sweet-itch

[Bronya]

She should be itching by now, right? Bf's pony is stabled this year, and is fly sprayed before dusk each day. No itching so far. Do I assume the stabling has helped?

[notpoodle]

i'd get a rug on her, anyway. stabling is ok, but in my opinion false ecomony as i am yet to find a fly-free horse stable :o horse stables have poo in them etc. and attract flies and your pony ends up being trapped with said flies in her stable ....

mine is itching like hell btw :( despite the boett, the supplement and whatnot ...

Jula
x

[connieD]

i agree with notpoodle. mine have always itched aven when on box rest, being in helps a bit but it still happens.

as ive always said, maybe its not sweetitch, maybe its an allergy or something as it just doesnt seem to find all the characteristics of sweetitch.

maybe keeping her in is keeping her away from a plant or something she is allergic to in the field?

[Bronya]

Any ideas how I could find out what it is, then, without spending a fortune?

She does have a summer plant allergy anyway - gets a white discharge in her nose every summer, all summer. Not much, but it's there, and it affects her breathing - she coughs it out every now and then when exercising. We found that the breathing mini horselyx helped loads last summer, and helped her to cope with exercise better too.

Her itching was horrendous last summer. It started in March, with her being so itchy under her belly where there was a little bit of her un-rugged, that she was biting herself and had loads of little scabs. She was scurfy too, and this was with a winter coat still. By the summer she was biting her belly lots, until she got a different rug, to the point where there was white hair when she changed coat. Her rug always had little snags in it from her itching herself on whatever she could find, and the Dermoline stuff helped, as did the D-itch. She was also itching her face too.

She has itched her mane and tail pretty much all her life. That was the extent of the damage when she lived in a field with trees on all sides. It was when she was moved to open, high ground that everything got so much worse.

What could she be allergic to? Any ideas?

[notpoodle]

sounds awfully familiar :o esp with the breathing problems. we use the horselyx lick in the winter and inhalers and global herbs airways plus in the summer ... doesn't help THAT much though :( vet said it may be an allergy but after much uhming and ahing, blood tests and lung scopes decided to diagnose it as RAO ... not terribly helpful :(

Julia
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[Ptaty70]

notpoodle.. sounds the same as mine. Haven't gone down the line as far as you yet as he was only diagnosed last year and was fine in autumn/winter. Was going to try the inhalers.. so this didn't help? I was thinking of doing it just before riding.

i must say he's a bit 'breathy' at the moment but not as full blown as last year when it got worse in July/August so it's all to come.

In the 9 years i have had him he has ALWAYS itched, but not to the point of taking hair off, so I see it as more of a relief for him (has nothing to itch on in the field so has a good 'go' in the stable, so I put up some rubber 'nipple' pads on the door and the side so he could rub without hurting himself).

[Bronya]

In case it helps anyone, when our pony's got worse, the farm did have lots of oil-seed rape growing in the fields. For that reason I have avoided Nedzbed bedding!

[notpoodle]

the inhalers were the only thing that worked last year, so she went on them straight awy this year ...

she was so bad last year that the vet had to give her two emergency steroid injections, ventipulmin and antibiotics as well (as she also had an infection in her lungs ...). all this made for a pretty horrid summer. added to this, she rubbed herself raw, took off most of her tail, trashed the Boett and quite a bit of her hair is now growing back white because it was so bad :(

JUlia
x

[Ptaty70]

right, inhalers it still is.. plan 1 is still on track! (sorry, just got worried when you said the inhalers didn't have much impact, but hadn't realised that your pony sounds like she really had a rough time of it last year)

poor thing, she really had a terrible time. I hope for both your sakes it's better this year..

Bronya, really sorry, I can't help but will be interested to hear if others have had difficulties and how they deal with them.

[connieD]

one of mine (sure you can guess who:D ) is allergic to oil seed rape. she used to get lumps on her skin and itch and scratch if i rode her near to fields with it in. once she was breathing so badly after i rode her through a field of it (without knowing, it was not flowering!) she had anafalactic (sp.)shock or the horse equivilant and had to have loads of injections.

it may be that moving yards you are further away from any fields with it in or maybe no longer down wind of it etc.

anti histamines have limited effect on horses so if it is an allergy the vet is likely to prescribe steriods but then you have the laminitus problem.

only proper way to diagnose is expensive test, or the cheaper way of trial and error:o

[Bronya]

I think I might make enquiries about skin testing for allergies (rather than the more expensive blood testing). I know when I was a child, they did skin tests - you lightly scratch the skin, then rub in a serum that contains a tiny amount of a specific potential allergen. If you get a slightly raised patch there, you're allergic to it. If you don't, you aren't. The last time I was tested for something, it was a little round thing with tiny needles. Didn't even feel it.