Another, but different(!) MF question

[shan]

What I wanted to know is, when is the infection actually gone - when the scabs go, or when the skin's healed, or when the hair starts coming back?

Sandy had a bout of MF and I sorted it, well it got better.. then I noticed small patches further up her legs which now cover most of both sides of her lower legs. It's improving but looks sore so I'll keep her in for a bit (if she'll stay in!).

I'm worried I trapped the baddies in with oil & made it flare up again. In fact I've read too much info and am worried about oiling at all when she has anything except perfect skin!

[Deleted]

I'm working on the basis that the infection is gone when the skin is no longer scabby and has returned to a nice pale non-angry pink.

I've got the same concern about oil so I've been using Mud Stop to treat the infection (works very very well) and now three of his legs are healthy and just have a few bald bits I've just got some keratex mud guard powder. Too early to say if it's working but the reason I chose it was because it helps dry the skin and prevent bacterial growth without sealing anything in or soaking the skin again.

[shan]

Thanks Michelle I just bought some Muddy Buddy Mud Kure Cream (How much??!!). I was using Hypocare & Keratex Powder.. thing is, Sandy tends to let me know what she needs, and after a few days she absolutely refused to have the powder on her, and she objects to pig oil now too, which she never used to. May sound half-arsed to some but I'm prepared to treat with what she accepts me doing - which at the moment is Hypocare or creams, not least because we both get stressed and it becomes dangerous when she's doing her best to get away and can't. Bless her she'd boot me to death if she didn't like me so much, lol!
Will put Mud Stop on my list too!

[Deleted]

Talin is getting fed up of the mud stop spray, I think just because it wets his legs and feels cold. The cream is a bit easier as you can warm it in your hands and leaves the hair dryer but he doesn't mind the keratex.

Utlimately for me I hope it's just a temporary fix anyway as we're moving back to our old yard at the weekend where the fields are much dryer and he won't be getting mud plastered up his legs regularly.

[poppyandbea]

i used sudo cream on beas in the end normally i use cows udder cream and i applied that with vasceline over the top when she went for the first time in weeks for a few hours but my fields a bog knee deep in mud in places, but the sudo cream also cleared the mud fever up to
how ever i also clippped the hair off her legs as made it easier to treat her and hibbi scrubbed too as ment her legs dried faster and the skin could breath when she was in to help it heal faster

[clara81]

I worry about that too so I only treat the actual patches i.e clean and apply cream as though it's any other wound, and don't touch the surrounding area. Don't know if that's right but it works for me. My pony with four whites has got a patch the size of a two pence on one pastern for the first time in 14 years. The other two are fine. Others on the yard hose their horses' legs every night when they come in but I can't see the logic in that at all. If I lift the hair on my ponies' legs the hair and skin underneath *looks* bone dry but I still wouldn't want to oil up for fear of trapping moisture.