A friends horses. Patchy hair, flaky stuff underneath. I haven't seen anything actually crawling around but...?
Treatment?
By the way, it is NOT bathing season here yet. Would you wait to treat, because, at this point saddle pads & tack cannot be hosed off without freezing. Or dust the horses now, dose with Ivermec and bathe when they can be bathed? I have no experience with lice in horses (goats, yes) so...
No, looks like lice to me. This is what our foster filly looks like right now, but I've seen a lice or two on her. I would dust and double dose her with Ivermectrin, maybe give her some extra Vitamin A (I hesitate to tell you how much though) and bathe as soon as it warms up, even if you need to blow dry her later
Have you checked her forelock, ears, under her mane, and at the base of her tail? Thats where they like to hang out. Round, greyish white 'dandruffs' will most likely be eggs, as well.
I'm using Y-Tex Python Livestock dust because its all my tack/feed store carries that can be used on horses, and it seems to be working. Inexpensive too. I've also used a very fine toothed comb to comb the eggs out once I've killed them with the dust. I usually wait a day or two before doing that though.
Put a black towel/t-shirt on their back for 5 mins when standing in the sun, you'll see them on the shirt when you take it off.
Need to know if they are chewing or biting lice, chewing would cause the white dander.
Chewing lice are nasty yellow/white things with orange heads.
Fly spray with pymitherin (sp) sprayed all over every other day and brushed in, focused on the withers/back/rump for three weeks, will take care of them. She can also buy it in concentrated form, mix with water and spray, follow the directions closely and spot test first.
For the biting ones worm with ivermectrin and do the same spray thing. Haven't had those though.
Spray tack/brushes/etc with windex. The ammonia will kill them quickly and it evaporates so no lasting residue.
Search out Mod Cherie's posts, she suggests dosing with vitamin A, I'd do that too.
She has the dosage on a recent thread...
You can give Vitamin A orally and then put them on a supplement like Farnam's Mare Plus with a high level of Vitamin A. It will clear them right up -- as will green grass.
If they are rubbing and itching and you want to kill them more quickly, just get some 5% Sevin Dust at a garden Supply place. Put some in an old sock, tie a knot in it and pat them all over with it. It light;y dusts them. You can do it once a week (works for ticks too -- and on dogs). Pat them particularly good on the neck and top-line. Get a bunch in the base of their mane.
The Vitamin A also gets rid of rain rot. A horse will not give rain rot or lice to a healthy horse with adequate levels of Vitamin A.
Sevin Dust is very acceptable for dusting horses. I have had Vet recommend it for more than 40 years. Since we pay a lot of attention to Vitamin A levels in the winter and spring it is never a problem any more unless it is in a new horse coming in.
Yep my horses skin never looks like that anymore after starting the A supplementation Cherie recommends. They are dirty sure and out 24 7 in the winter, but no white clumpy scurf and dandruff and hair coming out clumpy. No more rain rot and never any lice.
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