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Does this look like rain rot?

4K views 10 replies 4 participants last post by  shaggy 
#1 ·
I was so shook up about Shaggy's leg i forgot to post this yesterday. I was grooming my other horse Blaze when i noticed this area on his back looked caked with dirt so i started picking at it to get the dirt of when the hair just started coming out. It did this most away down his back. I dont know if his coat is just shedding weird or if he has rain rot. I've dealt with rain rot before so I'm sure what all i need to do with it is.
 

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#3 ·
It looks like rain rot to me, too:-(

Keep the brushes cleaned and don't use them on other horses.

If you can, wipe the affected area daily with a 50-50 mix of original Listerine and water. Walmart's brand of Listerine works just as well.

Soak a paper towel and massage it down into his top line.

Try not to throw up if you see black moldy/dotty dandruff come up on the paper towel--------------ask me how I know that one:shock:

Annnnd wear rubber gloves, I can also tell how hard it is to wash that crap off your hands, unless you slather yourself with Dawn dish soap:-(

My Arab is really prone to rainrot, anytime of the year. If I massage a wet paper towel into his top line and come up with black (literally black) little dirt specs, he's dealing with rain rot and I start the Listerine/water treatment. I do that every day until the paper towel test show plain old brown dirt or nothing at all:-|

Hope this helps.
 
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#4 · (Edited)
It does look like typical rain rot.

I just up the vitamin A which is the cause of rain rot (being deficient) by giving a dose of cattle A and D injectable over some feed. There are actual skin fungus's that ARE contagious however so do be aware.

When you treat with the injectable A orally as i said, the rain rot is gone in a week or so and doesnt come back if you keep the A levels up in the horse. I even got rid of a bad case of scratches using Vit A and nothing else. I dose the horses once a month with 5 CC orally to keep them up during hay season. Usually November to March or so. When the green grass comes in you can stop till its hay time again. Its the fastest way and addresses the underlying problem causing the horse to be susceptible to the things that cause rain rot. The bad coat just currys away in a week or so and new hair will be poking through.

The things that cause rain rot are in the dirt and everywhere on the horses skin all the time. The reason they become a problem and start causing infection is the horses skin is weak and unhealthy from the lack of beta carotene, or vit A, in the diet. Hay has none and the horse stores it in his liver. They seem to all run out just after the new year ( or sooner if they have hay only diets most of the year and it suddenly gets really wet out. The wetness allows the skin to become soft and a poor barrier to the bacteria and things int he soil if it doesnt have good nutrition backing it up. A is vital to healthy skin) and start developing rain rot if they are not given adequate Vit A. It isnt contagious at all but can appear to be because usually horses are kept in the same conditions and similar diets and all become deficient in A around the same times. It might cause one to think it was a contagious thing because of the conditions it shows up in.

Havent had rain rot in 4 or 5 years now since I started the A regimen and my horses are still out 24-7 as always. Its the only thing that changed. Its as close to magic as you can get in a cure for rain rot. My horses are all slick and shiny even now and i swear, its the Extra A that makes the coats soft and slick and the skin healthy and no dandruff like I used to have.
 
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