud, I thought. Nothing a little time off won’t fix, I thought.
Hand walk him for 20 minutes, all the while counting my blessings because I feel like crap and don’t want to ride anyway. The puffiness goes down and I go back to bed.
Few days later he’s still puffy. Hmmm. I look at him more closely. Some kind of a cut? Off to the wash rack to clean it up. Only there’s so much mud I have a hard time getting it off. It seems to be scabbed over already–should I pick it? I decide no.
Few more days, puffiness has been coming and going, and he’s now lame! Maybe he did something more serious than I originally thought in that mud? His hind feet are still completely caked. I really need to remove this stuff.
Back to the wash rack. Again, I can’t get it off. I let it soak for a while and then get after it with a stiff brush. Even that doesn’t work.
Finally I start breaking the mud balls on his pastern with my fingers. I am able to pick them off. But with the mud is a patch of hair and scabby skin. It’s coming off the other (non-puffy) hind leg too, and a little on one front pastern, the white one. Light bulb: Scratches!
Scratches appears on lower legs as patches of scurf beneath hair that looks matted or staring. Under the scurf the skin will be red, and oozing. It is also called mud fever, grease heel, or greasy heel.
Cracked skin in the pastern areas can be difficult to treat since the area is always flexing as the horse walks. The pain from the inflamed skin can cause the horse to appear lame. Left untreated the skin can become deeply cracked, and infected.
Not Odie's hoof, but a clear picture of what scratches can look like.
I can deal with this, right? Get online, Google it, find some treatment ideas.
Things I Tried That Did Not Work:
- antibiotic ointment
- diaper rash cream
- cayenne pepper
- honey
- iodine
Finally called the vet last night because the lameness was getting worse. I did not put 2+2 together with the scratches and the lameness. I thought I had the scratches on the run.
Turns out the scratches was outrunning me. My vet grew up in Southern California, where horses are in mud all the time, and get scratches all the time. Easy to treat, but in this case it got really bad on Odie’s left hind in particular.
Apparently a fungus causes the cracking. This opens the door for bacteria to move in and cause more problems. Odie now has an infection in his leg.
Bummer, but it also explains the lameness. So he’s on oral antibiotics twice a day for a week. More importantly for this post, my vet gave me a simple plan for getting rid of scratches that I want to share.
- Shave the affected area. “Sunlight is your friend,” said my vet. By removing hair you let in air and sunlight–fungal enemies.
- Wash the area with Nolvasan or Betadine Scrub (not the straight liquid iodine) and let it sit for a full 10 minutes.
- Rinse with water and dry with a clean towel. Moisture created the environment the fungus prefers (under all that mud), so dry the area well. You can repeat steps 2-3 every 3 days as needed.
- LIGHTLY apply anti-fungal cream once a day until it’s gone. You can get it at any drugstore. “Anything that ends with -zole is an antifungal,” said my vet. The key is to apply a thin layer, so your friends air and sunlight can still help you out. She used about a tsp. per hoof (I’m visualizing the amount in one measuring tsp. you use for baking, not a small spoon that you use to stir your coffee.)
Personally I have noticed fungus has a way of looking like it’s gone, then coming back. So I will probably continue with the anti-fungal cream for a while. I will let you know how it works.
At least I’ve been hand walking him everyday for 20-30 minutes, so he’s ready to go back to work as soon as the antibiotics do their thing, in about a week. But this whole odyssey has lasted about a month.
I hope this post helps someone avoid the same tortuous journey! My vet said to be on the lookout for scratches now whenever muddy conditions crop up. If you catch it early, all the better.
This is certainly a timely post for me. I went out to visit my horse tonight after not making it out for like two weeks and lo and behold she has scratches as well. Bummer. I immediately thought of your post though. Thank you for all the info, I will be putting it to use!
Glad that worked out! My horse is looking better already.
Just an update. I started using an antifungal called clotrimazole, but ended up switching to a generic version of Tinactin and had better results. I think there are many variations of fungus out there. So don’t be afraid to experiment. Just give a product a reasonable amount of time to take effect, but if you are not seeing any change, try something else.